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Title: Dada Manifesto Author: Hugo Ball Date: Read at the first public by Dada soiree, Zurich, July 14, 1916. Language: en Topics: Dada, anti-art, manifesto Source: Retrieved from http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dada_Manifesto_(1916,_Hugo_Ball)
Dada is a new tendency in art. One can tell this from the fact that
until now nobody knew anything about it, and tomorrow everyone in Zurich
will be talking about it. Dada comes from the dictionary. It is terribly
simple. In French it means “hobby horse”. In German it means “good-bye”,
“Get off my back”, “Be seeing you sometime”. In Romanian: “Yes, indeed,
you are right, that’s it. But of course, yes, definitely, right”. And so
forth.
An International word. Just a word, and the word a movement. Very easy
to understand. Quite terribly simple. To make of it an artistic tendency
must mean that one is anticipating complications. Dada psychology, dada
Germany cum indigestion and fog paroxysm, dada literature, dada
bourgeoisie, and yourselves, honoured poets, who are always writing with
words but never writing the word itself, who are always writing around
the actual point. Dada world war without end, dada revolution without
beginning, dada, you friends and also-poets, esteemed sirs,
manufacturers, and evangelists. Dada Tzara, dada Huelsenbeck, dada
m’dada, dada m’dada dada mhm, dada dera dada, dada Hue, dada Tza.
How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. How does one become
famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety.
Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How can one get rid
of everything that smacks of journalism, worms, everything nice and
right, blinkered, moralistic, europeanised, enervated? By saying dada.
Dada is the world soul, dada is the pawnshop. Dada is the world’s best
lily-milk soap. Dada Mr Rubiner, dada Mr Korrodi. Dada Mr Anastasius
Lilienstein. In plain language: the hospitality of the Swiss is
something to be profoundly appreciated. And in questions of aesthetics
the key is quality.
I shall be reading poems that are meant to dispense with conventional
language, no less, and to have done with it. Dada Johann Fuchsgang
Goethe. Dada Stendhal. Dada Dalai Lama, Buddha, Bible, and Nietzsche.
Dada m’dada. Dada mhm dada da. It’s a question of connections, and of
loosening them up a bit to start with. I don’t want words that other
people have invented. All the words are other people’s inventions. I
want my own stuff, my own rhythm, and vowels and consonants too,
matching the rhythm and all my own. If this pulsation is seven yards
long, I want words for it that are seven yards long. Mr Schulz’s words
are only two and a half centimetres long.
It will serve to show how articulated language comes into being. I let
the vowels fool around. I let the vowels quite simply occur, as a cat
meows ... Words emerge, shoulders of words, legs, arms, hands of words.
Au, oi, uh. One shouldn’t let too many words out. A line of poetry is a
chance to get rid of all the filth that clings to this accursed
language, as if put there by stockbrokers’ hands, hands worn smooth by
coins. I want the word where it ends and begins. Dada is the heart of
words.
Each thing has its word, but the word has become a thing by itself. Why
shouldn’t I find it? Why can’t a tree be called Pluplusch, and
Pluplubasch when it has been raining? The word, the word, the word
outside your domain, your stuffiness, this laughable impotence, your
stupendous smugness, outside all the parrotry of your self-evident
limitedness. The word, gentlemen, is a public concern of the first
importance.