Dada Data

Contemporary Art Practice in the Era of Post-Truth Politics

Sarah Hegenbart, Mara-Johanna Kölmel, Sarah Hegenbart, Mara-Johanna Kölmel

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9781350227613
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350227637
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art & Politics

What is the relevance of Dada and its artistic strategies in our current moment, one marked by post-truth politics, information floods and big data? How can contemporary art highlight the neglected nuances of cultural representation in the present day? While it may feel like we are living in a period of anomaly with the rise of the alt-right, this book shows how the Dada movement's artistic response to the aggressive nationalism and fascism of its time offers a fruitful analogy to our contemporary era.

Dada's counter-cultural strategies, such as the distortion of reality and attacks on elites and rationality, have long been endorsed by artistic avantgardes and subcultures. Dada Data details how modern-day movements have appropriated such tactics in their ways of addressing the public both on- and offline. Bringing together contributions from interdisciplinary scholars, curators and artists working in global contexts that explore an array of artistic modes of persuasion and resistance, the book demonstrates how contemporary art can bring out neglected nuances of our post-truth moment. In linking the Dada movement's counter-cultural activities to modern phenomena such as post-internet art, information floods and big data mining, the book collates original propaganda with diverse artwork from such figures as Hannah Höch, Paula Rego, Tschabalala Self, Sheida Soleimani and South African artists donna Kukama and Kemang Wa Lehulere. In doing so, Dada Data brings together a rich scrapbook of Dada resources and perspectives that are highly relevant to present-day political concerns.

With artistic contributions by IOCOSE, donna Kukama, Kemang Wa Lehulere and Montage Mädels.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Note on Cover Design
• Illustrations
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART ONE From Dada to Data
• 1 Dadadatadada: From Dada to Data and Back Again
• 2 Clouds, Critique & Contradiction: Programming Dissent in Dada and Data Art
• 3 The Legacy of the Berlin Dada Media Hoaxes in Contemporary Parafictive Acts
• Visual Essay by montage mädels
• PART TWO Global Dada
• 4 Sheida Soleimani, Cyborg: Photomontage in an Expanding Network
• 5 Black Dada Data: Collage as a Tool of Resistance against White Supremacy Thinking in the Digital Age
• 6 Dada’s African South
• 7 Paula Rego: A Dada Attitude against Authority in the Post-War Period
• Visual Essay by donna Kukama
• PART THREE Big Dada Data
• 8 Big Dada, Big Data: Schwitters’s Merzbau, the Private and the Trash
• 9 Identity, Ecology and the Arts in the Age of Big Data Mining
• 10 The Digital Revolution as Counter-Revolution
• Visual Essay by Kemang Wa Lehulere
• PART FOUR Dada x Alt-Right. Faking the Truth
• 11 Down the Rabbit Hole of the Alt-Right Complex: Artists Exploring Far-Right Online Culture
• 12 Fashwave: The Alt-Right’s Aestheticization of Politics and Violence
• 13 Post-Internet Art and the Alt-Right Visual Culture
• Visual Essay by IOCOSE
• PART FIVE Dada Data Tactics
• 14 Pixel Pirates: Theft as Strategy in the Art of Joan Ross and Soda Jerk
• 15 Precarious Data Aesthetics: An Exploration of Tactics, Tricksters and Idiocy in Data
• 16 The Multiple Narratives of Post-Truth Politics, Told Through Pictures
• Index
• Plates
• Copyright