[Music] why is a urinal considered a piece of art what does the word data represent what are data so arrays what does data is poetry sound like and can everything and anything become a work of art if we choose to declare it art in this week's story you'll find out the answers to these questions and learn more about the famous art movement called dataism if you'd like to see more art stories be sure to give us a like and tell us which topics you want to learn about next the art movement known as data was born in a cool little nightclub named cabaret voltaire in zurich switzerland in february 1916. the times when this amazing movement started its life were however not so amazing world war one was roaring and artists from different countries were running away from the terror fleeing from the ongoing war a group of artists moved to neutral switzerland and formed a new artistic group [Music] data was truly an international movement with artists coming from all over europe tristan sarah and marcel yonko came from romania emmy hennings and hugo ball from germany and jean harp from france dada united art is supposed to war we're looking to find new and alternative art practices through which they could communicate their feelings about the outside world they wanted to create a new universe that was completely different from the one happening around them data therefore became anti-everything anti-war anti-bourgeois anti-nationalist anti-establishment anti-museum anti-materialism data as andre berton said was a state of mind data truly wanted to bid farewell to established rules ideals and conventions they aim to destroy what was thought of as reasonable or as gene art phrased it dada is further senseless which does not mean nonsense data essences like nature data is for nature and against art since status were anti-meaning too they chose a peculiar name for their movement the word dada could represent a sound a baby would make or it could mean a rocking horse or it could mean yes yes in romanian either way data could mean everything and nothing so you might be wondering what was dataist's art like well the previously mentioned cabaret voltaire became a hotspot for all things data it was a place where performances poetry readings dances exhibitions and dadas war rays were held it was a center for all types of avant-garde artistic entertainment the cabaret lasted for six months only but its legacy is surely enormous many dara soirees or ta-da evenings consisted of dadaist poetry readings and that is poetry was certainly unconventional artist tristan sarah even wrote an instruction on how to create a data poem what you need to do is take a newspaper cut out the words put them in a bag shake the bag and then you take the cutouts one by one and there's your poem you could even try and make a database poem yourself a number of data as poems like the ones hugo ball wrote consisted of random nonsensical words that would just represent a seemingly meaningless sound [Music] you might have heard the famous talking head song called izimbra the lyrics were written by none other than the dataist hugo ball and the lyrics go like this [Music] sorry yes these are all random words that don't mean anything in particular fascinating right other dataists like gene arp also like to play with the idea of spontaneity and chance in art when creating some of his collages artwood dropped paper cutouts from the air and glue them exactly where they fell after the war ended darais started moving to other places from switzerland so data spread around too mainly in france germany and the usa after zurich data had its new centers in paris berlin and new york city the berlin group led by hannah hoch richard husselbeck and raul hausmann was the most openly political of all that es branches during the 1921st international data art fair in berlin even the ceiling was used for exhibiting a piece artists john hartfield and rudolph schlichtler created a life-sized doll of a soldier with a pig's head made out of paper mache and aimed it the prussian archangel the berlin data group is also famous for coming up with a new art form known as photo montage photo montages represented a new vision of collage where media images from newspapers and magazines were cut out to create a work of art with a political message photo montages showed the media images used in the weimar republic but thatis used them in subversive and even feminist ways especially in the case of hana hoch who created many pieces reflecting the idea of what the new modern woman should be like now let's move on to the american branch of data the new york data is connected to the very famous marcel duchamp duchamp created one of the best known deadest pieces and probably one of the most famous art pieces in the history of art the fountain the fountain consists of a signed piece of a regular white porcelain urinal seen in restrooms all over the world so you might be wondering why is this considered art the answer is actually quite simple because the artist chose to make it an artwork duchamp's main goal was to show that the artist had the intellectual power to choose what object becomes art and change its context what's important here is the artistic idea not the object itself and this notion became a big game changer in the history of modern art so the shawn's philosophy of art was of enormous importance for post-war art movements like conceptual art performance art and post-modern art and his idea basically is what we choose to see as art can be art it doesn't mean that it's good or bad it's just art duchamp decided to call his chosen mass-produced objects made into artworks as ready-mades a bicycle wheel a shovel a bottle rack you name it duchamp made it into an artwork and dataism made all of that possible data slowly dissolved during the early 20s with artists going their own ways and moving on to new art movements like surrealism for which data laid the foundation for but if you're wondering if that as artworks are still relevant today the answer is absolutely yes without dadaism we wouldn't have marina as performance art or any conceptual art piece mauricio catalan's infamous banana won't it ever be considered art without that ism and banksy's pieces probably wouldn't have been sold in the art market so dadaism's legacy is huge and ever-present both in the history of 20th century art and the contemporary art world [Music] what did you find the most curious about dadaism would you like to learn more about the history of other art movements share your opinion in the comments if you'd like to see more stories like this one don't forget to hit the subscribe button and find us on instagram for your daily dose of culture from curious muse [Music] [Music] you