                                 Art as Anarchy
                                 --------------

          With  Dada  modern poetic feeling comes to a head. As I have
          already said rather jokingly, Dada consists of putting  down
          in  writing things that cannot stand on their own feet. Dada
          sets up a powerful negative logic.   It  radically  reverses
          the  direction  of  intelligence. Dada has nothing in common
          with anything you may think about  it,  as  Dada  cannot  be
          thought.  Don't shrug it off. The very power of its negation
          gives  the  Dada  scandal  a  most   far-reaching   meaning.
          Apparently  it  is  a  movement  created by universal minds.
          Today Pic de la Mirandole would probably be  Dada.  Dada  is
          not  a phenomenon. It answers the philosophical requirements
          of the age. It endeavours to  ignore  objective  reality  in
          order  to  plunge  into  the  ultra-realistic  depths of the
          unconscious. However negative the Dada movement may  appear,
          it  is  certainly born of transcendent investigations of the
          human mind.

          We have only to remember the mathematician  Henri  Poincare,
          whose  renowned theory of convenience puzzled the scientific
          world. According to Henri  Poincare,  what  appears  to  the
          human  mind  to  be  most  essentially  true is what is most
          eminently expected.

          So mathematics and particularly Euclidian geometry can  have
          no meaning from an absolute point of view.

          Our  most  rigorously  accurate  conceptions  are in reality
          approximate. The shortest path from one point to another  is
          not, if we examine it closely, the straight line. Similarly,
          it  is  debatable whether the earth is a polyhedron rotating
          around the sun. Certainly it is the  most  convenient  thing
          imagined  by our senses, but we might possibly be motionless
          with objective reality moving around us. Evidently  we  tend
          to  choose  the  principle  that  best  corresponds with the
          delicate disposition of our organs, and all our thoughts are
          inevitably posed on our absurd conception of space.

          Similarly, Bergson's philosophy is bound to the criticism of
          the idea of time. Dada is a result of intuitive  philosophy.
          Bergson  represents  intelligence  as  strictly  adapted  to
          matter and, therefore, incapable of perceiving duration  and
          extension as pure quality.

          Only  intuition  is  likely  to  resolve  these paradoxes by
          ignoring intelligence and preferring instinct.

          As the brain cannot envisage  time  and  space  outside  the
          limits of matter, it is essential not to bow to the facts of
          the  tangible  world, but to rely on what Bergson calls "the
          immediate data of consciousness".  It  is  by  obeying  this
          deep-seated  impulse  that  we  can  escape  from  the crude
          concepts of human reason. Instead of  being  satisfied  with
          the  common  vision  of  the  world, we should proceed to an
          exploration of the unorganised world where everything is  in
          constant creation.

          According  to  Bergson's  philosophy,  the individual is the
          "variable  combination  of  the  past".  The  principle   of
          identity  must  give  way  to  the  "vital  impulse",  which
          reflects the increasing changing of the universe  and  which
          defies any attempt to canalise it.

          Briefly,  this is the philosophy compared with which so many
          previous systems lose most of their meaning.

          So Dada is simply this  effort  to  free  oneself  from  the
          relative  concepts  of  human  reason. It intends to abolish
          categories. That is why Dada wants to clear nothing up.  All
          it  wants  is occasional glimpses of the far-off glimmers of
          the absolute in the moving wreckage left by the  impulse  of
          life.

          More  recently still, Einstein's theories have aimed a final
          blow at the philosophy of facts.

          Einstein identifies the old entities of space and time in  a
          four  dimensional  conception  of the universe, i.e. time is
          only a fourth dimension of space.

          The study of luminous radiations suggested  to  him  unhoped
          for  results.    The  idea  of infinity, which has tormented
          human reason throughout all eternity,  for  the  first  time
          perhaps  seems to subside in the Einsteinian axiom: "Nothing
          is faster than light". The existence of an absolute speed is
          not beyond our understanding.

          Einstein's mathematical research  brings  to  science  bases
          that  are  less  approximate  than rectilinear geometry. The
          straight line does not exist.  Our error lies in taking  the
          geodesic line for one. Light is not propagated in a straight
          line.  We  must  endeavour  to  understand the universe as a
          curve "that is infinite, but not without limits".

          We are accustomed to envisaging only  restricted  space.  In
          the  same way, the time we can imagine is a local time. "The
          passing of time", said Einstein, "is not always  the  same".
          The speed of light is an absolute speed, i.e. independent of
          time,  and  Einstein's calculations lead to the result that,
          if man could reach the speed of light,  he  would  not  grow
          old.

          "We record", says Einstein again, "only variations". Reality
          is  hidden from us by the intervention of our senses. We can
          only judge movement with regard to a point that  we  suppose
          to be fixed. So all movement is relative.

          Einstein  concludes that there exists a field of gravitation
          where  nothing  is  propagated  in  the  void,   but   where
          everything  exists by reciprocal correspondences. He reduces
          all phenomena to electro-magnetic laws.

          The initial matter is identical; the bodies  vary  according
          to  the  situation  occupied  by  the  other  bodies  in the
          universe. Therefore all energy contains a  sum  of  inertia,
          and  the  ether, which for the modern philosopher represents
          an  imponderable milieu implying complete lack of motion, is
          for Einstein an abolished postulate.

          _But to come back to literature_-

          Dada undoubtedly counts among its forerunners Alfred  Jarry.
          The  creator of Pere Ubu shows a radical inadequation to the
          common adhesiveness.  He invented petaphysics,  the  science
          of  the  particular.  His object, he said, was "to study the
          laws that govern exceptions".

          In skirting the extreme  limits  of  fantasy,  Alfred  Jarry
          overtook the most lucid suggestions of abstract philosophy.
          In the novel, we would recall the first style of Andre Gide.
          The  characters  of the philosophical short stories, such as
          "Paludes", singularly prepare the bent  of  mind  proper  to
          Dada.

          In  "Paludes"  Andre  Gide represents life as a bog where we
          wear ourselves out in useless efforts without being  capable
          of a completely independent action.

          He  understands  the  vanity  of  all  construction  and, to
          sidetrack the surfeit of human semblances, he  escapes  into
          the absurd and decides to take from each of our actions only
          the obscure part of unconsciousness that it reveals to us.

          This  "absence  of a smile" so peculiar to Andre Gide, which
          however gives the worrying feeling of comedy, can  be  found
          in  Dada,  and  so  can the neutral atmosphere where thought
          evolves like a time-coloured bird.

          Finally in poetry, besides Mallarme, who was  the  first  to
          try  to  achieve the freedom of words, should we mention the
          rebel Rimbaud? And  nearer  to  us  the  work  of  Guillaume
          Appolinaire  who,  by  his  aspiration towards an intangible
          reality, is the instigator of the worst literary  impudence.
          All  forms  of  Dada  can  claim  kinship with Appollinaire,
          particularly phonetic Dada, whose bases  he  established  in
          the last poems of "Calligrammes", entitled "Victory".

           O mouths man is searching for a new language
           Where the grammarian of any language will have nothing to say
           And these old languages are so close to death
           That it is only out of habit and lack of daring
           That we still use them in poetry
           We want new sounds new sounds new sounds
           We want vowel-less consonants
           Consonants that fart loudly
               Imitate the sound of the humming top
           Let a continuous nasal sound crackle
           Click your tongue
           Use the champing sound of the ill-mannered eater
           The aspirated rasping of spitting would make a fine sound
           The different labial farts would trumpet out your speeches
           Get accustomed to belching at will
           Speak with your hands snap your fingers
           Tap your cheek as if it were a drum
           The word is sudden and it's a trembling God
           Advance and bear with me up I regret the hands
           of those who held them out and worshipped me together
           What an oasis of arms will welcome me tomorrow
           Do you know the joy of seeing new things.

          Moreover   the  dreadful  upheavals  of  recent  years  have
          sufficiently  enlightened  us  on  the  incalculable   folly
          engendered  by the minds of reasonable men. And if these men
          consider the attempt to  upset  the  meaning  of  things  is
          insanity,  Dada  can  answer  them: "Take hold of the end of
          your nose".

                                      +++

          Tristan Tzara must be quoted first  of  the  group  Dada,  a
          movement  that  has  taken  on an international aspect. Dada
          does not pursue any form of art. Dada  lays  claim  to  pure
          idiocy.  We must not forget that the Dadas stripped words of
          their usual character, and therefore they could not  have  a
          disparaging  meaning.  This means that Dada does not proceed
          along  the  usual  paths  of  reason.  Dada  is  a   radical
          disorientation  of  common  sense.  In  this  respect  Dadas
          display a veritable ingenuity in being idiots.

          They carefully avoid everything that  is  not  directly  the
          inverse  of  what  we  are  used  to  considering morally as
          values. Getting rid of every intellectual acquisition  so  s
          to  be  no  longer  one's  own dupe is the object pursued by
          Dada. To upset our manner of seeing, the  Dadas  modify  our
          method  of speaking. They want to detach the words that have
          agglutinated by custom and which  attract  each  other  like
          filings adhere to a magnet.

          Tristan   Tzara  offers  to  shake  all  the  words  of  the
          vocabulary in a hat and to pick them out at random. In  this
          process the words will have acquired an intrinsic value. New
          relation-ships  will have formed between them. You will have
          created the void and you will more easily find the  part  of
          the  unconscious  that  determines your actions. All writers
          who have wanted to re-create  a  vocabulary  for  themselves
          corresponding  to  their  intimate  vision of the world have
          mentally practised this operation.

          But Dada has a more general meaning. There is no field where
          its negative influence does not extend. In reality, Dada  is
          an absurd state of mind that nobody escapes. "The real Dadas
          are  against  Dada",  and in fact who is not capering on his
          dada - his  hobbyhorse  -  at  the  moment?    Francophilia,
          Germanophilia  are simply variations on Dada in the positive
          state. Dada has tried everything and nothing has  been  able
          to satisfy its need for diversity.

            Dada is a virgin germ
            Dada is against the high cost of living
            Dada
            Limited company for the exploitation of ideas
            Dada has 391 different attitudes and colours according to
            the sex of the
            president.
            It changes - affirms - says the opposite at the same time
            - of no importance - shouts - goes fishing.
            Dada is the chameleon of rapid and selfish change.
            Dada is against the future. Dada is dead. Dada is idiotic.
            Long live Dada. Dada is not a literary school yell.
                                                      _Tristan Tzara_

          Pure  idiocy  is  the universal panacea. Reasonable acts can
          procure only disadvantage. This is what allows Tristan Tzara
          to conclude: 'Subscribe to Dada  the  only  investment  that
          pays nothing.'

                                      +++

          Andre  Breton  is another theoretician of Dada. For him Dada
          corresponds to a need for liberty. He  revolts  against  any
          resignation.  Any  conviction  seemed to him to be a form of
          renouncement. By exploring the unconscious, he has  obtained
          the  most  disconcerting  findings.  He  says: "Innocence is
          tolerated  only  in  its  passive  form."  And,   in   fact,
          innocence,  which is a virtue in a virgin, is a crime in the
          murderer. Andre Breton can  no  longer  understand.  And  he
          feels at ease only in the atmosphere of annulment created by
          Dada.  "What  is  beautiful,  ugly, big, strong, weak, don't
          know, don't know. What is  Carpentier,  Renan,  Foch,  don't
          know, don't know."

          The "Magnetic Fields" written in collaboration with Philippe
          Soupalt,  is in this respect a strange book. In spite of the
          radical lack of coordination  in  the  ideas,  the  Magnetic
          Fields  leaves  a general impression that cannot be doubted.
          Andre Breton no longer feels attracted  to  anything.  Words
          have rusted and things have lost all power of attraction for
          him. He represents the world as a "waste land". He no longer
          hungers  for  the "rotting sweetmeats" that life offers him.
          Custom  stales.  He  is  weary  of  considering the universe
          according to categories that lie, and takes  refuge  in  the
          absurd.

                                      +++

          Philippe  Soupalt  tries  to  free  himself  from  the three
          unities of number, space  and  time,  but  feels  himself  a
          prisoner within the four cardinal points.

          He  calls  his  book  "Rose des Vents" (Compass Card). He is
          aiming at the lyrical ubiquity towards  which  Apollinaire's
          orphism was tending.

          Philippe  Souplalt  turns  the  compass dial on its axis. He
          scorns the conception of the universe inflicted  on  him  by
          the  grey  matter of his brain. To resolve all opposition he
          turns to Dada.

            My ideas like germs
            dance along my meninges
            to the rythm of the exasperating pendulum
            a revolver shot would be a sweet melody.

          He  wants  to  go  outside  himself.   Free   himself   from
          determinism.  He  scales  horizons. "I have broken my static
          ideas," he says. Modern discoveries  show  him  glimpses  of
          metaphysical  probabilities.  The  Eiffel  Tower  shoots its
          beams to the four corners of the world. The idea of space is
          an illusion imposed on  our  senses  by  matter.  Everything
          moves  on  the  same  level.  He  persuades himself that the
          Gaurisanker is next door to Notre Dame. He is simultaneously
          open to all sensations.

          The thousand interpretation that words admit of meet in  his
          mind when he sees a common notice:

          REMOVALS TO ALL COUNTRIES

          This, I think, is how the Dada joke must be understood.

                                      +++

          Louis  Aragon  has  not  foresworn  every  scruple  of  art.
          Sometimes he even  seems  to  remain  attached  to  the  old
          prosodic  forms. Yet Loius Aragon has found his salvation in
          Dada. He calls his book "Bonfire". It is a bonfire on  which
          he  sacrifices  all  the vain acquisitions of his mind for a
          new  order  of  things  that  will  arise  from  the  absurd
          suggestions  of consciousness. A neutral colour - bitumen or
          reseda - is not Aragon's  favourite.  We  even  find  bright
          colours the Dadas were generally not fond of.

          In  a  piece  called  "Jolt",  Aragon  shows us how a sudden
          change comes about in the orientation of his thought:

            BROUF
                Flight for ever from the bitterness
            The wonderful flying meadows newly-painted turn
                 Stumbling fields
                 Standstill
            My head rings and so many rattles
            My heart is in pieces the scenery shattered

          The  poet  remembers  his  adolescence, the years vexed with
          latin and algebra and he sums up his youth in a poem,  "life
          of Jean Baptiste A."

            Rosa the rose and that drop of ink oh my youth
            Calculate Cos. &
            in function of
               tg. a/2
            My Apero childhood hardly glimpsed
            By the fly-blown windows fo a cafe
            Youth and I didn't kiss every mouth
            The first one to get to the end of the corridor
            1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DEAD
            A shade sleeps in the middle of the sun, it's your eye

          But  now  that  the poet has rid himself of the narrow human
          conventions, a hope is aflame in his breast. By the light of
          this  bonfire  he  glimpses  new   constructions,   salutary
          transformations.

            Then will rise the ponies
            Youths
            In bands by the hand by the town

          Louis  Aragon  is  the only Dada who seems to be preparing a
          territory  of  conciliation  between  the   suggestions   of
          consciousness and the demands of reason.

                                      +++

          Paul  Eluard  is  aiming  at  a  complete  transformation of
          language. "Let's try," he says, "it is difficult  to  remain
          absolutely  pure." Language as it reaches us by way of usage
          no longer has any meaning. It is chatter which, according to
          Paul Eluard, no longer has any raison d'etre, and  he  wants
          to institute, in poetry, the most elementary simplicity.

          In  "Animals  and  their  Men"  he endeavours to refresh his
          vision  of  the  world  by  simplified  images  and  initial
          analogies: The fish in the air and the man in the water. The
          grass  in  front of the cow, the child in front of the milk.

          Paul Eluard wants  to  retain  nothing  of  things  but  the
          essential  relation-ships  in  order  to  obtain  a complete
          purity of feeling. Here is an  example  of  this  elementary
          poetry:

            WET
            The stone skims over the water
            The smoke does not enter.
             The water like a skin
            That cannot be wounded
                 Is caressed
            By man and by the fish
            Snapping like a bow-string,
            The fish, when the man catches it,
            Dies, as it cannot swallow
            This planet of air and light
            And the man sinks to the bottom of the water
                      For the fish
               Or for the bitter solitude
            Of the supple ever-closed water.

          What   extremely   shocks   Paul  Eluard's  set  purpose  of
          simplicity is the "distinguished allure". According to  him,
          poetry must be something "naive like a mirror". He conceives
          of  a poetry where "time does not pass". It is difficult, as
          man moves in a thick atmosphere. In his Examples,  he  says:
          "man,  the  air-diver".  Yet  he has a confused glimpse of a
          universal unity that makes him say: "I have crossed  through
          life in one go".

                                      +++

          Francis    Picabia   is   not   concerned   with   practical
          applications. He  uses  a  systematic  curtness  to  destroy
          everything.  It  would  be difficult to find a more complete
          absence of morality elsewhere.

          It is in the  agitated  state  that  follows  on  love  that
          Francis  Picabia tries to formulate for himself a conception
          of man stripped of all illusion.

            Read my little book
            after making love
            in front of the rubber fireplace

          He calls this little book "Thoughts without language". As he
          does not want to be taken in by words.

          He no longer  distinguishes  values.  Love,  art,  religion:
          chemical  reactions.  It  is a quasi-psychological Dada. The
          heart is like the prostate gland, the belly like the  brain.
          And Francis Picabia says:

            The events of my life
            Take place in the sauce
            Of my heartbeats.

          In  "The  Girl  born without a Mother", poems accompanied by
          drawings, he applies himself to seeing the erotic  mechanism
          work.  He  takes  desire  for the only reality, and there is
          hardly anything he believes in other than seminal fluid.

          Life,  according to Picabia, is not a "cream cake"; it is an
          "old music-box" that churns out the same tune over and over.
          As for the price he puts on human knowledge? "Men thinh", he
          says, "Like a free Chinaman."

          Francis Picabia experiences an innocent pleasure in throwing
          stink bombs in schools and academies. The  smell  of  sodium
          cacodylate does not put him off.

          In   "Jesus  Christ  Rastaquouere"  Picabia's  disillusioned
          philosophy seems for an instant as if it is trying to escape
          from its incoherence. But if  Picabia  expresses  himself  a
          little  more  clearly than usual, it is to turn common sense
          inside out like a glove. His deliberately disorientated mind
          enjoys standing the scale of values upside down. "it's words
          that don't exist",  he  says.  "What  doesn't  have  a  name
          doesn't  exist."  And  by some kind of metaphysical spite he
          uses  a  conjuror's  skill  to   juggle   with   traditional
          locutions.

           I can only give my word of honour if I am lying. Cheat, but
            don't hide
           it. Cheat in order to lose, never to win, for a winner loses
            himself,
           etc.

          And  he  sums  up  his opinion of life in a short story: The
          story of a man who chewed a revolver!

          "This man was already old, and all his life he had  indulged
          in  this  strange  chewing; in fact his extraordinary weapon
          would kill him if he stopped an instant;  yet  he  had  been
          warned  that,  in  any case, one day inevitably the revolver
          would go  off  and  kill  him;  however,  with  no  sign  of
          wearying, he went on chewing..."

          Francis Picabia, strange he may seem, is a tragic poet.

                                      +++

          Clement  Pansears  is  the  only  representative  of Dada in
          Belguim and it is extremely unlikely that anyone  here  will
          thank  him  for  it. Yet nobody can let his mind roam on the
          periphery of the world of reason, in the  barely  accessible
          regions of the absurd, as easily as Pansears.

          The  "Pan-pan au cul du nu negre" is Clement Pansears' first
          attempt.  This title may mean the "nu negre" followed by the
          "pan-pan", but I think  that  by  pan-pan  Clement  Pansears
          means  a  revolver.  So  it would be different then. Clement
          Pansears listens to all the discordant noises that  surround
          us today. He seems to have surveyed all the ideas, as we can
          see  from  certain things he says ("Une museliere au rheteur
          de  la  surbrute",  etc.)  and  in  the  end  he  gives  the
          impression of a disorganised gramophone that begins to sound
          the  all-clear  when  it  comes  to  the  end of the record.
          Clement Pansears misuses  scientific  terminology.  Now  and
          again,  one  thinks  of  Rabelais'  Limousin scholar, but he
          justifies himself by saying, "A useless chemist is  as  good
          as  a  philosopher - who discovers principles by evaporating
          vocables."

          In "Bar Nicanor" Clement Pansears follows the same tendency,
          but to a much greater degree. Clement Pansears launches into
          heady delights.  In the piece called "Aero"  he  upsets  the
          cardinal  points.  He  drives in the void, executes "trapeze
          turns". His ears tingle by dint of "browsing raw  noises  in
          interplanetary  scales".  He  exhausts  his engine to get as
          much as possible out of it.

          Getting drunk procures the  same  incongruous  feelings  for
          him.  He  puts  his lips to every electuary and examines his
          half-drunkenness to unveil the speck of  immateriality  that
          throbs  inside  him.  He  praises the eminently cosmopolitan
          nature of drunken orgies. Solving  existence,  according  to
          him,  is  to  take a good one over the eight until the walls
          knock into each other, while the principle of being  pursues
          the   "motley   race   towards  pure  quality  the  infinite
          denominator leading to zero pan-O."

          Perverted feelings run  through  the  erogeneous  zones.  He
          destroys  woman  as  a  child  would  a  toy, annoyed at not
          getting something more wonderful. Clement Pansears makes one
          think of  a  Des  Esseintes  corresponding  to  the  wildest
          audacity  of  the  new  man.  In "The defence of laziness" a
          morbid perturbation seems to result from the constant effort
          of mental  inversion.  Sudden  shocks  like  electric  bells
          crackle  in  his  head. Clement Pansears has been, one after
          the other, "a tamer of tribades", "a  paria  esdemolitions",
          "a violator of human identity".

          Men  seem  sexless  to  him. With an Erasmic indifference he
          creates a defence of laziness. What is cynicism,  if  it  is
          not  laziness?  Laziness in the sovereign condition of human
          reason.

            It's annoying
            My encephalus is out of tune.
            Impossible to re-tune my understanding
            to the tuning fork of the fashionable cosmic variations.

          He resigns himself to sacrificing to laziness:

            Do I revolt you?
            All revolt aborts.

          What is the point of rebelling? Let us do  like  the  others
          do.  Instead  of  creating  the  revolutions,  let  us go on
          general strike. Everything is there. In  any  case  laziness
          extends to the first terrestrial elements.

            Spasmodic morbidness
            Sea and land
            Penetrate each other
            and the commotion is comatose.

          "Be  lazy," Clement Pansears says to himself, possessed with
          an orgiastic weariness. Clement Pansears is a modern man  in
          the most excessive meaning of this expression.

                                      +++

          These  are  the  people  who form the Dada Pleiad. But it is
          difficult to be conclusive as regards Dada,  as  Dada  is  a
          return  to  unorganised  life,  by  a  means  of  expression
          stripped  of  any  verbal  habits.   Dada   makes   fun   of
          onomatopoeia.

          In  ancient times they used to say that those who had lifted
          the veil of physical phenomena had seen the great  god  Pan.
          The  upheavals  of our time that have revealed a solution of
          continuity in the evolution of mankind have given rise to  a
          panic  literature.  Dada  is  without  doubt  a  pessimistic
          movement. But its pessimism is based on the danger of  human
          ambitions. It is in de la Rochefoucald and Schopenhauer that
          we  must  search  for  the preliminaries to an international
          agreement. Dada is the only possible link between men  since
          its  fundamental  principle  consists  in  being right about
          nothing. Not to know Dada is not to  know  our  time.  In  a
          century when Lenin falls after Wilson, Dada has nothing that
          can  surprise us. Dadas are deliberately out of their depth.
          But if they are fools they are not stupid. They say  nothing
          for a laugh and take nothing seriously.

          Dada  is  a philosophy. Dada is a moral. Dada is an art, the
          art of being likeable in a time  when  all  superiority  has
          become unbearable and when all human grandeur seems a joke.
          Dada  is  the flower of ruins, not the little blue flower of
          optimism that poets want  to  pick  amid  the  debris  of  a
          civilisation,  but  an  azalea, an arid azalea, which is not
          begging for a downpour of blood, but is  rather  seeking  to
          slake its thirst in drought.

 S.J.Welton  
