Ursonate

Listen to Kurt Schwitters performing his Ursonate. This is from the CD lunapark 0,10, which contains several recordings of (mostly avantgarde, or modernist) writers reading from their own works (mostly poems, fortunately). I purchased this CD a few years ago, with the occasion of that exquisitely curated DADA exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington, DC. Some of the artists featured on this CD: Apollinaire, Maiakovski, Joyce, Gertrude Stein (very pleasant surprise), Tzara, Duchamp etc.

The reason I selected Kurt Schwitters' reading is that it gives us a key to the sound poems which, if only read and not heard, are hard to "register". Fortunately, his language is German, thus phonetic, which does make a reading possible - but it still does not transmit the musical element. It is this musical element, and the "sonata" dimension, that are not readily perceptible, if one has not attended any of the readings (in Zurich, in the 1930s). Furthermore, I like how visible the "Ur" dimension becomes, as he performs it; "Ur" means "arch-", as in: primitive, of the origins, ancestral etc.

But, listen:




Here is the sound poem, in written form:

http://www.merzmail.net/ursonatepdf.pdf

Dada - and Others

Others. This one I like.

White on White, by Kazimir Malevich

(Russian, born Ukraine. 1878-1935. Suprematist Composition.)

And another:

4'33", by John Cage

Nice try, this 4'33" - but it lacks somehow the freshness and youthfulness of Dada, wouldn't you say? Too pretentious, demonstrative, self-referential, and too rational. Dada is anything but - it's instinctive, it is immediate. The immediacy and thoughtlessness of youth.

(And the applause at the end is jarring.)

KARAWANE

Karawane,

the sound poem by Hugo Ball, one of the Zürich Dadaists.*

And a masterful interpretation of the poem:

A great interpretation; others, such as this one by Trio Exvoco of Switzerland are, by comparison, downright depressing. Among other things, they lack an important - and maybe the essential - dimension of Dada, and of the avant-garde in general: its youth. Youth, both in the sense of young persons, and also, and most importantly, as that age in a person's life that we call youth. The stirring and moving of young age itself... as it "clashes" with society, with the drab, meaningless decorations it puts on its buildings, with the absurd that is intertwined with the everyday life in that society etc.** And youth responds organically, irrationally, and, needless to say, emotionally - by defacing the statues, overturning the garbage bins, and dancing in the fountains on the main square, after leaving the café at 2 am (you can't go mad while hungry; not if you're sane and healthy).***

The above-posted video, however, is quite excellent, and I could note a few aspects of why I think it is so well-done. First, it follows intelligently and almost "puristically" the phonetic value of the words in the poem - in this sound (or phonetic) poem. Furthermore, being set to a tribal drumbeat, it is very much in tone with the (quite important) primitivist dimension of Dada. Third, it was made using technology (Adobe Flash, I guess), and mechanized algorithms for the movement of the visual appearance of the words; thus removing itself, to a significant degree, from the subjective, personal, human dimension, very much in tone with Dada's emphasis on accident, the mass-produced, collage, and modern technology (see Schwitter's Merz, or Duchamp's Fountain). And, finally, it certainly has the inventiveness and randomness and freshness of a movement of the youth. After all, the author is 24 years old.

I do not know if this author, loris10mi (according to his Youtube name), is necessarily aware of all these dimensions - and he does not have to be, of course, given what was discussed above; but he might be, as this seems to have been part of an academic project. In any case, as noted, this might be one of the best interpretations of a Dada poem I have encountered yet.

...

* Dada? You can listen to Richard Huelsenbeck and Tristan Tzara talking about its beginnings - after the fact, of course, and after having been caught (the two of them) in ersatz visions of the world and of art, i.e. ideologies.

** It is not by chance that Dada appeared within the context of World War I, which, like all wars, was a celebration and joyful manifestation of the absurd; WWI perhaps even more so than the rest, given its utter pointlessness and unnecessary quality.

*** The scene with Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni, at the Fontana di Trevi, in La Dolce Vita, is not all too far removed from this youthful rebellion; but it is much "later" compared to youth itself, and thus, much sadder. As evidence of the similarity, see the very entertaining reaction of this youth from 60's Hungary (which was then under the (imposed) burden of a Communist regime), when watching the same scene from The Sweet Life; this funny and intelligent depiction is from Csinibaba, by Péter Timár, a movie made in the '90s.