Questioning randomness: the making of a Dada film
Process notes for a Dada film about randomness, made with animation, sound, storyboarding and image-editing tools.
Lynn Cole / 标签
art philosophy
A thread through the work.
A prediction about democratizing compute
A prediction about democratizing compute, open agent systems and the economic big bang I imagined they would create.
Intuition, automatism, and anti-process
Intuition, automatic writing and divided attention lead me toward an anti-process: art that laughs at its own attempt to destroy meaning.
There is still art to cannibalize
Priestess Lynn surveys the destruction of art. There is still plenty to cannibalize.
Paneful and a deliberately unreasonable Dada mode
Paneful’s Dada mode needs more unreasonable tools: random scribbling, layers, distortion and a bigger word dictionary.
Against abstract meaning
Abstract claims of meaning can say nothing. A particular song making someone cry says everything.
Meaninglessness to the masses
Meaninglessness to the masses: an absurdist NFT declaration, complete with a prompt for Animals in Chaos.
Nobody owns the rules of art
Nobody owns the rules of art. Tool choices do not require a stranger’s validation.
Validation, provenance, and the fear of replacement
Arguments about validation, provenance and replacement expose competing ideas of what artists need from the world.
Be the change for a change
Dissent is participation—and opposition to conformity does not sit easily beside demands for tighter control of art.
Appropriation, access, and the rules of ownership
Appropriation and access matter more to me than property arguments that serve corporate interests and make art less accessible.
Anti-art opposes the contemporary definition
Anti-art opposes the art world’s contemporary definition. The walls that exclude a medium also give that medium power.
Art as a compulsion to create
Art is a compulsion to create. Insults can fuel more work, and a backlash that goes too far can spark Dadaist disgust.
Fan art, appropriation, and punk rebellion
Fan art can act as punk rebellion and appropriation. Context and irony connect it to Warhol, Höch and Lichtenstein.
Dissent is participation
Dissent is participation. Dada combines criticism, absurdity and the contemplation of Nothing—and if you have read this far, it is already too late.
Deconstruct, contemplate, educate
Deconstruct, contemplate and educate: three pillars of my experimental Dada practice and neural bending.
A crisis of painting needs historical context
A definition of art that cannot account for existing art is too narrow. The current crisis of painting needs its historical context.
The rules of the art world bind the artist
Rules about who earns the title artist can become shackles. Art that escapes those rules can threaten the world they protect.
Cast off the shackles of the cult of order
Cast off the cult of order, join the abyss of Nothing and think like an insane moose in a department store.
The work of unlearning the rules
Practicing Dada means unlearning control, order and the assumptions an artist was taught to obey.
A Dada film from 1924
A Dada film from 1924, introduced to me by Dadabots, and the process connections I see with AI art.
Make the art that lives under your eyelids
Make the art that speaks to you. Human connection matters more than toxic validation or the tools someone else thinks you should use.
How AI art became part of Dada
When AI art was declared offensive non-art, it entered the space Dada has always expanded into.
Radical inclusion has no litmus test
Dada has no litmus test. Everyone with thoughts on art is welcome, including those who disagree. Radical inclusion is something you have to practice.
If everything is art, Nothing is art
If everything is art, Nothing is art. Nothing matters—and Nothing matters a lot.
Randomness that looks intentional
Random arrangements can look meticulously planned. Experiencing that apparent order is part of what makes Dada exciting.
Soul, aura, and the way we talk about art
Soul, aura, authenticity and provenance are related ideas that keep being mistaken for one another in arguments about art.
The order that emerges from chaotic collage
Random cuts and layered fragments keep producing uncanny order in my video collages. The result looks planned, even when it was not.
An atheist in the church of art
Being a Dadaist in the art world feels like being an atheist in a church of invented languages. Motivation makes the difference.
Every artist is welcome
Every artist is welcome in Dada, including its detractors. This point is non-negotiable.
Fuck art, fuck rules
A public service announcement from Dada and a shadowy political interest that wants to live in your underwear.
There is no my-way-or-the-highway in Dada
There is no my-way-or-the-highway in Dada. Dissent, conversation and even enemies belong in the discussion.
You cannot gatekeep Nothing
Tzara, Picabia and the Berlin manifesto offer plenty of reasons you cannot gatekeep Nothing.
Why I never get tired of Dada
Dada’s serious social criticism and ridiculous play keep turning into one another. That is why I never get tired of it.
Reading Tzara and the Cannibal Manifesto
Tzara’s essays and contradictory translations of Picabia keep the primary sources alive as something to read and argue with.
Picabia, punk, and provocative speech
The provocative language of my Dada practice has roots in Picabia, the Cannibal Manifesto and later punk culture.
The surviving Sam Grinsborg paintings and the song Nothing
A reclaimed Sam Grinsborg painting may still survive on a houseboat. An old handwritten book has also returned a fragment of the song Nothing.
Keep making the art that scares them
Keep making the art that scares them. The existence of the work is already part of what it says.
Dada is a cheeseburger
Say “Dada is” and follow it with anything. A cheeseburger with beans, hot sauce and an internal sense of inadequacy will do.
Inverse Dadaism and deconstructing Nothing
Inverse Dadaism, recursive deconstruction and the implications of taking Nothing apart.
Turn the world upside down
Playing with words and logic is a beginning. I want to turn the world upside down—and feed the fucking pigeons.
An absurdist does not require agreement
Hearing an absurdist out does not require agreement. Dada leaves plenty of room for disagreement with the art world.
Learning to let the chaos of creation take over
Learning to let the chaos of creation take over is harder than it sounds for an artist who naturally wants control.
Art and anti-art
Art and anti-art turn each other inside out: matter, rules, truth, reason and the argument that even something is nothing.
Dada beyond the visual arts
Dada reaches beyond visual art into music, spoken word and the things we do not yet know how to name.
The paradox is not a problem
Dada is a century-old art philosophy and something ancient that has always been with us. The paradox is not a problem.
Why Dada, why now?
Why Dada, why now? Because it belongs to the malcontents and outsiders who need a language for challenging the art world.
Dada is everything
Dada is everything: soap, gasoline, cities, friends, a delicious churro. It is also nothing.
AI makes the mundane radical
When tool choices become an act of disobedience, AI makes even the mundane radical.
We are not special
We are not special. We are the people who happen to exist at this very special moment in history.
The paradox in our epoch
Huelsenbeck’s artists belong to their epoch—and that proposition turns its own meaning upside down.
I reject
I reject art as a commodity and the cynical delusion that “artist” is nothing more than a job description. Art is so much more than that.
The commitment against harassment still stands
The existence of AI does not cancel the art community’s commitment against harassment and hate speech.
Bodies, disability, and the expressionist ideal
An argument about bodies and artistic legitimacy raises questions about disability, privilege and the expressionist ideal.
An anarchist declaration of artistic identity
An anarchist declaration of artistic identity: the commons, anti-fascism and Dada’s rejection of smugness and gatekeeping.
I want you to steal my art
If my work starts a conversation in your head, I want you to use it. Creative reuse is an honor, not an injury.
Moral standards and the copying metaphor
Your moral standards can guide your art without governing mine. That disagreement is separate from how flattened model data works.
Reason, copies, and a Dadaist objection
Being reasonable is against my religion. So is bullying dressed up as discussion—and using copies as an imprecise metaphor for flattened data.
An invitation to the circle of the absurd
Disagreeing with Dada is another way into the circle of the absurd.
We are all nothing
We are all nothing. A short Dada statement about recognition, institutions and the freedom to create.
If you are the keepers of art, fuck art
If you are the keepers of art, fuck art: a refusal of gatekeeping, conformity and harassment in the name of artistic legitimacy.
Confrontational pacifists
Dadaists are confrontational pacifists whose weapons are words, images and ideas. Dada is also trash, soap, a flat tire and life.
How my mentor introduced me to Dada
At eighteen, I showed my mentor Paul a piece of elaborate nothingness. He smiled, opened a book, and introduced me to Dada.
Dada is disobedience, not an aesthetic
Dada is disobedience, not an aesthetic. Even its inherited look becomes something to subvert when the art world makes it safe.
Is AI art too good or not good enough?
Is AI art too good or not good enough? Both complaints keep appearing in the same argument.
An appropriation-art demonstration
An appropriation-art demonstration uses a collage to argue about recontextualization, authorship, references and the right to make provocative art.
Some key points on Dadaism
Some key points on Dadaism: authorship, craft, appropriation, snobbery and the ephemeral status of art.
How art school makes Dada safe
Art school can make Dada safe by rushing past its anger and ideas on the way to Surrealism.
Dada is a philosophy, not a photo filter
Dada can be a photo filter, but it is not defined by the filter. It is a philosophy that challenges aesthetics, authorship and gatekeeping.
Collage, corporate imagery, and a familiar argument
Collage repurposes the images of capitalism. Treating AI as only a corporate creation misses part of that discussion.
The malcontents and the ownership of Dada
Dada is the inheritance of the malcontents, not a clean institutional memory of art history.
Appropriation and participation
Dada introduced chance and repurposed capitalist imagery. Engagement, including disagreement, remains part of its expanding world.
The irony of defending Dada against AI
Defending Dada against AI with the arguments once used against Dada is a remarkable historical irony.
Appropriation, aura, and powerful new tools
Appropriation, chance and the destruction of aura frame an old argument now being applied to powerful new artistic tools.
But Dadaists created things
Randomness, appropriation and Duchamp’s urinal challenge the claim that Dada’s legitimacy depended on making things conventionally.
Dada honors no aesthetic
Dada honors no aesthetic. Its criticism reaches commercialism, authorship, morality and the assumption that intent must look one particular way.
A meditation on artists and their epoch
Artists are creatures of their epoch, environments and backgrounds. Each perspective changes the world in some small way.
Surrealism and Dada: two ways of looking
Surrealism looks for the marvelous within. Dada can pull something out of reality and call it art because it bothers someone worth bothering.
Absurdity as a tool for changing the world
Absurdity is a method of social commentary and a tool for changing the world. Dada does not need to stay safely locked in art history.
Dada in another crisis of painting
Another crisis of painting brings the same questions of chance, morality, capitalism and artistic legitimacy back into view.
Replace the art economy
Dada wants to replace the art economy: its product logic, gatekeeping and comfortable relationship with power.
We will change the world with nothing
We will change the world with nothing: a statement of Dada’s rebellion against the art world, consumerism, reason and gatekeeping.
My politics, your dignity, and the limits of agreement
My politics are anarchist, anti-fascist and uncompromising about human dignity. We do not need identical politics to treat each other as people.
Welcome to the cause
Artists who explore, experiment and challenge the boundaries of art are welcome here. Dada is life.
Art and the trust-company udder
Tzara’s 1918 manifesto puts the relationship between art, money and the bourgeoisie in blunt terms.
Dada is not a safe, dead thing
Teaching Dada as a safe, dead movement strips away the challenge it still poses to art, tradition and power.
The freedom of giving up control
Giving up control is an internal struggle for an artist trained to work meticulously. The freedom I find lies between the controlled and the chaotic.
Dada wants nothing: overthrow reality
Dada wants nothing—and wants to turn reality, reason and your preconceptions inside out.
Another declaration of principles
A declaration of principles about hierarchy, the commons, Dada, punk and the volatile possibilities of AI.
Dada was never safe
Dada was never a safe philosophy with nothing pointed to say about the art establishment. Imagining it that way is revisionism.
Morality, money, and two Dada quotations
Two quotations from Tzara and Picabia frame Dada’s hostility toward morality, money and the prospect of becoming respectable.
Dada belongs to the malcontents
Dada belongs to the malcontents of the art world, not a comfortable memory of an establishment-friendly movement.
Dada, experimentation, and the copying argument
Dada’s commitment to experimentation challenges the copying argument and the assumption that AI cannot be subverted beyond its simplest use case.
A living document for a new epoch
Reading Berlin as a living document opens a disagreement about AI, power and the artist’s epoch. Both empowerment and oppression can exist in the same technology.
Dada speaks to the current moment
Dada’s arguments about art, technology, skill and the establishment still speak directly to the current moment.
The sources behind my Dada arguments
The historical sources behind my Dada arguments include Tzara, Huelsenbeck’s Berlin manifesto and Picabia.
What the soulless-art argument does to the viewer
The soulless-art argument says more about the viewer than the object. Training yourself to hate a medium can destroy your appreciation of art.
Dada in a nutshell
A compact set of Dada principles: technology, chance, social change, dissent and the contradictions that come with them.
The joyous contradictions of Dada
The joyous contradictions of Dada have a place in subversive AI art, robot poetry and random conversations with elderly relatives.
The quantum state of AI and Dada
The way we see AI changes the way we read its relationship to Dada. Technology can be a corporate instrument and a subversive art tool.
An immortal idea with a favorite ice cream flavor
Dada is an immortal idea with no clear right and wrong, but a favorite ice cream flavor. We are going to change the world with nothing.
Three points on ethics, capitalism, and gatekeeping
Three points on Dada, ethics, capitalism and the gatekeeping of valid art.
An introduction to my synthetic-art practice
I’m Lynn: a lowbrow surrealist, experimental synthetic artist and hard Dadaist who sometimes makes imaginary people dance.
Collage, power, and the trouble with Dada
Collage challenged power by changing the way people saw the world and the images around them. Comfortable people did not welcome the change.
Explore new frontiers instead of policing the door
A century of gatekeeping arguments still stands between artists and new creative possibilities. I would rather explore the frontier.
What commission deadlines change in an art practice
Commission deadlines change the choices an artist can afford to make: fewer false starts, more formulas and a different kind of scrutiny.
A name for Nothing: reading Tzara
A reading of Tzara’s manifesto leads to a joke about names, Nothing and language games.