Shock and the senseless in Dada and Fluxus / Dorothée Brill.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brill, Dorothée.

Series:

Interfaces, studies in visual culture

Interfaces : studies in visual culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Dadaism.

Fluxus (Group of artists).

Art, European--20th century--Psychological aspects.

Art, European.

Psychological aspects.

Physical Description:

vii, 243 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Hanover, N.H. : Dartmouth College Press : Published by University Press of New England, [2010]

Summary:

In this thought-provoking work, Dorothée Brill examines notions of shock and the senseless in Dada and Fluxus, pairing two distinctly radical art movements that challenged the very notion and purpose of art. Laying out a genealogy of surrealisms, she addresses the senseless in artistic production as a strategy toward shock--generally considered to be characteristic of the historical avant-garde. Examining the changing correlation between the notions of shock and the senseless in their artistic use in prewar Europe and postwar America, Brill arrives at a new understanding of the overstrained and generally pejorative catch phrase of "shock for shock's sake."

Contents:

Introduction: shock of the senseless

The notion of shock in early twentieth-century Europe

Shock and urbanity: Walter Benjamin and Georg Simmel

Shock and World War I: Walter Benjamin and Sigmund Freud

Shock and tactility in Walter Benjamin

Shock and the senseless in Dada

Dada's notion of art and its sociocultural context

Senselessness, the new, and the "shock of the unintelligible"

The senseless in Walter Benjamin's concept of shock

Shock and the senseless in Fluxus

The sociocultural context of Fluxus

From politics to a worldview: transforming the senseless

Art as perception

Shock and boredom: Fluxus's "senseless perception"

Conclusion: communicating the void.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781584659020

1584659025

9781584659174

1584659173

OCLC:

607986515