Finding DADA and sense making
As a group, what binds us is greater than what divides us. Individually, what divides us is greater than what binds us. —Robert Filliou
I tend to watch a lot of movies and TV shows. I like to see how a screenplay artist or a scriptwriter would see it as- with those eyes. Eyes/cries. I am blessed in those ways that I can pick up my laptop and sit in front of my couch, sprawled on the floor, for hours, grading, then watch live cooking shows where David Chang discusses crab cakes (I love watching food cooked that don’t eat), grading papers on why medical cannabis is necessary, then eat sandwiches that I cook with love and share them, my partner kisses me on my forehead. I feel alive after almost choking on the news that burns the world outside my loving-safe-caressed four walls, feed myself some more cheese and dal bhaat, walk a bit across the two rooms, into the bathroom, dance in the shower where I clean myself vigorously, then lather myself with lotion that I got from a dying mall (isn’t every physical store dying?) as I hear astrological gurus predicting the effects of the eclipse roasting my fears, I rap till I blow dry with the first dryer I have owned in years. I then walk; at the end of the evening, I watch an episode from an old TV show or start something new (WTF was Baby Reindeer and Why did I cry so much? I also cried in the theatre while watching Civil War: The new Movie you need to watch it to know) as I click my nails or read a poetry book I need to review. But, all in all, I do two things at a time: exhaust myself and emerge with myself in reading and writing about what strikes and what does not. Getting exhausted from the possibilities of exhaustion. Of looking at the world burning, hopeless, and helpless.
This past Saturday, I decided to watch Koyaanisqatsi. I felt it in my veins—life out of balance (???!!?)
I bought two new subscription boxes of goodies for myself and deleted three old subscriptions that don’t serve me anymore.
I did not take a single day off this semester except one when I had the worst flu of my life.
I completed watching the worst installment of Traitors (Australia S2) and nearly puked.
I listened to over 100 new songs in the past month, and it’s a lot. A lot of feelings to feel.
Then, I wrote two newsletters, which now have become three new drafts. I don’t even know if I will publish them.
I might or might not send the following letter next month.
Like this letter, it will contain a mix of evidence of my living and suffering. Like this world.
I might decide to learn a new dish next week.
I might unlearn.
In other news, Dada is everywhere. I have fallen into a wormhole of Dada's poetics and writings. Found solace.
If you cannot learn to love real art, at least learn to hate sham art and reject it.
—William Morris
Through working together, Dadas established a creative atmosphere marked by open-mindedness and the melting of ideological and disciplinary boundaries…. The artists and designers of the De Stijl school believed that nonobjectivity—art with compositions that did not explicitly refer to natural objects—was the only way to achieve this harmony. According to Loeb's De Stijl: The Formative Years, the members of De Stijl believed that universality and harmony could be achieved by discounting the boundaries between different disciplines. According to many Van Doesburg and Schwitters readings I have been doing for my Art History class, modern art encompasses poetry, typography, painting, and architecture, forming an ideal universe through their interplay. In my recent work, I have been exploring the intersection of the humanities and the sciences. Interdisciplinary collaboration is my preferred goal for any intention I set my vision on. Collaboration in avant-garde art and design was frequent, and combining Dada and De Stijl concepts successfully developed this tendency. Van Doesburg invented the typographic Beelden, a series of experimental sound poems, a visual hybrid of De Stijl and Dada ideas, fine art, and typography- some of my prunning/running inspirations currently. Pro Dva Kvadrata, Lissitsky combined art with radical typography that I am obsessed with.
Read my conceptual poem, Opprobrium in Berkeley Poetry Review
… am a detective. I was, at least, when the earth ‘was’. Before we all started losing memories, we had courts, police stations, officers, and the perpetrators. We had a Constitution and sets of procedures and rules. We had technological databases and live repositories. Working devices and an abundant availability of metal. Metal of all kinds. We had justice. We had justice, fairness, and equity, and all that. We had that one thing that was needed for justice to prevail, for a just society to cooperate—the memory of the fact, after and before. We recalled and reviewed faces—the eyes, noses, ears, and lips. The weird thing is that now, in the atom-math, memory is selective…..
Read and listen to my first speculative apocalyptic fiction-Letting go means remembering published by Singapore Unbound.
“Art starts when things get strange.”
So writes philosopher and cognitive scientist Alva Noë in Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature.
My thoughts on AWP: Overwhelmed but fulfilled—because of community. And because I love serendipitous meetings, I met ten or more writers, professors, and acquaintances just in a day of tabling at DIAGRAM’s booth and walking across the convention center in Kansas City, MO! I was like, WHAT IS HAPPENING?! I met Rajiv Mohabir (I just finished reading Rajiv’s new book ANTIMAN, and I have nothing but wild praise for the hybrid wonder) and Aruni Kashyap back-to-back and got to geek out loud with a bunch of newfound editors cum friends—what a delightful and fantastic weekend! My heart is still whole.
I am not crazy. I am magnetic. I am present, and I am here- I kept telling myself. I have survived a lot to be here, and I get to meet and listen to other survivors. Writers are, in a way, survivors, magicians, and healers.
I facilitated a poetry workshop and reading at Sloss House at Iowa State University, where poets, professors, students from the Creative Writing and Environment, Veterinary Sciences, Visual Arts, Human-Computer computer interaction, biology, prospective students, TAs, and RAs from various science disciplines joined in to create poems out of nature prompts and enthusiasm provided by me! We read at the alcove next to the magical Sloss House💫
My inclination to open dialogue and to invite community building with accessibility in mind has been the biggest outtake of my association with Dada poetics, which has led me to contribute with my skills as a poetry editor and a conceptual artist who loves light, spiritual fodder, and suspension of beliefs. I love facilitating and bringing people together. I have no space for negativity and people who cannot work together in a community. Nothing comes easy, and I pine.
Dada poetry and writing are becoming a big part of how I write and drive my thesis- my hybrid prose poetry book, which will see the light of day someday. I cannot wait to work on the last few chapters.
But then again. Who knows if the last few chapters are the beginning of the next few chapters?
Good reading as always but let that not become a normal - normal is mediocrity