Task 2 - DADA and Sophie Research

Dada Art:

Dada was an art movement during the early 20th century. Its conception was a direct result of World War 1 due to artists wanting to break away for the artistic conventions of modern capitalist society. The creation of the name, is credited to an artist named Richard Huelsenbeck stabbing a knife into a dictionary, and the knife hitting the word Dada which translates "Hobby Horse". Dada is also known as "Anti Art", due to its lack of real purpose and its reliance on spontaneity for it's creation. Due to Dada's size, it is regarded as more of a movement opposed to simply an art form.

One of Hugo Ball's Dada art works.

A prominent Dada artist is Hugo Ball. He was a artist who was a prominent head of the movement and was married to another Dada artist called Emmy Hemming. His Dada work was completed over a 2 year time span. During this time, he also worked a a journalist for several publications and this work continued after he left the Dada movement. I based my own puppet on one if his works due to its design being easy to recreate and tweak via the Blender engine. He was the largest influence on my final design due to his puppets lack of complexity, which gave me inspiration for my puppets overall design.

Sophie Taeuber-Arp is another prominent Dada artist. She was most known for her puppets that adhered to the conventions of the Dada art movement. My animation will be based on her puppet art pieces. Her work in Dada started when she met a Dada artist Jean Arp in Zurich in 1915 which sparked her interest in the movement. Their meeting began a string of collaborations which ended in 1943 when she passed away. She was most known for her puppet work, which formed one of the most well known aspects of Dada. They vary in style for the most part, with the only similarities being that they are abstract, allowing them a place in the Dada movement. Her impact was so great on the movement and art in general that she is featured on Swiss banknotes specifically the 50 Franc Note. I used some of her work to research what design I would like to make for my Animation and I found her puppets to be a large influence on my final design.