In the introduction to Dada: Zurich, Berlin, Hanover, Cologne, New York, Paris, one of the lines reads: “The word Dada itself provides an overarching moniker for the raucous activities of its participants.” For my artwork, I want to call out the double edged sword that is alcohol.
Alcohol is a substance you can easily find in any household; it is a substance that is used recreationally as a party or social drug but it also has its dark side which is abused by people for its sedating effect. Returning to the quote in the introduction, I want to create an artwork that uses alcohol on its participants to create a “raucous activity”. I want to appropriate the game “Never Have I Ever” as the basis for my artwork. How you play the game is people go around in a circle and say “Never Have I Ever” with a specific activity and whoever has done it has to put a finger down. Whoever puts a finger down has to take a shot of whatever alcohol they have found in their area. I want the game to follow Macchab’s stance which states, ”tenacious yet mocking presence wants to transform tragic memory into skeptical consciousness, refusing therapeutic mourning by being seditious. As a whole, the leitmotiv of Der Ventilator is productive anxiety, indulging in the play between apparitions and realities, mockery and gravity, and feeding a culture of instability that forecasts Dada’s tactics of provocation in Cologne (220).” I want the game to take a dark turn by revealing something personal for each person, turning the game “raunchy” in nature. Alcohol “refuses therapeutic mourning” and “feeds a culture of instability”. Alcohol is a powerful substance that can bring out the emotion in people and makes the game like “Never Have I Ever” transparent in a sense.
I feel my artwork is in line with the Paris Dada movement. According to the Dada text, “The cumulative effect of this first “Dada season,” as it became known, was to mark the movement as a nihilistic collective force leveled at the noblest ideals of advanced society. According to critical consensus, Dada represented youthful provocation, an adolescent destructiveness that (for those favorably inclined) should clear the way for a new intellectual engagement with art and the world at large (349).” Alcohol use can be looked at as a disorder which is a form of self-destructive behavior. The point of my artwork is to expose the dark deep truths of our lives and to invite the somewhat “nihilistic” way of thinking similar to the Paris Dada Movement. I want the users to engage with the game with a different perspective and leave the game learning something not just about themselves but also other people.