Dada Mime
Author(s): Hal Foster
Source: October, Vol. 105, Dada (Summer, 2003), pp. 166-176
Published by: The MIT Press
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Dada Mime
HAL FOSTER
Magical Bishop
It is a celebratedperformancebut extraordinarystill.On June 23, 1916, at
the Cabaret Voltairein Zurich,Hugo Ball premiereshis sound poems or poems-
without-words: "Mylegs werein a cylinderof shinyblue cardboard,whichcame up
to my hips so that I looked like an obelisk,"he tells us in FlightOut of Time,his
greatdiaryof 1914-21:
Over it I wore a huge coat collar cut out of cardboard, scarlet inside
and gold outside.... I also wore a high, blue-and-white-striped witch
doctor's hat.... I was carried onto the stage in the dark and began
slowlyand solemnly:"gadji beri bimba / glandridilauli lonni cadori /
gadjama bim beri glassala / glandridi glassala tuffmi zimbrabim /
blassa galassasa tuffmi zimbrabim...." Then I noticed that myvoice
had no choice but to take on the ancient cadence of priestlylamen-
tation, that style of liturgical singing that wails in all the Catholic
churches of East and West.... For a moment it seemed as if there
were a pale, bewildered face in myCubist mask,that half-frightened,
half-curiousface of a ten-year-oldboy,tremblingand hanging avidly
on the priest's words in the requiems and high masses in his home
parish.... Bathed in sweat, I was carried down offthe stage like a
magical bishop.1
In the performanceBall is part shaman, part priest,but he is also a child once
again entranced by ritual magic: less pope and blasphemer in one, then, than
exorcist and possessed. Such pandemonium (literally:"abode of all demons;
place of lawlessviolence or uproar; utterconfusion") is one aim of the Dadaists.
1. Hugo Ball, FlightOut of Time:A Dada Diary (1927), trans. Ann Raimes (New York: Viking
Press, 1974).
2003,pp. 166-176. ? 2003 Hal Foster.
OCTOBER 105, Summer
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HugoBall reciting
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168 OCTOBER
Yet in this instance it proves too much for Ball: soon afterhis blackout he with-
drawsfromDada, eventuallyto returnto the Church. "I could never bid chaos
welcome."
The Bliss oftheEpileptic
"Is Dadaism as sign and gesturethe opposite of Bolshevism?"Ball asks in his
diaryon June 7, 1917. "Strangeincidents:when we had the Cabaret Voltaire in
Zurich at Spiegelgasse 1, there lived at Spiegelgasse 6, opposite us, if I am not
mistaken,Mr. Ulyanov-Lenin." A year and a half later in Bern, Ball meets Walter
Benjamin, whom he introduces to ErnstBloch, newlyauthor of TheSpiritofUtopia
(1918). Benjamin is veryimpressedbyBloch; at thispoint his scales of historystill
tiltin favorof hope. Severalyearslater,at the end of "One-WayStreet"(1923-26),
a textualmontage thatworksto relay,throughimagisticvignettesand abruptcuts,
the shock experiences of industrial war and mediated metropolis, Benjamin
writes:"In the nightsof annihilationof the last war,the frameof mankindwas
shaken by a feelingthatresembledthe bliss of the epileptic.And the revoltsthat
followed it were the firstattemptof mankind to bring the new boy under its
control. The power of the proletariatis the measure of its convalescence."2But
"mankind"doesn't get well: the proletariatis soon contained in Germanyand
disciplined in the Soviet Union, as its "shaking" is brought under different-
dictatorial-control. Perhaps this suppression is one reason whythe Dadaist
mimingof "the blissof the epileptic,"firstenacted byBall in his performance,will
recur-intermittently, variously,compulsively-fordecades to come.
Ecce Homo Novus
If not the opposite of Bolshevism,Dada does propose a "new man" very
differentfromthat of avant-gardeartistsin revolutionaryRussia. The Dadaist
"bachelor machine" figuresa reificationthatproceeds fromcapitalistindustryto
the individual; the Constructivist"engineer" personifiesa rationalization that
runsfromtheindividualto communistsocietyat large."On the one hand a tottering
worldin flight,betrothedto the glockenspiel
[chimes] of hell,"TristanTzara writes
in "Dada Manifesto1918"; "on the other hand: new men." Here Tzara seems to
gloss another Dadaist account of "Der neue Mensch" by Richard Huelsenbeck
publishedin NeueJugend on May23, 1917,nearlya yearafterthe Ball performance,
an account in whichthe totteringand the new are one:
The newman stretcheswidethewingsof hissoul,he orientshisinnerear
towardthingsto come, his knees findan altarbeforewhichto bend. He
carries pandemonium within himself, the pandemoniumnaturae ignotae,
2. WalterBenjamin,Selected
Writings: I, 1913-1926,ed. MichaelJenningset al. (Cambridge,
Volume
Mass.: HarvardUniversity
Press,1996), p. 487.
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Dada Mime 169
for or againstwhich no one can do anything.His neck is twistedand
stiff;he gazes upward,staggeringtowardredemptionlike some fakiror
stylite;a wretchedmartyrof all centuries,anointed and sainted, he
begs to be crushed, one day to be consumed in the burning heart,
racked and consumed-the new man, exalted,erring,ecstatic,born of
ecstasy.Ahoy,ahoy,huzza, hosanna, whips,wars of the eons, and yet
human, the new man rises from all ashes, cured of all toxins, and
fantasticworlds,saturated,stuffedfullto the point of disgustwiththe
experience of all outcasts, the dehumanized beings of Europe, the
Africans,the Polynesians,all kinds,fecessmearedwithdevilishingredi-
ents,the sated of all genders:Eccehomonovus,here is the new man.3
Perhapsthisis whatthe AngelusNovus,picturedbyBenjaminin 1940 as hurledby
thewindsof history, looked likein 1917,whenthe highspiritspromptedbypolitical
upheaval were not yetexhausted,when epileptic bliss had not yethardened into
politicalcatatonia:a portraitof the AngelusNovus as Magical Bishop.
A Gladiator'sGesture
A keypersona of Dada, especiallyin Zurich and Cologne, is the traumatic
mime, and a keystrategyof this traumatistis mimeticadaptation, wherebythe
Dadaist assumesthe dire conditionsof his time-the armoringof the military body,
the fragmentingof the industrial worker,the commodifyingof the capitalist
subject-and inflatesthem throughhyperboleor "hypertrophy" (another Dadaist
term). Such buffoonery is a form of parodythat Dada made its own. "Whatwe call
Dada is a farceof nothingnessin whichall the higherquestionsare involved,"Ball
writesonJune 12, 1916,less thantwoweeksbeforethe MagicalBishopperformance,
"a gladiator'sgesture,a playwithshabbyleftovers." The Dadaist does not giveup on
on
totality; the contrary, "he is stillso convinced of the unityof all beings,of the
totalityof all things, that he suffers from the dissonances to the point of self-
disintegration." This is a crucial dialectic, but amid "the dissonances" it is very
difficult
to maintain,and "self-disintegration" has itsownparadoxicalattractions.
For other creaturesmimeticadaptation is a biological technique of survival
throughcamouflagein a hostile environment.With humans,however,it can be
pushed to a dangerous extreme,indeed to the point of a pathological "detumes-
cence" of the subject,a schizophrenic"devouring"byspace (as Roger Caillois puts
it twentyyearslater in 1937).4 Such is the riskof an excessiveidentificationwith
3. Richard Huelsenbeck, Memoirsof a Dada Drummer, trans.Joachim Neugroschel (New York:
VikingPress,1969), p. xxxi.
4. Roger Caillois,"Mimicryand LegendaryPsychasthenia"(1937), October31(Winter1984), p. 30.
For anotheraccount of traumaticmimesisin Dada, see BrigidDoherty,"The Traumaof Dada Collage,"
CriticalInquiry24, no. 1 (Fall 1997). Also see Michael Taussig,TheNervousSystem
(New York:Routledge,
1992), pp. 149-59.
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170 OCTOBER
thecorruptconditionsof a symbolicorder.Yet,ifmaintainedas a dialecticalstrategy,
thismimingcan also expose thisorderas failed,or at leastas insecure.
Ball alludes to a tactic of "exaggeration" often in Flight Out of Time:
"Everyone has become mediumistic,"he writeson April 20, 1917, "fromfear,
fromterror,fromagony,or because there are no laws anymore-who knows?"5
In principle this tactic is not nihilisticso much as immunological: the Dadaist
"suffersfrom the dissonances to the point of self-disintegration"in order to
"fightagainst the agony and the death throes of this age" (June 12, 1916); and
his model is not the absolute anarchist so much as "the perfect psychologist
[who] has the power to shock or soothe withone and the same topic" (October
26, 1915). As "the organ of the outlandish," the Dadaist also "threatens and
soothes at the same time,"Ball writeson March 2, 1916. "The threatproduces a
defense."Here his immunologicallanguage is almost apotropaic, and FlightOut
ofTimeis peppered withMedusan metaphors (nine dayslater,afterHuelsenbeck
drumsout his primitivistic poems, Ball writes:"the Gorgon's head of a boundless
terror smiles out of the fantastic destruction"). To call mimetic adaptation
apotropaic, however,is not to say that it is sublimatory:Medusa's head is not
transformedinto Athena's shield; a strongmeasure of fear,terror,and agony is
retained. For Ball this heady mix is best captured in the unrulymasks made by
Marcel Janco for the Cabaret soirees: "The motive power of these masks was
conveyedto us.... [They] simplydemanded thattheirwearersstartto
irresistibly
5. As Ball suggests here, the veryapprehension that "there are no laws anymore" mightalso
produce schizophreniceffects.
Taeuber
Sophie
Right. dancing *
inmaskbyMarcelJanco,
CabaretVoltaire,
Zunrch,
1916.Farright:
Janco.
Mask.1919.? 2003Artists
Rights (ARS),New
Society
York/ADAGP,Paris.
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Dada Mime 171
move in a tragic-absurddance.... The horrorof our time,the paralyzingback-
ground of events,is made visible" (May 24, 1916).
fortheDevil
Sympathy
"A wretchedmartyrof all centuries,anointed and sainted, he begs to be
crushed...." CertainlyHuelsenbeck has Ball in mind here, and Ball does commit
his dreams of "humiliations and mortifications" to his diary; his entry for
November28, 1915, reads: "AtnightI am Stephen being stoned. Rocks rain down,
and I feel the ecstasyof one who is being mercilessly
beaten and crushedbystones
for the sake of a little rough pyramid covered with blood." This is beyond
"mediumistic";it is masochistic-a radical passivitynot onlyas a mode of defense
(as Freud might say) but as a form ofjouissance (this is one allure of "self-
disintegration").In Masochismin ModernMan (1941) Theodor Reik analyzesthe
Christof the New Testamentas a masochistwho performsboth linguisticinversions
and ethical subversionsin his parables and paradoxes. His analysisreads like a
case studyof Ball,who practiceshis own imitationof Christ.6In factBall considers
an identificationthatis even more masochistic:"Ifone sideswiththosewho suffer,
must one not also side with those who sufferso much that theyare no longer
recognizable?If one now assumes that Satan's sufferingis infinite,then this is a
dangeroussympathy" (November20, 1915).
The male masochistis politicallyambiguous,to be sure. For Kaja Silverman
this figure"magnifiesthe losses and divisions upon which cultural identityis
based, refusingto be suturedor recompensed."7For Gilles Deleuze, on the other
hand, he epitomizesthe subject in complete control forwhom all relationships
are strictlycontractual.8But these twofacesmightbelong to the same persona. "I
can imagine a time,"Ball writesas earlyas September20, 1915, "whenI willseek
obedience as much as I have disobedience: to the full."
Scham-man
If Ball presentsthe Dadaistas Shaman in Zurichin 1916-17,Max Ernstfigures
the Dadaist as Scham-manin Cologne in 1919-20. To accompany his notorious
"Dada-Early Spring"showin April 1920, Ernstpublishesa littlejournal titledDie
Schammade.The title is one of the slipperiest of his many neologisms. Hans
Richter,the veteranof Zurich Dada, hears both Schamane(shaman) and Scharade
6. "For him therewas no course other than to be a penitent,"writeshis wifeEmmyHennings in
her 1946 Prefaceto FlightOut ofTime(p. lvi). But such is his doubleness thatshe also comparesBall to
the Grand Inquisitor.
7. Kaja Silverman,"Masochismand Male Subjectivity," CameraObscura17 (May 1988), p. 51. Her
argumentis elaborated in Male Subjectivityat theMargins(New York:Routledge, 1992). On masochism
in FrancisPicabia see George Baker,LostObjects(New York:Columbia University dissertation,2000).
8. See Gilles Deleuze, "Coldness and Cruelty,"in Masochism, trans.Jean McNeil (New York:Zone
Books, 1989).
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172 OCTOBER
(charade) in the term,a reading perhaps closer to Ball than to Ernst-though
here they are close enough. Werner Spies tell us that Schammadeis a bucolic
melody,and that"the phrase Schammade schlagen... means to sound the drum or
trumpet signal for retreat."9 This melancholic surrender suits the pose of
masochistic passivity,but a furthercombination is possible as well-of Scham,
which means both "shame" and "genitals" (a telltaleassociation that must have
interestedFreud), or Schamhaar,which means "pubic hair,"with Made, which
means "maggot."10This reading of the neologism renders a nasty image of
maggotypubes, of wormypenises and rottenvaginas,a Medusa's head withlimp
snakes,perhapswitha hintof "maggotyshame" as well. Such a phallic "scam" or
"sham"is a common ployin Dada, and Die Schammade names itforErnst.
TheHat MakestheMan
Ernststages phallic crises in manyof his Dadaist collages and assemblages,
mostof whichare made of discarded things(old printerplates and catalog pages
in the collages, wooden odds and ends in the assemblages). With titles like
Hypertrophic Trophy and Phallustrade, these ricketyfiguresmock any pretense of
phallic autonomy, let alone anyfantasyof modernistautogenesis.Exhibitedin the
"Dada-Early Spring" show,Phallustrade(now lost) was made up mostlyof doll
parts,apparentlyalong the lines of the fourunsteadystacksof semianimatehats
in the famous collage The Hat Makes theMan (1920). "Phallustrade"is another
provocativeneologism:a contractionof "phallus"and "balustrade,"it is laterused
byErnstto model his conception of collage as "the unexpectedmeetingof twoor
more heterogeneous elements."1'Might this be how he remembershis Dadaist
works-as a parade of penile stickfigures,of phallic imposters?
Consider TheHat MakestheMan: the "men" here are both mechanical (they
resemble four pistons) and commodified (they are nothing but hats). A quasi-
schizophrenic inscriptionon the collage reads: "seed-covered stacked-upman
seedless water-former well-fittingnervous systemalso tightly-fittednerves" (in
German)and "thehat makesthe man,styleis the tailor"(in French).PerhapsErnst
picturesthe crazyevolutionofa newkindof man,witha newsortof nervoussystem,
constructedout of standardpartsand commodityimages,a mass ornamentof one.
Certainlyhe pushesmimeticadaptationto a parodicextreme:here man has indeed
become a mad hatter;the only true readymade,he is now a mere appendage to
his own creations,a mereeffectof theautomatisms ofproductionand consumption.
9. WernerSpies,Max ErnstCollages:
TheInvention
oftheSurrealist trans.JohnWilliam
Universe,
Gabriel (New York:HarryN. Abrams,1991), p. 79.
10. Ursula Dustmann suggests "maggotyshame" in Max Ernstin Koln, ed. Wulf Herzogenrath
(Cologne: RheinlandVerlag,1980), p. 118.
11. Max Ernst,BeyondPainting(New York:Wittenbornand Schultz,1948), p. 16.
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174 OCTOBER
Negative
Expressionism
The DadaistShaman or Scham-man is notwithoutforerunners. For Ball Dada is
"a synthesisof the romantic,dandyistic,and demonic theoriesof the nineteenth
century"(May23, 1917). "The greatisolatedmindsof thelastepoch havea tendency
to persecution,epilepsy,and paralysis," he writeson November3, 1915. "They are
obsessed, rejected,and maniacal, all forthe sake of theirwork.They turnto the
public as ifitshouldinterestitselfin theirsickness;theygiveit thematerialforassess-
ing theircondition."Ball sees Nietzsche,the subjectof his dissertation, as the great
precedent of thismimetic for
performance; Benjamin it is Baudelaire,who had the
"physiognomy of a mime" and an "empathy with inorganic things."12 Theodor
Adorno turnsthis particularintuitioninto a general thesis: "Artis modern art
throughmimesisof the hardenedand alienated,"he writesin Aesthetic Theory (1970).
"Baudelaireneitherrailedagainstnor portrayedreification; he protestedagainstitin
the experienceof itsarchetypes."13 Both Benjaminand Adornoread this"dandyistic
and demonic"genealogythroughthe optic of Dada. In Philosophy ofModernMusic
(1948) Adorno writesof Stravinsky: "Musical infantilismbelongs to a movement
whichdesignedschizophrenicmodels everywhere as a mimeticdefenseagainstthe
insanity of war; around 1918, Stravinsky was attacked as a Dadaist."14And in a
scattered note on "Negative Expressionism,"Benjamin writes of the Russian
Eccentrics,a troupe of avant-gardeactorswho liked to mimiccircusperformers:
"Clownand naturalpeoples-sublation of innerimpulsesand of the bodycenter....
Dislocation of shame. Expression of true feeling: of despair, displacement.
Consequent discoveryof deep expressivecapacity:the man remainsseated as the
chairon whichhe sitsis pulled out fromunderhim.... Connectionto Picabia."15
Mussel-man
For Benjamin the ultimate purpose of mimetic adaptation is "to survive
civilization,"to remainseated afterthe chair is pulled out.16Such is the ultimate
12. WalterBenjamin, CharlesBaudelaire:A LyricPoetin theEra ofHigh Capitalism,
trans.HarryZohn
(London: New LeftBooks, 1973), p. 55.
13. Theodor W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory,trans.Robert Hullot-Kentor(Minneapolis: Universityof
Minnesota Press,1997), p. 21. Benjamin: "The unique importanceof Baudelaire resides in his being
the firstand the mostunflinchingto have taken the measureof the self-estrangedhuman being,in the
double sense of acknowledgingthisbeing and fortifying it witharmoragainstthe reifiedworld" (The
ArcadesProject,trans.Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press,1999], p. 322).
14. Theodor W. Adorno,Philosophy ofModernMusic,trans.Anne G. Mitchelland WesleyV. Blomster
(New York:SeaburyPress,1980), p. 168.
15. Benjamin, GesammelteSchriften 6, ed. Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhauser
(Frankfurt:SuhrkampVerlag,1972-91), p. 132; thanksto MichaelJenningsforthe translationof this
fragment.For a rich account of this genealogy,which Benjamin extends to Charlie Chaplin and
MickeyMouse, see Esther Leslie, Hollywood Flatlands:Animation,CriticalTheory,and theAvant-Garde
(London: Verso,2002).
16. In a 1931 fragmenton Mickey Mouse, Benjamin writes: "In these films,mankind makes
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Dada Mime 175
goal of the Dada mime as well, and finally it is why Ball and Ernst practice the
buffoonery of "the bashed ego."17 More desperate than the cynical reason of
Duchamp and Picabia, the bashed ego resists in the "form of unresisting
accommodation."18 For many critics this is the political limitation of Dada: it
advances a critique that flaunts its own futility,a defense that knows the damage is
already done. After Ball designates the Dadaist "as the organ of the outlandish,"
he adds: "But since it turns out to be harmless, the spectator begins to laugh at
himself about his fear" (March 2, 1916). Yet this catharsis is not purging; it is
sickening, and it only compounds the hopelessness; paradoxically, however,it is this
very hopelessness that gives the bashed ego its critical edge, its unaccommodated
negativity.19 "The farce of these times, reflected in our nerves, has reached a
degree of infantilism and godlessness that cannot be expressed in words"
(February 10, 1917).
Not even "a man without qualities," the Dadaist is a man without a man; the
opposite of the Super-Man, he is an Un-Man.20 The Dadaists virtualized this figure
of dehumanization as a formof defense-against world war,brutal industrialization,
nationalist madness, repressive government. They could not have foreseen that
such dehumanization would be realized in the concentration camps.21 In many
preparationsto survivecivilization"(Selected Writings:Volume II, 1927-1934,ed. MichaelJenningset al.
[Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1999], p. 545). He uses similarlines in "Karl Kraus"
(1931) and "Experienceand Poverty"(1933).
17. I associate the strategyof mimetic adaptation (or better: mimetic exacerbation) with this
challenge of Marx: "petrifiedsocial conditions must be made to dance by singingthem their own
song" (Karl Marx, "A Contributionto the Critique of Hegel's Philosophyof Right,Introduction,"in
EarlyWritings, ed. T. B. Bottomore [New York:McGraw-Hill,1964], p. 47; translationmodified). It is
also akin to "the kynicalirony"thatPeterSloterdijkascribesto Dada in CritiqueofCynicalReason(trans.
Michael Eldred [Minneapolis:Universityof Minnesota Press,1987]); I borrowthe term"bashed ego"
fromhim (see pp. 391-409).
18. Sloterdijk,CritiqueofCynicalReason,p. 441.
19. This catharsisis less Aristotelianthan Barthesian:"What liberatesmetaphor,symbol,emblem
forpoetic mania,whatmanifestsitspowerof subversion,is the preposterous"(RolandBarthesbyRoland
Barthes,trans.RichardHoward [NewYork:Hill and Wang,1977], p. 81).
20. Benjaminwas also fascinatedbythisfigure;see Leslie, Hollywood Flatlands,pp. 80-90.
21. In If ThisIs a Man (1958) Primo Levi reportsthat "the old ones" at Auschwitzused the term
Muselmann"to describe the weak, the inept, those doomed to selection." Levi calls them "the
drowned":"an anonymousmass,continuallyrenewedand alwaysidentical,of nonmen who marchand
labor in silence,the divinesparkdead withinthem...." Levi continues:"Theycrowdmymemorywith
theirfacelesspresences,and ifI could enclose all the evil of our timein one image,I would choose this
image whichis familiarto me: an emaciated man,withhead dropped and shoulderscurved,on whose
face and in whose eyesnot a traceof a thoughtis to be seen." See If Thisis a Man and TheTruce,trans.
StuartWool (London: Abacus,1987), pp. 94, 96. T.J. Clarkcommentson thispassagevis-a-vis modernism
in Farewellto an Idea (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UniversityPress, 1999), p. 407. Sadly,given present
circumstances,Muselmannmeans Muslim.
In TheTruce(1963) Levi does not leave thisfigureanonymous,but thatis littlerelief:"Hurbinek
was a nobody,a child of death, a child of Auschwitz.He looked about threeyearsold, no one knew
anythingof him, he could not speak and he had no name; that curious name, Hurbinek,had been
givento him byus, perhaps byone of the women who had interpretedwiththose syllablesone of the
inarticulatesounds thatthe baby let out now and again. He was paralyzedfromthe waistdown,with
atrophiedlegs,as thinas sticks;but his eyes,lostin his triangularand wastedface,flashedterribly alive,
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176 OCTOBER
waysthe camps renderthe figureof the Dadaist mime null and void, but perhaps
not entirelyso. Perhapsan artistlike AndyWarholsuggestswhata postwarversion
of thisfiguremightbe, a versionrefittedto consumersociety.In the early1960s,
about the same timethatWarholproduced his "Death in America"images,Marcel
Broodthaers wrote his Pense-Bete poems, the title of which alone points to an
affinitywiththe Dadaist mime. Broodthaersworkedto make reificationat once
literaland allegorical,and to mime a preemptiveembrace that mightalso be a
reflexivedefense. His "La Moule" (the Mussel) reads: "This clever thing has
avoided society'smold. / She's cast herselfin her veryown. / Other look-alikes
sharewithher the anti-sea./ She's perfect."22
fullof demand, assertion,of the willto break loose, to shatterthe tomb of his dumbness.The speech
he lacked, which no one had bothered to teach him, the need of speech charged his stare with
explosiveurgency:it was a stare both savage and human, even mature,a judgment,whichnone of us
could support,so heavywas itwithforceand anguish" (Ibid., p. 197).
22. See October
42 (Fall 1987), pp. 26-29. Broodthaerswas a studentof reificationalso in the sense
thathe was a studentof Lucien Goldmann,who was in turna studentof Georg Lukacs. In Pense-Bete "La
Moule" is paired with"La Meduse" (the Jellyfish):"She's perfect/ No mold / Nothing but body /
Pomegranate [grenade] set in sand. / Kiss of lips unspoiled. / Bride. Alwaysa bride, in dazzling
terms./ Crystalof scorn,of greatprice at last,gob of spit,wave,wavering."
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