Intertwixt 23: Suburban Dada

Random turn this week. Pulling off into the ditch. Driving off into the woods. I don’t want to recap or pontificate. I’m angry. I want to yell. I want chaos.

I’ve had an idea for a while now, curdling in my brain. The more chaotic the world gets, the more it invites acts of artistic chaos. I think about Dada.

A few weeks ago I visited Cabaret Voltaire, the original birthplace of the Dada movement in Zurich, Switzerland. A few XR friends showed me the way after a few days spent at the AUREA Conference in Rust, Germany.

I expected a dingy Star Wars cantina-type place, bustling and dim and cryptic, full of music and mystery. Instead it was a stark, clean, austere sort of museum space. Cabaret Voltaire is a cafe, too, but it’s really a rebuilt archive of what once was. And I have no idea what once was.

But: Dada. I’m not an expert. But I think about the idea. Artistic revolt against the system. Rejection of the world that birthed untold horrors at the start of the century. Manifestoes and shock art. I’ve always wondered about the explosion of wild art at the start of the 20th century, as the world was accelerating and spinning into chaos. Now, in 2026, I feel similar feelings.

I hope for art that unravels. I need a hero right now. I dream of the power of catharsis. I throw my head against difficult books and jarring films. Can I take real shock of the new, though? Am I just posing?

I am, after all, a suburban dad.

I am middle-age. I have kids. I live in a suburban New Jersey town. I work a steady job. How am I anything like a revolutionary artist. I am not, of course.

But I hope, and fear, and dream, of the art chaos.

Dadaism existed because the world made no sense. Right now everything feels like scattershot chaos, daily overflows of too many things, too many takes, too much horror, too many demagogues, too much capitalism, big money and big power and co-opted social media and AI slop spills and can everything just fucking stop, for a few moments?

Or maybe it needs more accelerating.

I wonder about a generation of artists and pranksters who move faster than the fastest slop. Co-opting and melting the melt further. Being more absurd than the absurd. New Slop Aesthetic. Post-Slop NeoDada. 

Of course this happened already before. Absurdist theater. Fluxus. Punk. Memes? Shitposting? Has it already happened? I want more. Or I want my own.

In my own creative writing, I’m drifting there. In my preferred art tastes, I’m halfway there. Is this what my Sora experiments were? Or am I just co-opted by the machine? Don’t answer.

When things get stressful for me, I have a weird urge to keep piling it on. Does the world want to stress me out? Pile it on. Bring on all the chaos. 

I don’t actually feel this way all the time. Only in the fever moments. I get scared. I worry about the bad ends. I try to find comfort and joy. I fear things ending. I stay up at night thinking about it.

I’m trying to come up with some loose and chaotic community art projects I can do in my own town. Like yoga for improv. Augusto Boal’s joker, for the current moment and somewhere near my local coffee shop near the train station. Can I do this? Why not. Life is short and time is stuck in a loop.

I am Suburban Dada, in my mind.

Does anyone want to join me?

***

Oh wait. You wanted actual tech thoughts this week?

Ok. Apple is expected to have new products announced. A cheaper MacBook? I just want a hybrid iPad that can become a Mac if needed. That may not happen for years. It’s a shame, because it’ll need to for glasses to form a seamless connective tissue across devices.

I wore incredibly small smart glasses this winter and they don’t do enough of what I’d like. Expect this refrain to continue.

An AR theater piece in New York running till April 4 put me in a different state of mind than just wearing AR glasses at home. It’s the presence of other people doing it too.

Nintendo/Pokemon made a weirdo mini Game Boy music player that just plays Pokemon music for $70. Come on. Make an actual Game Boy with preloaded games already.

Reading:

And that’s it.