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RAOUL HAUSMANN'S REVOLUTIONARY MEDIA: DADA PERFORMANCE, PHOTOMONTAGE AND THE CYBORG
Author(s) -
BIRO MATTHEW
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
art history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8365
pISSN - 0141-6790
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8365.2007.00531.x
Subject(s) - identity (music) , portrait , human sexuality , art , computer science , art history , literature , sociology , aesthetics , gender studies
This article argues that Hausmann's poetry and performance practices of 1918 and 1919 prepared the ground for the cybernetic imagery that became prevalent in his caricatures, photomontages and assemblages of 1920. Through an examination of Hausmann's poetry and performance strategies, his concept of human identity, and his understanding of the relationship between sexuality and social revolution, a new understanding of Hausmann's visual concerns is developed. In particular, this article investigates why Hausmann's portraits often undermined their sitter's identity; why Hausmann sometimes emphasized sexuality in his representations; and why, in addition to reminding their viewers of mechanized war, Hausmann's images of the human–machine interface anticipated many of the ideas inherent in the concept of the cyborg developed in the later twentieth century.