Dadaism, AI, and Madness: Finding Meaning in the Absurd

Recently as I venture into AI art I’ve been exploring the concept of Dadaism. Dadaism is an old art movement that came about after World War I that explored the absurdity of the art world and capitalism. It was a reaction to the war’s senseless destruction and rejected things like logic, reason and traditional artistic values. It focused on satire, absurity and chaos.

How Dadaism Relates to Mental Health

With mental illness, things often feel chaotic and out of sorts. Many days I just feel off or have to fight off strange thoughts and feelings in order to function. Dadaism allows for us to lean into it and embrace that chaos in a healthy way. Many times we see order and patterns where everyone else sees madness.

There is a cathartic feeling of embracing that chaos and feeling like you are channeling and controlling it in some way. I know for me creating weird things makes me feel both calm and accomplished. I see beauty where others just see a mess. Its how my mind has always worked. Having bipolar and autism I always had this contrarian way about me. No matter what the main crowd or popular kids were doing, I always did the opposite just because I wanted to see what I could do on my own. That and because of my diagnoses, I tend to not get along well with others, especially before I was diagnosed. Now, I tend to want to be contrary when I’m being told or given ultimatums on what I should or shouldn’t do. Usually when people do this to me, they don’t like my answer. Once again, just how I’m wired.

AI’s Relationship with Dadaism

One begs the question, as AI relies on patterns and order, yet you can use it to create dadaist pieces, is it true Dadaism? I’m not a tech guy so I don’t know all the ones and zeros behind the machine. I know when I put in the most nonsense prompts I get things like the image above which I kind of love. Sometimes I like to do “real” things but I also enjoy the bizarre.

I think AI’s role in dadaism is more in that it defies the norm and accepted outlets. Traditional artists, many of them anyway, get really angry over the sight of AI art. Some get outright agressive. I’ve lost a few friends just for dabbling with it. I love art, all art, hand made and other wise, but I won’t be intimidated into accepting a norm that has only ever benefited a select few.

I don’t sell my AI work. I post them on X and on this blog. I don’t care of someone steals it and uses it for something else. I don’t really care if someone steals my traditional art. I tried for years to sell my art, and while it was hit or miss, that is not my reason for embracing dadaism and AI art. I saw how many artist friends were hurting from lack of sales, their self worth crushed from not being accepted into shows and galleries and major depression hitting because some bigger name artist copied their work and sold it.

Its an endless circle and I don’t believe there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Just a hamster on a wheel. I think the system and idea of how art is interpreted and who accepts it and why is flawed. So here I am. We’ll see how it goes, but so far I’m having fun with it. It’s been both scary and freeing to embrace AI and Dadaism. Scary in that I worry about losing friends or backlash, but freeing in that I realized I’m just too old to let others dictate to me how I express myself.

The Role of Absurdity in Healing

This is huge especially if someone is a perfectionist. When I draw by hand and try to daw people I get so frustrated when it doesn’t come out perfect. So I lean into my imperfection and turn it into an absurdist piece of madness and fun. Some people get it, others just thinks it looks like a toddler did it. Maybe I was never meant to be a great artist, but this is how I express myself using a lot of different mediums. Its been freeing and healing for me and gives me purpose.

The Future of AI, Art, and Madness

Its a wild time right now so this is all hard to say what will happen. I think AI is here and was inevitable the minute it was let out of the bag. What happens with it is up to all of us. Pushing back against it constantly is an uphill battle. They have piles of money and all the resources in the world.

Then there is the simple fact that most people, non artists and lay people just don’t care if an image is AI or not. They see a cool picture and they are drawn to it and never gave the format or how it came about another thought. This is why I decided to go this route. Yes there may be some pushback, but as a whole people are pretty accepting of it realizing its here to stay. Hell, its in all of our phones and gadgets by now.

So this is where we are. For those of us with mentall illness, I recommend exploring all art, AI and traditional and embracing the chaos and madness of both. Letting your mind be free and not putting limits on your creativity is a healthy and enjoyable thing. I’m enjoying this journey so far, and really enjoy breaking the norms and forging my own path. I feel dadaism shows us there isn’t one right way to do things, and we all have multiple paths and choices. Tech is going to advance whether we want it to or not. Its a matter of if we let it run us over or take control of it in anyway we can to create our own chaos as the world spins more and more out of control.

The post Dadaism, AI, and Madness: Finding Meaning in the Absurd first appeared on The Artsy Brain.