Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings Found Dadaism

By emphasizing chance, randomness and absurdity in art, Dada stands as a foundational movement in the development of digital generative art. Writer Hugo Ball and the poet and performer Emmy Hennings founded Dadaism in the midst of WWI’s disillusionment from their satirical nightclub in Zurich, the Cabaret Voltaire. From there he published a magazine in which Ball wrote, “will bear the name ‘Dada’. Dada, Dada, Dada, Dada.” Frank Popper acknowledged Dada, along with Constructivism and Futurism, as one of the first quarter of the twentieth century’s three most important movements. Dada eventually formed the basis of Surrealism, Conceptual art, Neo-Dada, Fluxus and the chance elements of generative art. It’s impact cannot be overstated.