Dear Mbo --

Dada was an international, avant-grade art and literary movement that flourished between 1915 and 1922. The Dadaists' declared purpose was to protest the senseless violence of World War I, which they believed had made all established moral and aesthetic values meaningless. The term itself means "hobbyhorse" in French and was supposedly chosen at random from the dictionary. Dada promulgated antiart and nonsense, delcaring that art did not depend in any way on established rules or on craftsmanship; the only law was that of chance, and the only reality that of the imagination. Dada is often viewed as nihilistic, but it can also be seen as a kind of thoughtful irrationality, a way toward liberation achieved by penetrating into the unknown regions of the mind.

There ya go, Áine