Check out Jean Arp's boomboom

In the Dada Manifesto, it states that, “everyone dances to his [or her] own personal boomboom.” But it’s tough to say what Jean Arp’s personal boomboom sounded like based on the outlandishness of works like Birds in an Aquarium. We aren’t told what kind of birds are in this aquarium, but because this a Dadaist work of art we can pretty much assume that it wasn’t a penguin, puffin or even semiaquatic duck that has been put in an aquarium. No, Arp wanted us to picture something more disturbing, like a parrot or an ostrich under water just to mess with our minds…the bastard. 

This work was created a few years after World War I and as such was in a position to offer a remedy to the brutality and destruction of war. The Dada answer to this though is ridiculousness – pointing to the fact that there is no meaning to art, as there was no meaning for the war. Now this seems a little pathetic but Dadaism’s goal was quite the opposite. They took a stand against the woozy need for answers and logic as to why the war happened. The manifesto states, “We have thrown out the cry-baby in us. Any infiltration of this kind is candied diarrhea.” Now as soon as you get that disgusting image out of your mind, you can see that the Dadaists may have had a point, although they did have a very peculiar way of expressing themselves. Works like Birds in an Aquarium caused shit to hit the fan in the exact way that Europe needed at the time.