"DADA WEEKS" FESTIVAL

DADA FEST WOCHEN - art festival of live and media art held in Zurich to celebrate the spirit of the Cabaret Voltaire.

The festival was in the huge Sihlpapierfabrik complex, with workshops, media labs and multiple performance spaces. The three DaDa weeks saw artists from across Europe perform and exhibit installations and diverse works.
As well as Luna Nera, other groups invited were Antena Theatre from Prague and Blue Noses from Siberia, along with many individual artists. In addition media-artists demonstrated their success in broadcasting the festival on pirate TV.
Curated by Mark Divo, the entire festival was artist-run, with artists acting as administrators, technicians, bar personnel and cleaners. Sponsorship was diverse - from Pro Helvetia to monster secondhand empire Brockiland, who supplied all of the furnishings.

LUNA NERA 'PAINTING MACHINE'

Luna Nera created two live art pieces both engaging with ideas generated by the early Dada group in Zurich. In homage to this prototype art group, London-based art group Luna Nera created two live art pieces based on ideas developed by Tristan Tzara.

This work "painting machine" explores Tzara's idea of the human machine: we created a machine that takes blood from a person and pumps it into a machine which them "paints" on prepared canvases. We did it as a performance with the artists wearing medical costume. We then sold the paintings.

The "painting machine" was also influenced by an idea of Raymond Rousell in 1912 & never built. Although Roussell never made the painting machine, Swiss artist Jean Tinguely used Rousell's plans to build a series of painting machines. Luna Nera took their ideas and freely mixed them in with our own macabre sensibility.

The second piece "Cut Up and Die" used Tzara's idea of cutups - both text and video. Using the "information overload" of books and newspapers, the information was fed into a food processor, which eventually erupted. Performances by Luna Nera with Milo Taylor.