Apr 25, 2010

SLIDESHOW -- The Merzweb: Kurt Schwitters And The Inverted Web

Kurt Schwitters was eccentric even by Dadaist standards.

His collages and assemblages were erratic aggregations of found stuff pulled together in intricate ways that were never ruled by format.They weren't so much medleys of colour and shape but fleeting ideas thrown together on , initially , a flat surface. 

But by the time he got to making Merzbau -- via up-scaling --  he was creating Merz environments that like a Bower Bird, drew  their museum of Detritus from all over
Merz:...were usually collages incorporating found objects, such as bus tickets, old wire and fragments of newsprint, Merz also included artist's periodicals, sculptures, sound poems and what would later be called "installations".
While I've often wondered about the relationship between Merz and Montage (in the Soviet sense), Schwitters egocentric approach was consciously  devoid of meaning. It was a process but one without intrinsic purpose.

Here, web designer,  Dave Mee uses Schwitters  work as a template to outline a schematic overview of  the web  as a series of continuous dynamic relationships where information is ceaselessly being remade, added to and shifted about.

I think it is a brilliant outline.