An art movement in the 1910s reacted to the horrors of the Great War (aka WWI) by railing against all semblances of logic, order, or meaning. I think it's back.

The exact meaning of the word "Dada" is unknown. Some speculate it just means "yes, yes" from the Romanian. Others insist that it deliberately has no meaning at all and that's the point. Whatever the word means, the movement primarily one of utter nonsense, irrationality, and chaos... aided by a profound cynicism stemming from the terrible predicament (the first world war and the dawn of modern warfare) that science and reason had led us to. While there was no collective aesthetic (like the enforced playfulness of Rococo) but works in the form of collage were popular, as were pre-surrealist illogical landscapes.

There's art these days going on in museums and things, it's true... Still, I can't shake the feeling that it's primarily a bunch of wankers chortling at one another about how inaccessible they've managed to become. In the meantime, some amazing things are being done by—for lack of a better label—the Boing Boing set: dressing up like zombies and mobbing downtown businesses, intense rivalries between the fictional stereotypes of pirates and ninjas [sic], a formalized dialect for adorable pets, and robust religions made up for the sole purpose (never admitted to) of pissing off other religions. All of these ideas are loosely but not entirely connected and online economies have sprung up to support them.

There's already been a Neo-Dada movement (in the 60s) and it would be hard to label what's going on now as distinctly Dada—as it replaces the critique of rationality with a distinctly nerdy science bent. But the new and old do share a general distaste for the faux sincerity of the establishment and contain an implicit attack on alienation by institutional means. Whether it's religion or technology or public space, if feeling like it actually belongs to someone else has left you apathetic and disenchanted, put on a ridiculous costume and take it back. Then blog about it so others can follow your example.

Protecting the cultural commons might be the proud point-of-intersection for all of these seemingly random phenomena. The lack of any sort of copyright for "I has a flavor" allows an entire community to use and develop it. One might go so far as saying that this movement (which, if they ever admitted to being, would only do so ironically) is working hard to create a modern mythology so twisted and ridiculous that it just may be resistant to further exploitation.

Of course, once Dada went Surrealist it started making some serious money.