Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Dada: Keep one reading path; rotate and sever the rest
- Type
- Set in Dada's manner (Collide weights, directions and cases in one plane), and let Merz's lettering (Salvaged letterpress fragments—mismatched sizes, partial words, stray numerals) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Dada's material (Letterpress black, red, off-white; bind the accidents with repetition); bring in exactly one thing from Merz (Aged tickets, wrappers, stamps and torn print, glued with visible edges).
- Colour
- Build on #efe6d0, #d7362f, #161513 and admit one accent from #dbd9c9, #ab3120, #25191e.
Where they fight
- Dada and Merz both belong to Avant-garde, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Dada Not decorative messiness. Decide which authority or custom you are objecting to.
- Merz Picking images of junk from a stock library erases the history the found object carries and leaves applied grunge. Fragments are not nostalgic decoration, they must hold the axes of the composition.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Dada (style, 1916–1920s) and their accent from Merz (style, 1919–1948). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Dada exists for: cultural events and statements that doubt common sense, or making voice, noise and collision come before meaning. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Dada - Rotated type - Fragments of sound - Collisions of scale - Unbalanced margins Composition: Keep one reading path; rotate and sever the rest. Type and lettering: Collide weights, directions and cases in one plane. ## Accent comes from Merz, used sparingly - Pasted refuse such as tickets and wrappers - Fragments of torn type and numerals - Diagonal axes of construction - The colour of aged paper Let one material quality come from it: Aged tickets, wrappers, stamps and torn print, glued with visible edges. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #efe6d0, carry the structure in #d7362f and #161513, and let a single accent come from #ab3120. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: rebellion, play, exhilaration, technique, nostalgia. ## Where they fight - Dada and Merz both belong to Avant-garde, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - Dada: Not decorative messiness. Decide which authority or custom you are objecting to. - Merz: Picking images of junk from a stock library erases the history the found object carries and leaves applied grunge. Fragments are not nostalgic decoration, they must hold the axes of the composition. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Dada 1916–1920s / Style / Avant-garde
Deliberately dislocates meaning and order, making authority itself the material of the joke.
- Merz 1919–1948 / Style / Avant-garde
A one-man movement flying as its banner a single word clipped from a bank advertisement, building compositions out of nothing but discards such as tickets, wrapping paper and torn type. Treating rubbish as structural material, and placing typographic fragments abstractly, it settled the vocabulary of collage and magazine design.
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