Hugo Ball

Hugo Ball
Born (1886-02-22)22 February 1886
Pirmasens, Germany
Died 14 September 1927(1927-09-14) (aged 41)
Sant'Abbondio, Switzerland
Nationality German
Known for Poetry
Movement Dada

Hugo Ball (German: [bal]; 22 February 1886 – 14 September 1927) was a German author, poet and one of the leading Dada artists. He was a pioneer in the development of sound poetry.

Life and work

Hugo Ball was born in Pirmasens, Germany, and was raised in a middle-class Catholic family.[1] He studied sociology and philosophy at the universities of Munich and Heidelberg (1906–1907). In 1910, he moved to Berlin in order to become an actor and collaborated with Max Reinhardt. At the beginning of the World War I he tried joining the army as a volunteer, but was denied enlistment for medical issues. After witnessing the invasion of Belgium, he was disillusioned, saying: "The war is founded on a glaring mistake, men have been confused with machines." Considered a traitor in his country, he crossed the frontier with the cabaret performer and poet Emmy Hennings – whom he would marry in 1920 – and settled in Zürich, Switzerland. There, Ball continued his interest in anarchism, and in Mikhail Bakunin in particular; he also worked on a book of translations of works by Bakunin, which never got published. Although interested in anarchist philosophy, he nonetheless rejected it for its militant aspects, and viewed it as only a means to his personal goal of socio-political enlightenment.[2]

In 1916, Hugo Ball created the Dada Manifesto, making a political statement about his views on the terrible state of society and acknowledging his dislike for philosophies in the past claiming to possess the ultimate truth. The same year as the Manifesto, in 1916, Ball wrote his poem "Karawane", a poem consisting of nonsensical words. The meaning, however, resides in its meaninglessness, reflecting the chief principle behind Dadaism. Some of his other best known works include the poem collection 7 schizophrene Sonette, the drama Die Nase des Michelangelo, a memoir of the Zürich period Flight Out of Time: A Dada Diary, and a biography of Hermann Hesse, entitled Hermann Hesse. Sein Leben und sein Werk (1927).

Ball's 1916 poem, "Karawane"
Ball, reading "Karawane", Club Voltaire, 1916

As co-founder of the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, he led the Dada movement in Zürich, and is one of the people credited with naming the movement "Dada", by allegedly choosing the word at random from a dictionary. His companion and future wife, Emmy Hennings, was also a member of Dada.

His involvement with the Dada movement lasted approximately two years. He then worked for a short period as a journalist for Die Freie Zeitung in Bern. After returning to Catholicism in July 1920, Ball retired to the canton of Ticino where he lived a religious and relatively poor life. He contributed to the journal Hochland during this time.[3] He died in Sant'Abbondio, Switzerland, of stomach cancer on 14 September 1927.[1]

His poem "Gadji beri bimba" was later adapted to the song "I Zimbra" on the 1979 Talking Heads album Fear of Music; he received a writing credit for the song on the track listing. A voice-cut-up collage of his poem "Karawane" by German artist Kommissar Hjuler, member of Boris Lurie's NO!art movement, was released as LP at Greek label Shamanic Trance in 2010. "Karawane" was also set to music in 2012 by Australian composer Stephen Whittington as an "anti-song cycle" of seventeen songs – one for each line of the poem – lasting approximately two minutes.[4] The same poem and its historical context was used by Esa-Pekka Salonen for his 28-minute composition for mixed choir and orchestra, Karawane.[5]

Bibliography

Bibliography in English

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Ball, Hugo (1974). Flight Out of Time: A Dada Diary by Hugo Ball. trans. Ann Raimes. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-31841-8. ISBN 0-670-31841-8, ISBN 0-670-31841-8, ISBN 0-670-31841-8, ISBN 0-670-31841-8.
  2. ↑ "I have examined myself carefully. I could never bid chaos welcome, blow up bridges, and do away with ideas. I am not an anarchist." Flight out of Time, Introduction. University of California Press (1996)
  3. ↑ Mehring, Reinhard (2014). Carl Schmitt: A Biography. Polity. pp. 151–153. ISBN 0745652247.
  4. ↑ "Karawane", Robert Macfarlane and Stephen Whittington on YouTube
  5. ↑ Karawane (2014), details and analysis, Chester Music
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