« The word » was of such central importance to Ball’s ideas that one might well say that his last Cabaret Voltaire performance was the summit of his active dadaism. Reading his diaries, one soon realizes that for him language was far more than a tool for discourse or a medium for public provocation. Arp noted that Ball’s language is « a magic treasure and connects him with the language of light and darkness. Through language too man can grow into real life.” Though seemingly overpoetic, this is not too far from Ball’s own interpretation.
If we tend to think of dadaism in general as a kind of aesthetic anarchism, then Ball’s unique version deserves the name aesthetic mysticism. Not the mysticism of those within Christianity, whose « reality » is far removed from the sensuous world and who deny its importance…
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Juan Pablo Macías