Sunday, September 2, 2007

You Know I Couldn't Pass Up This One



ZURICH, SWITZERLAND—The Wikipedia entry on Dada—the World War I–era "anti-art" movement characterized by random nonsense words, bizarre photocollage, and the repurposing of pre-existing material to strange and disturbing effect—may or may not have been severely vandalized, sources said Monday.

"This is either totally messed up or completely accurate," said Reed College art history major Ted Brendon. "There's a mustache drawn on the photo of Marcel Duchamp, the font size keeps changing [too easy], and halfway through, the type starts going in a circle []. Also, the majority of the actual entry is made up of Krazy Kat cartoons with abstract poetry written in the dialogue balloons."

The fact that the web page continually reverts to a "normal" state, observers say, is either evidence that ongoing vandalization is being deleted through vigilant updating, or a deliberate statement on the impermanence of superficial petit-bourgeois culture in the age of modernity.

2 comments:

Porlock Junior said...

Wait a minute. I thought the continual reversion of the page to a "normal" state was evidence that Wikipedia was unable to stop the vandalism. No matter how many times the editors put back the Krazy Kat kartoons, somebody keeps replacing them with normal prose.

James Killus said...

I'm not sure. I think it has something to do with that man in the corner who keeps trying to repair the smashed urinals.