Making an Art of Creativity: The Cognitive Science of Duchamp and Dada

Dada is the infant terrible of art history, an anarchic movement that is typically referred to as nihilistic, pathological, and firmly enshrined within the modernist paradigm and the context of WWI. Through the lens of classical, romantic, and psychoanalytic notions, it certainly appears almost antithetical to creativity. Yet from a cognitive point-of-view, Dada marks a watershed in the understanding of creativity, and articulates principles of creative cognition with surprising insight and precision many decades ahead of science.