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merZels (experimental anim's)
See our featured presentation: -[twill-wert-kkkkh]-
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Intro
The concept of "mertz" (also, "merts", "merz"; but not nertz)
was originated by a chance encounter of some
fallen news papers on which Kurt Schwitters happened
to see the word "CommertzBank" - bank of commerce.
And in a slightly improbably burst of genius he
came up with mertz - which is a slang sort of
expression (in German) for "crap"; not to be
confused with Schist ??sp?? which is German for Merde (shit).
Regardless, thus began (or so the story goes) one of
the most important aspects of Dada - for indeed he
was of that tree of the art orchard. Another
example (and equally improbably but most likely
true) was that as Unkle Kurt was (ahem) exiting
Hitler's Germany, he handed over his travel
papers, passport, permission to travel, license
for a un-tamed decimal point, etc. The official
threw them to the ground and said something to
the effect of "get out here!".
Years later Schwitters (for he is also known by
that name) came across the documents in a drawer
and now that he had a nice place to stared at
them realising how important they had once been
to him and his escape. And now they just lay
there (in the drawer as papers are often want
to do) and realised that they too had been
transformed into mertz. This became the basis
for one of his grandest experiments in dada:
"Opened by the Postal Department for Inspection"
(as the Posts division was in charge of the borders)
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