The Dada Movement began around 1915, largely in reaction to the insanity of World War I. Although historically remembered as an art movement, it was in fact just the opposite: an anti-art movement. Dada attempted, through a combination of bizarre masks, outrageous performances, nonsense poetry, and artworks made of trash, to challenge all contemporary notions of sense and aesthetics, and destroy history to begin anew. The movement failed in this attempt, and was eventually absorbed into history itself.
In the 1960s, events known as "Happenings" appeared. These were inexplicable performances, often involving audience participation, nudity, and shock tactics, intended to jolt the viewer out of a complacent mindset and into an awareness of the moment. Fluxus and Situationist International were groups of artists that were central to the era of Happenings. Performances included randomly composed music, paintings using body parts as brushes, throwing pianos off rooftops and various smearing of food on people and objects.
Conceptual art escapes the troubles of paint and material by existing solely in the realm of the mind. Conceptual art can take the form of spoken word, written instruction or description, or less clearly defined means of communication. The purest form of conceptual art would be a work that existed solely in a person's mind and never communicated at all.
Outsider Art is a catchall term that refers to the creations of people who have not received any formal training in the arts and are frequently associated with less privileged groups and the mentally unstable. French painter Jean Dubuffet helped to popularize this genre through his research on the subject and his huge collection of works. In 1996, the American Visionary Art Museum opened in Baltimore, dedicated solely to works of Outsider Art.
Information Art is a relatively new genre that is emerging in conjunction with computers and the Internet. Artists such as Tim Schwartz, who creates works that have more in common with data systems than conventional art, use the immense possibilities afforded to artists through the manipulation of information in novel ways. In a typical work, he developed an algorithm that connected an analog gauge with a Google search, enabling him to create visual representations of levels of public interest in various issues. A humorous example is a gauge labeled "Paris," with "France" at one extreme and "Hilton" at the other. The gauge tracks levels of Google searches for Paris, France and Paris Hilton, and the pointer on the gauge responds accordingly.