Absurdism in an Age of Uncertainty
Words by Ennis Cehic
Photographs by Robin Ek
This story originally appeared in Matters Journal issue 4.
How do we deal with a world gone bonkers? Laugh at it, writes Ennis Cehic.
In early 2017, an official-looking sign that read “no helmet = no run” appeared on a pole at Bondi beach. It threatened fines unless joggers wore helmets. With it came a set of instructions for people to log each of their jogs. The locals, reported the Daily Mail, were in hysteria. Some even tried to log their jogs on a website.
Created by satirical artists Wowser Nation, the sign was clearly fake – but to many it didn’t feel far from reality. With Sydney’s lockout laws in place, why shouldn’t jogging helmets be next?
It was an absurd idea. A satirical joke that poked fun at the nanny state Sydney had become. But Wowser Nation didn’t stop there – they continue to place satirical signs and stickers all over Sydney.
Absurdity, in general, tends to arise when things are so ill-fitting, so ill-suited to their purpose or situation, that they become ridiculous. Trump trying to buy Greenland is an exemplary instance. As Sydney’s lockout laws are indisputably ill-fitting to the cosmopolitan life they aim to represent, Wowser Nation’s reaction is not surprising.
But their satirical reaction to Sydney’s absurd reality isn’t singular. Western society is clearly in a cultural crisis and, to me, it feels like our reactions to it are hinging on the absurd. Typically, when the world stops making sense, we retort. We irrationalise reality. We poke fun at it. We label it stupid and pointless because rational objectivity and sensibility no longer feel like viable options. Just look at internet memes. We are inundated with them on a daily basis. Google “Absurdist Memes for Nihilist Dreams” and you’ll get the picture.
In Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where I was living and writing over the past year, I came across a lot of art and literature that retaliated against regional political uncertainty. The Balkans are generally well-known for their bleak outlook on life. While this black and dark humour is cultural, the works I found felt fresh and modern.
Through exhibitions, books and performances, ‘Eurasian’ art collective Slavs and Tatars highlights the ridiculousness of contemporary Eastern Europe through intelligently packaged humour and sarcasm. Last year they curated the 33rd Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts, a major event in Slovenia, with the concept ‘Crack Up – Crack Down’.
Gathering over 30 international and regional artists, Slavs and Tatars explored the graphic language of satire through works that included activist interventions, new-media polemicists and performances by stand-up comedians.
"We poke fun at it. We label it stupid and pointless because rational objectivity and sensibility no longer feel like viable options."
"Do artists, writers and filmmakers fall back on absurdism during cultural crises?"
“Satire has a very democratic spirit,” they said in an interview with artnet. This answer rang bells of truth to me; there’s nothing establishment despises more than ridicule. The power and persuasion of laughter is imperative for a healthy democracy.
In Sarajevo, I was exploring my experiences as a former advertising creative through a series of short stories that deal with the existential dramas of the global advertising industry and consumerism. While memories of certain incidents seemed ludicrous to me at the time, in an adapted narrative they became preposterous. In the process of writing, the stories became more than satirical tales that turned up situational chaos – they became stories of sheer fantastical and absurd realities. Some of these were developed for narrative drama, but throughout the process the stories felt more relatable in a heightened state of absurdism, perhaps because they didn’t sway that far from the truth. In a way, they mimicked the equally crazy reality of the advertising industry I experienced.
This made me wonder: Do artists, writers and filmmakers fall back on absurdism during cultural crises?
Dadaism, the art movement founded in Switzerland in 1912, is a good example. According to Dadaist poet Tristan Tzara, “the beginnings of the movement came not out of a desire to make art, but out of a profound disgust with the world.” And he’s right. The European nationalism they revolted against eventually led to the First World War shortly after the movement’s emergence. It’s not for unrelated reasons that both existentialism and absurdism peaked in popularity in the late 1940s in Europe. After two world wars, people lost faith in preached nationalism and religion. Well, doesn’t today feel similar?
And not just in art. If you look across the varied creative industries, from filmmaking to publishing, there’s a correlation. A discernible kinship with the absurd. Shows like Broad City, Bojack Horseman and The Good Place are overlaid with surreal settings, wildly strange plotlines and jokes of erratic absurdity. In literature, critical themes such as social issues, identity and displacement are interwoven with the senseless. Friday Black, the 2018 debut book by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, explores themes of black identity set in a dystopian near-future of twisted settings. Severance, the 2019 novel by Ling Ma, takes us on a satirical and absurdist millennial journey during a zombie apocalypse. The Factory, by Hiroko Oyamada, shows us the dark side of corporate life through a bland depiction of meaningless work.
In cinema, It Must Be Heaven, the latest film by the Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman, explores the concept of displacement through an endless comedy of absurdist errors. The protagonist (played by Elia himself) finds that wherever he looks, be it Paris or New York City, he comes across a string of weird scenarios. And for a film that attempts to make a profoundly sad statement – that Palestine will not become a state in his lifetime – he prefers comedic storytelling to get the message across. Another film, Echo, by Icelandic director Rúnar Rúnarsson, draws a portrait, both bitter and tender, of modern society in Iceland around the Christmas holidays through 56 discrete existentialist scenes.
I watched both films at the Sarajevo Film Festival in August last year. When the lights of the theatre came on, I was left stuck in my chair, inspired by this idea of a collective rhythm – the absurd as plausible action – defying our crazy times. It even seemed necessary. What were these films if not reactions to the unpredictable political developments of the past few years? Or to our rising divides? Our culture wars? Topped with climate change inaction, it feels like we’re living through an age that is totally chaotic. Can anyone really have faith in reason?
To me, it seems that anyone who isn’t confused these days doesn’t really understand the situation. Doesn’t seem to be cognisant of the clusterfuck humanity is in. Doesn’t realise the necessity of turning to the idea that life is purposeless, as the philosophy of absurdism argues. Both absurdism and satire are innately subversive; they disrupt and expose the stupidity of power.
Just after the Sarajevo Film Festival, I travelled to Venice to see the 58th International Art Biennale. The theme for the year was ‘May You Live In Interesting Times’. While often mistakenly cited as an ancient Chinese curse, the English phrase was used ironically to imply life is better in uninteresting times than periods of uncertainty and turmoil. A pretty accurate summation of our times if you ask me.
I spent days immersing myself in critically important works, but I couldn’t stop thinking about two projects after I left. The first, Ad Hoc, was an installation created by New Zealand artist Dane Mitchell. Housed inside a beautiful Venetian mansion, Ad Hoc consisted of a single HP printer sitting on a pedestal that printed out an inventory of things that no longer exist, from dead words and extinct species to ghost towns and destroyed artworks. I stood there, completely hypnotised, watching this ceaseless roll of paper printing out things no longer in existence. “The history of progress looks more like a history of obsolescence,” wrote curators Dr Zara Stanhope and Chris Sharp on the statement for this work.
The second body of work was created by Slavs and Tatars. Installed at the end of the Arsenale hall, it featured a fountain constructed from bright green tiles surrounded by simple garden chairs. On the back wall was a vending machine where you could buy bottled pickle juice. Basically, it was a pickle-juice reviving station at the biggest art festival in the world. The juice was disgusting, but the installation felt like a refreshing distraction from the heavier works at the biennale. Every visitor connected with its over-the-top décor and funny, intentional, absurdist humour. It made sense why – we don’t just need sensible ideas while our values burn. We also need the absurd to let us forget the times we’re living in.
I’m coming to understand why disillusionment lies at the heart of current times. Art is very often the best way to tell the truth; the absurd and satirical let us take back control. They show the powers that be that we can’t be taken for granted. For literature and art to be sensible, the world has to be too. Until then, we’ll keep duct-taping bananas to walls.