Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven’s sound poem “Carwindow” reflects the chaos of urban life in Berlin in the 1920s. Embracing the irreverence of Dada—an artistic movement that responded to the incomprehensible violence of World War I with illogical, unconventional, and impolite artwork—von Freytag-Loringhoven ricochets through nouns and adjectives at breakneck speed, playing with the slippery quality of words and their ability to shift across languages and through time. In 2016, performer Jennifer Torrence recited “Carwindow” between layers of quivering tambourines and mechanical groans that built on the careening energy of von Freytag-Loringhoven’s words.
Von Freytag-Loringhoven, also known as “The Baroness,” fully embodied the Dada movement. A poet, performance artist, and maker of found-object artworks, she inspired contemporaries including Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Djuna Barnes, William Carlos Williams, and Claude McKay. Her poetry was published in the Little Review and similar avant-garde magazines during her lifetime, and her uncompromising, nonconformist attitude paved the way for later generations of punk and feminist artists.
Jennifer Torrence is an experimental percussionist and performer based in Oslo, Norway.