Walter Benjamin recognized the importance of Dada when he wrote in 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' that when authenticity ceases to be an important part of making art, "the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual it begins to be based on another practice,
But “mankind” doesn’t get well: the proletariat is soon contained in Germany and disciplined in the Soviet Union, as its “shaking” is brought under different dictatorial control. Perhaps this suppression is one reason why the Dadaist miming of “the bliss of the epileptic,” first enacted by Ball in his performance, willrecurintermittently, variously, compulsively for decades to come. Read More:http://www.scribd.com/doc/50596411/dada-mime
Benjamin identified in the self-conscious destructive barbarism of Dada a staging of the imminent obsolesence of art before technology, which he observed paradoxically, “works toward a certain form of art.” ( Caygill) Benjamin called this the relentless destruction of the aura of their creations while remaining within the compass of the traditional definitions of art.