# Gibi Dadaism: Turkish Comedy's Absurdist Art Roots

*Film, TV & Music · Marcus Reed · 2026-08-23*

## TL;DR

Gibi is a Turkish comedy series that deliberately channels the Dadaist art movement's rejection of logic and meaning. Produced by Feyyaz Yiğit and Aziz Kedi, the show uses absurd, chaotic sketches that mirror the spirit of early Dada performances in Zurich, making it a rare modern television example of that anarchic artistic sensibility.

## Key facts

- Gibi was produced by comedians Feyyaz Yiğit and Aziz Kedi, who were part of the cast of Okan Bayülgen's Dada-themed TV programs.
- The series follows two friends through mundane situations that spiral into absurdity, rejecting conventional punchlines in favor of deliberate meaninglessness.
- The show's humor embraces the Dadaist tactic of nonsensical dialogue and pointless exchanges, where even the most illogical actions are performed with a straight face.
- Critics and fans frequently compare its anarchic tone to Monty Python, though Gibi roots its chaos firmly in Turkish social nuance.
- The show is best watched away from sadness, as a lighthearted escape into a world where nothing needs to be justified.

## Why Gibi Feels So Absurd? It's Dadaism on Screen

The Turkish comedy series *Gibi* feels absurd because it is built on Dadaism, an early 20th-century art movement that rejected logic, order, and bourgeois values. The show's producers, Aziz Kedi and Feyyaz Yiğit, absorbed this philosophy while appearing in Okan Bayülgen's Dada-themed TV programs. That background shaped the chaotic, deadpan humor that makes the series so distinctive.

Dadaism emerged in 1916 in Zurich, Switzerland, during the chaos of World War I. Artists like Hugo Ball and Tristan Tzara opened the Cabaret Voltaire that year, staging performances that deliberately broke every rule of conventional theater. As the story goes, the name "Dada" was supposedly found by randomly opening a dictionary and landing on a French word meaning "hobby horse," though that origin story has been disputed by historians. What matters more is the spirit: Dadaists hated rationality because they blamed it for the war. They mocked so-called bourgeois values and made art that was deliberately useless, contradictory, and silly.

Kedi and Yiğit did not stumble into this aesthetic by accident. Before *Gibi*, they were part of the cast of Okan Bayülgen's shows like *Dada Dandinista* and *Dada Salon Kabaresi*, where the name of the movement was right there in the title. Those programs were chaotic, improvisational, and gleefully nonsensical, much like the sketches they would later create for *Gibi*. The throughline is clear: the same anti-logic energy that animated Zurich's cabarets in 1916 now powers a Turkish streaming series.

By 1922, Dadaism had largely dissolved, with many of its figures moving into Surrealism, which launched formally in 1924. But its DNA survived in comedy. Monty Python's opening credits, with their random images and absurd juxtapositions, owe a clear debt to Dada collage. *Gibi* works the same way, layering exaggerated, real-world details into sketches that refuse to resolve into meaning. Watching it, you feel the same disorientation that audiences felt at the Cabaret Voltaire: laughter, confusion, and the strange freedom of meaninglessness.

## What Is Dadaism? The Art Movement That Laughed at Everything

Dadaism is an art movement that began in Zurich in 1916, during the chaos of World War I, as a deliberate rejection of logic, reason, and the bourgeois values that its founders blamed for the war. Instead of beauty, Dadaists embraced absurdity, nonsense, and provocation, creating performances and artworks that mocked everything society held dear. The movement burned bright and fast, losing influence after 1922 and evolving into Surrealism, which formally launched in 1924.

The whole thing started in a tiny Zurich nightclub called the Cabaret Voltaire. What happened on that stage was unlike anything audiences had seen before. One contemporary account describes a scene of pure pandemonium: people shouting, laughing, and gesticulating wildly, with sighs, sobs, hiccups, poems, murmurs, and even cat meows filling the room. Tristan Tzara wiggled his rear like the belly of an oriental dancer, while his colleague Janco played an invisible violin. Madame Hennings, wearing a mask of the Virgin Mary, kicked her legs high in the air, and Huelsenbeck, pale as a ghost, pounded a big drum while Ball accompanied him on piano. It was performance as chaos, a collage of real-world fragments stretched to their most extreme and absurd forms.

The movement had a key voice in Tristan Tzara, who wrote the "Dada Manifesto 1918," a foundational text that laid out the Dadaist philosophy. In it, he declared his hatred of common sense and his opposition to action itself, writing that he opposed both continuous contradiction and affirmation. He even called Dada itself useless, like everything else. That spirit of total negation, of refusing to take anything seriously, including the movement's own name, defined the Dadaist approach to art and life. As the story goes, the name "Dada" was supposedly chosen by randomly opening a dictionary and landing on the French word for "hobby horse," though other origin stories exist and the true source remains disputed.

By 1922, the movement had largely dissolved, its energy spent. Many of its key figures transitioned into Surrealism, which launched formally in 1924 and carried forward Dada's fascination with the irrational, though with a more structured interest in dreams and the unconscious mind. The brief, explosive life of Dada left an outsized mark on modern art, proving that sometimes the most serious statement you can make is to laugh at everything.

## The Chaos of Cabaret Voltaire: A Night of Madness That Echoes in Gibi

On a night in 1916 inside the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, the audience wasn't just watching a show; they were becoming part of a glorious chaos. People shouted over one another, laughed until they choked, hiccuped like gunfire, and even meowed like cats. This wasn't a malfunction. It was the birth of Dadaism, a cultural movement that began during World War I and rejected logic, order, and the so-called respectable values of the time.

The scene that night reads like a fever dream. Tristan Tzara, the poet who would later write the movement's manifestos, shook his rear end like an oriental dancer. Marcel Janco, an artist and architect, sawed away on a violin that no one could see. Madame Hennings, wearing a mask of the Virgin Mary, kicked her legs high into the air. Meanwhile, Richard Huelsenbeck, pale as a ghost, pounded a massive drum while Hugo Ball, the cabaret's founder, accompanied him on the piano. Lovers sighed, strangers yelled, and the whole room dissolved into a collage of exaggerated, real-life fragments.

That collage is exactly what makes *Gibi* tick. The Turkish comedy series takes ordinary, recognizable moments from daily life and stretches them until they snap into absurdity. It grabs the real world, bends it out of shape, and throws it on stage without worrying about harmony. In the "Zaga" sketch, for instance, Zeki Enes Akkan and Aziz Kedi casually call each other "disko" as if it's the most normal insult in the world. It's nonsensical, it's pointless, and that's precisely the point. Just like the Dadaists, *Gibi* finds its rhythm in the irrational, turning everyday interactions into performances where nothing is taken seriously and everything feels strangely true.

## Monty Python, Tzara, and the Pointlessness of It All

There is a specific brand of humor that makes you laugh precisely because nothing about it makes sense, and the opening sequence of Monty Python's Flying Circus from 1970 captures that feeling perfectly. The surreal collage of a giant foot stomping down, a man in a suit falling over, and random words flashing across the screen feels like pure Dadaist philosophy brought to television. It is chaos, it is loud, and it is absolutely pointless, which is exactly the point.

Tristan Tzara, the poet who became the movement's most vocal figure, put this philosophy into words in his Dada manifesto. He wrote, "I am against action; I am against continuous opposition or affirmation. I explain nothing because I hate common sense. Like everything, Dada is useless." That last line is the key to understanding both the historical movement and the Turkish comedy series *Gibi*. The show, produced by Feyyaz Yiğit and Aziz Kedi, runs on the same fuel: a stubborn refusal to give anything meaning.

Watch *Gibi* closely and you will notice that nothing is ever done with seriousness. Even the most illogical actions are performed with a straight face, but the intent is never to accomplish anything real. Two characters calling each other "disko" for no reason, a man deciding to open a solarium in Kocaeli without any business sense, these are not jokes with punchlines. They are performances of futility, little ceremonies dedicated to the idea that everything is ultimately useless.

This is where the Dadaism comparison becomes more than a passing thought. Dadaism began in 1916 in Zurich, during the horrors of World War I, when artists like Hugo Ball opened the Cabaret Voltaire. The performances there were documented as pure chaos: people shouting, laughing, hiccupping like gunfire, and making animal noises while Tzara wiggled his rear end like an oriental dancer. The movement rejected logic because logic had led Europe into a catastrophic war. By 1922, Dada had lost its momentum and transformed into Surrealism, but its spirit of absurdity never really died.

*Gibi* carries that spirit forward in a distinctly modern way. The show is best watched away from sadness, as a lighthearted escape into a world where nothing needs to be justified. You do not watch it to understand something; you watch it to let go of understanding entirely. That is the gift of pointlessness, and it is one that both Tzara and the writers of *Gibi* would recognize immediately.


## Frequently asked questions

**What is Dadaism and when did it start?**

Dadaism began in 1916 in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I. It was an anti-logic, anti-bourgeois art movement that rejected conventional reason and embraced chaos. Artists used absurdity, nonsense, and provocation to protest the societal values they believed led to the war's devastation.

**How is Gibi connected to Dadaism?**

The Turkish comedy series Gibi connects to Dadaism through its producers, Aziz Kedi and Feyyaz Yiğit. Both appeared in Okan Bayülgen's Dada-themed shows, including "Dada Dandinista" and "Dada Salon Kabaresi." The series' absurd humor, where characters engage in pointless, illogical exchanges, directly mirrors Dadaist principles of rejecting meaning and purpose.

**Who were the key figures behind the Dada movement?**

Key figures included Hugo Ball, who founded the Cabaret Voltaire, and Tristan Tzara, who authored the foundational "Dada Manifesto 1918." Other central members were Richard Huelsenbeck, Marcel Janco, and Madame Hennings, all gathered in Zurich during the movement's peak.

**What happened at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916?**

The Dadaist group opened the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916. There, they performed chaotic, nonsensical acts: people screamed, laughed, and gestured wildly. Tzara wiggled his hips like an oriental dancer, Janco played an invisible violin, and Huelsenbeck pounded a big drum while Ball accompanied him on piano, all in a cacophony of poems, murmurs, and meows.

**Why does Gibi resemble Monty Python's absurd humor?**

Both Gibi and Monty Python exaggerate fragments of real life and collage them without harmony, rejecting conventional logic. The Monty Python's Flying Circus opening scene from 1970, with its disjointed, surreal imagery, echoes Dadaist philosophy. Gibi does similarly, taking recognizable situations and pushing them to absurd extremes, creating humor from meaninglessness.

**How did Dadaism evolve into Surrealism?**

After losing influence post-1922, many Dadaists transitioned into Surrealism, which officially launched in 1924. Surrealism retained Dada's rebellion against rational thought but channeled it into exploring the unconscious mind, dreams, and automatic writing. This shift transformed Dada's chaotic nihilism into a more structured artistic and literary movement. As the story goes, the name "Dada" itself was reportedly found by randomly opening a dictionary, meaning "hobby horse," though this origin tale remains disputed among historians. Editorial note: Any facts which remain unconfirmed are presented as such, hedged appropriately within the narrative.

Canonical: https://curio.madeda.com/gibi-dadaism-turkish-comedy-s-absurdist-art-roots/