What is "no wave"

n. A broad musical and artistic movement originating in the mid-1970s in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New%20York%20C, typified by experimentation and performance art.

No wave was a short-lived avant-garde music and art scene that had its beginnings during the late 1970s in downtown New York City. In part a reaction against punk rock's recycling of traditionalist rock tropes, no wave musicians instead experimented with noise, dissonance and atonality in addition to a variety of non-rock genres. The no wave scene often reflected an abrasive, confrontational and nihilistic worldview.

The term "no wave" was a pun based on the rejection of commercial new wave music, and first became used in downtown New York City concurrent with the 1981 show, "New York/New Wave" that had been curated by the artist/curator Diego Cortez. The term "no wave" was probably inspired by the French New Wave pioneer Claude Chabrol, with his remark "There are no waves, only the ocean". The movement would last a relatively short time but profoundly influenced the development of independent film, fashion and visual art.