exquisite corpse

topic posted Thu, July 5, 2007 - 6:14 PM by  JM
Together, at the bus stop, we drew and exquisite corpse.
I can't remember, did she serruptiously take it and stick it in her bag, or did she pointedly slip it back into my notebook? Did she want to have a keepsake of the afternoon, or did she want me to take it to remember it?
Did she take it?
Or did I?
Does it matter?
posted by:
JM
offline JM
  • Re: exquisite corpse

    Wed, July 18, 2007 - 2:20 AM
    Was it 'AN" exquisite corpse,,and a corpse of what? Something small enough to slip into her bag,,your notebook? Remember wht about this happening?
    • JM
      JM
      offline 77

      Re: exquisite corpse

      Thu, July 19, 2007 - 10:16 AM
      It's a thing where you fold a piece of paper into three parts, and each person draws part of a body on it.
      • Re: exquisite corpse

        Fri, July 20, 2007 - 12:22 PM
        New one on me.
        • Re: exquisite corpse

          Fri, July 20, 2007 - 12:42 PM
          It's a sort of surrealist parlor game, Steve.

          "Among Surrealist techniques exploiting the mystique of accident was a kind of collective collage of words or images called the cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse). Based on an old parlor game, it was played by several people, each of whom would write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold the paper to conceal part of it, and pass it on to the next player for his contribution.

          The technique got its name from results obtained in initial playing, "Le cadavre / exquis / boira / le vin / nouveau" (The exquisite corpse will drink the young wine). Other examples are: "The dormitory of friable little girls puts the odious box right" and "The Senegal oyster will eat the tricolor bread." These poetic fragments were felt to reveal what Nicolas Calas characterized as the "unconscious reality in the personality of the group" resulting from a process of what Ernst called "mental contagion."

          At the same time, they represented the transposition of Lautréamont's classic verbal collage to a collective level, in effect fulfilling his injunction-- frequently cited in Surrealist texts--that "poetry must be made by all and not by one." It was natural that such oracular truths should be similarly sought through images, and the game was immediately adapted to drawing, producing a series of hybrids the first reproductions of which are to be found in No. 9-10 of La Révolution surrealiste (October, 1927) without identification of their creators. The game was adapted to the possibilities of drawing, and even collage, by assigning a section of a body to each player, though the Surrealist principle of metaphoric displacement led to images that only vaguely resembled the human form."

          Source: "Dada & Surrealist Art," by William S. Rubin
          • Re: exquisite corpse

            Fri, July 20, 2007 - 1:08 PM
            Filed under: I did not know that.

            Encapsulated: They basically wrote a phrase on a piece of paper, revealed a part of the phrase and solicited another phrase from someone else who repeated the process. It was a parlor game thought to bring out the underlying sense of the group.
            • JM
              JM
              offline 77

              Re: exquisite corpse

              Sun, July 22, 2007 - 4:21 PM
              Thank god for Marie-Therese, who single-handedly lends coherence to this tribe while I'm out doing... the things I do.
              Thanks, MT.
              • Re: exquisite corpse

                Mon, July 30, 2007 - 1:30 PM
                Yes, thanks Marie Therese. I think that may have been filed somewhere in the mental recesses but for the life of me can't remember where it was I encountered it. Very interesting...

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