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The Exquisite Corpse + More Collaborations





Round Robin & Beyond the Exquisite corpse : Collaborative Works

 Collaborative drawings engaging the entire class moving around the room and working on 3 drawings becomes a collection of varying interpretations and responses.

Among Surrealist techniques exploiting the mystique of accident was a kind of collective collage of words or images called the cadavre exquis or the 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 their contribution.

The technique got its name from results obtained in initial playing, "Le cadavre / exquis / boira / le vin / nouveau" translated to: The exquisite corpse will drink the young wine. 

The poetic fragments were felt to reveal what Nicolas Calas characterized as the "unconscious reality in the personality of the group." 

At the same time the collaborative work represented a verbal collage to a collective level, in effect fulfilling the idea frequently cited in Surrealist texts -- that "poetry must be made by all and not by one."

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.

* For examples of the original Exquisite Corpses, check out the slide show at: http:// www.exquisitecorpse.com/definition/About.html
Source: "Dada & Surrealist Art," by William S. Rubin 

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