Exquisite Corpse by Justin Cone, motionographer.com
Exquisite Corpse
by Justin Cone, motionographer.com
The concept of an “exquisite corpse” is simple: One person draws or writes something on a piece of paper and passes it to another person. That person then adds something to the existing work and passes it on to someone else. This can go on forever—provided the piece of paper is large enough.
In the end, a collaborative collage emerges. The result is often a surprising juxtaposition of discordant elements, formally related only at the seams, where one artist’s intention mingles briefly with another before taking flight in an entirely different direction.
Although the practice of creating exquisite corpses existed in various forms as a parlor game in the early 20th century, it wasn’t given theoretical context until a group of Surrealists in France gathered at 54 rue du Chateau sometime around 1925. Among them was poet André Breton: “Finally,” he later wrote, “with the Exquisite Corpse we had at our command an infallible way of holding the critical intellect in abeyance, and of fully liberating the mind’s metaphorical activity.”1
Against the backdrop of psychoanalysis’ burgeoning popularity, the exquisite corpse seemed like an ideal way to tap the collective unconscious of a group and let it spill onto a page, where it could be read like tea leaves pointing vaguely to some deep-running truth.
But the joy of an exquisite corpse is much simpler than that. When an artist’s creative vision is limited to a mere puzzle piece, the artist is free to do something we are not often encouraged to do—namely, to play.
As a contemporary variation on the exquisite corpse, PSST! Pass it On was created with this playful spirit in mind. Each team pours their imagination into a temporal slice of an unimagined whole. They do it primarily because it’s fun. But they do it also to remind themselves—and their peers—of what can happen when our normal routines are upended for the sake of creativity and collaboration.
1. André Breton, Le Cadavre Exquis, Son Exaltation.