“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. One, by three hands, begins with a spider, which gives way to a man's torso the feet of which are formed by two jugs. Other, more interesting cadavres exquis were reproduced in a special issue of Variétés titled "Le Suréalisme en 1929" (fig. 288). One of these begins with a woman's head by Tanguy, which dissolves in to a jungle scene by Max Morise, returning to a female anatomy schematically indicated by Miró, and terminating in "legs" in the form of a fishtail and an engineer's triangle by Man Ray."

Source:

"Dada & Surrealist Art," by William S. Rubin, Chief Curator of the Painting and Sculpture Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York 1968

Exquisite Corpse Title:

Roses on Silk/ Welcome to Technicolor/Underground Cave/ The Vertiginous Muse

The Artists:

The idea for doing a corpse in a new-fashioned way was very interesting and exciting to me. Since I was the first section, my only real challenge was to pick one of my prints that would best lend itself to having an addition added to the bottom. However, the hardest part was trying to keep my mouth shut and not let the next member know what my piece looked like!

- Carolyn Schiffhouer Corpse piece # 1

I had never heard of the corpse idea before joining EBSQ. It was a great challenge and I had a blast. I am looking forward to participating in more of them. While creating my portion of the corpse, I felt like I was playing the old children’s game “Operation”. Why? I don’t know….perhaps it had something to do with name association and my subsequent fear of tweezers…..

-Joseph Kephart Corpse piece # 2

I’ve been involved in making digital corpses before and loved it, so I was pretty excited to find some new digital artist friends to play with in making yet some more corpses. I find working on corpses a great creative challenge; it inspires me in my other works. I feel privileged working with this group of exceptional artists and can’t wait to create more digital corpses. Great job Carolyn, Joe, and Tori. Thanks for playing. Here’s to the future of more exquisite corpses. Look for more corpses from our group with new artists joining all the time.

-Deborah Puckett Corpse piece # 3

I knew this would be a strange experience for me since even though I am a digital artist I'm more of a pop artist. When I received my slice to work with it was a fractal piece and so I had to figure out a way to get the fractal to mix with some pop illustrations. I decided to use it as the sky to the fantasy world I created. I found the project to be intriguing yet stressful at the same time. I would definitely like to try this again if the other artists let me! :)

-Tori Corpse piece # 4