Prior to last night, I would have thought “Exquisite Corpse” would have been the title to some jejune Clive Barker horror like movie where some exquisite undead type eats and regurgitates virgins, another macabre and maudlin Stephen King novel, or perhaps the name of a new make believe teenage grunge punk alternative band that needs to age significantly.

Well it turns out it’s not that at all, but actually a collaborative artistic label that began with the surrealists in an effort to create a stream of consciousness work. From the French cadavre exquis, each participant adds to the work in sequence either following a rule, or seeing only the end of what previous person contributed. Its origins are from and old parlor writing game. It then metamorphosed into pictures, as it was fun, playful and enriching, Among the players involved there was Marcel Duchamp, Joan Miro, George Hugnet and Jacques Prevert. If you have taken any sort of art history or survey class, you most likely recognize most of these names. For the musicians, John Cage, Lou Harrison and Virgil Thompson engaged in this game too, where each as responsible for writing one measure of music.

Again, my curiosity for the etymology of the term made me research more. At first, the term “exquisite corpse” seemed perfectly aligned with surrealist ideology. Surrealism arose from the Dada movement which had a sarcastic and facetious tone; an anti-art per se. Surrealism went a step further and allowed the psychic automation to express in an environment free of control of reason, judgement, and moral preoccupation. The thought that a corpse would be exquisite would certainly be a surreal idea.

However, this is not the case. The term actually came out of these infamous writing parlor games where one of the sentences created was “the exquisite corpse will drink the young wine.” Although the sentence is absurd the beginning and the end are related in its contradiction, and thus, related to each other in an unconscious level.

So I am in a quest to create my own exquisite corpse with friends, acquaintances, colleagues and family. I hope to put something together in video format now that I am the proud owner of Julius, my new Sony HD Camcorder. If you are wiling to participate, I’d love to hear from you.