Charles Platt says: "In the 1920s, surrealists exploited randomness to create art.
The simplest and most widely copied system involved one
person writing a phrase or creating an image at the top of a
piece of paper, which was then folded over to conceal it.
Another person added another phrase or image until the paper
was filled, at which point it was opened to reveal the
complete sequence in the form of a poem or collage.
"The result was known as a "cadavre exquis," or "exquisite
corpse." This name itself was generated randomly in the
collaborative poem: "Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau"
("The exquisite corpse will drink the young wine").
"You can find more background and a sample collaborative image
created by Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, Joan Miro and Max Morise
here.
"New possibilities have been opened up by Photoshop in
conjunction with the web, and several sites have sponsored
"corpse building." An example is here.
"Since I used to teach Photoshop and have an undying love for
the software, I want to push this to the next level. I have
initiated the "Exquisite Crops" project (so named because
Photoshop's Crop Tool will be an essential part of the
process). Since most people in graphic arts now have fast
internet access, I want to move into high-res images which
may be potentially publishable. If a published version does
result, all contributors will share any royalties equally,
although the sum is likely to be small. In the meantime,
low-res versions will displayed freely online.
"Two samples are appended. The one with the banana was created
by myself, James Markowich, Sandra Mayer, and Richard Kadrey,
and is complete. The one commencing with a helicopter was
created by myself, Alex Ostroy, and Steve Messner, and still
lacks a segment.
Each Exquisite Crop will be the product of four contributors.
Everyone must be properly fluent in Photoshop; I don't have
time to give tutorials! For a full set of guidelines your
readers can send email to: ecrops@gmail.com"
