Developing Creative Practice Pt.1: Surrealist Games (Patreon)

The enduring fallacy of the artistic genius, birthing great works of imagination from the vacuum of a white-walled studio, encourages us to believe that creativity vision is innate. Art history and personal experience prove this to be untrue - you can use exercises to stimulate new ideas in the same way as you can learn methods to help you perceive your subject more clearly, or make marks more confidently. It is through play, collaboration and engagement with the world that we form new ideas, and in this new mini-series Laura Ryan will propose games, personal strategies & practical exercises to help you develop your own creative practice. 

Main image: Collograph by Laura Ryan

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The Surrealists developed games comprised of automated elements to generate deliberately unpredictable and accidental creative outcomes. Their desire was to use drawing, writing and sculpture to tap into the unconscious mind, resulting in surprising combinations. Those games remain relevant today and like many surrealist ideas, have found their way into popular culture at large. They are accessible and easy to play, and in this article we will look at how we can use them as image making techniques.

Exquisite Corpse by André Masson / Max Ernst / Max Morise, 1927

Influenced by Freud and psychoanalysis, the surrealist movement sought to subvert societal norms and escape the constraints of the rational mind. Surrealist games, played solo or collaboratively, can be used to explore personal existence and the archetypes of human nature. Taken at face value they are a playful way to make and create, freeing the individual of artistic responsibility; the premise of the games is to create automatic artworks, sculpture and writings and the results can stand alone or be developed more consciously after. They are often formatted to contain an arbitrary set of rules where the players play blind and can’t see the wider picture or full result until after; the playful, evocative nature of game playing allowing the player to tap into their imagination. The best results occur when the we can tap into a child-like state of intuitive playfulness, teaching us not to get caught up in critical reflection in the early stages of creating art work. 

Mae West’s Face which May be Used as a Surrealist Apartment by Salvador Dalí, 1934–35

The spirit of the games is to redefine reality, to juxtapose a mundane object with random chance to reposition the context, and to reinvent myths and superstitions. This fresh contextualization, believed to be influenced by the subconscious, adds mystery and magic to the artistic outcome. You are invited to interpret the results as you would the shapes of tea leaves in the bottom of your teacup; it is in the interpretation of the results that you create meaning.

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The reader is invited to take part in the following games:

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Ghosts of My Friends

Ghosts of My Friends is a game based on the infamous 'Rorschcach Test' in which ink blots were folded in two to create a symmetrical image and used by psychologists to gain insights into patients. The surrealists developed a game in which players signatures, written in wet ink, are folded in two while still wet. The results were then “interpreted” by the group to gain insights and revelations about the signatory. 

What you need:

• A dip pen or paint brush fully loaded with ink or watercolour
• Medium weight paper that will absorb the ink, but that can be easily folded

Method: 

• Take a piece of paper and fold it down the centre
• Take your loaded brush or dip pen and write your signature centrally OR on one side of the fold.
• Fold the paper while the ink is wet and press down, opening the of paper to reveal the results.
• Ask several friends to say the first word that comes into their head when they see the result and write them under the image. This may give clues or revelations about the person whose signature was originally written and can easily be played in-person, or at a distance over Zoom, writing the perceived words in the chat to connect over distance.  

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Exquisite Corpse

A drawn adaptation of the parlour game 'Consequences', Exquisite Corpse (cadavre exquis) is suitable for any number of players and can be played in person, or by post with each player starting a folded sheet and passing it on to the person next to the them, or in a pre-arranged postal sequence. The game was famously taken up by the Chapman Brothers in the 1990's to create a series of prints that take the name of the game.  

Method:

• Each player folds a sheet of paper into equal sections, usually with 4 horizontal lines on a portrait format piece of paper. The first section represents the head, the next the torso, the third the legs and the last the feet. 
• The player draws a 'head' on the top segment, extending the lines of the neck a few millimetres over the fold and folding the crease to conceal it from the next person in the sequence before it is passed on.
• Without looking at the previously drawn 'head', the player now must now draw a 'torso' that connects to the neck lines of the 2nd section of the paper they have just received, once again leaving lines which over lap into the next section.
• The drawings should be passed on until (without peeking), all 4 sections on all pieces of paper have been completed, when they can be opened to reveal 'complete' figures. 

As an alternative to the portrait composition, try the same exercise with a landscape format and subject to create bizarre and mystical views. Alternatively, the paper can be folded into a diamond shape, for different results again.

Exquisite Corpse by Jake Spicer & Laura Ryan

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Surrealist Collage

This surrealist technique seeks to combine images and concepts which would not usually go together. You could also introduce cut-out images or text from magazines, books and found paper. If there is a drawing you are dissatisfied with, you can tear or cut it up, and reassemble it, encorporating other found elements.

Max Ernst cut out engraving illustrations and created bizarre and grotesque outcomes. 

Method: 

• Collect images and textures which appeal to you, from magazine rips and newspaper articles to old drawings or prints; cut them up and combine them dry before sticking them down in your preferred combinations. 
• Collage can allow for nuanced and eloquent developments of visual ideas - it allows for the expansion of ideas and is a quick and easy way to play around with composition. As a starting point you could consider combining a living object with an inanimate object, removing a part of a living object and replacing it with something else or combining technological elements with landscape.

Collage with cut out drawing by Laura Ryan

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Further reading

Language games were an integral aspect of the surrealist movement, helping the artists to generate written ideas which could then be illustrated and many of the surrealist methods of generating poetry, questions, myths and superstitions can be adapted to suit a visual image-making. You'll find more games to explore in the book “The book of surrealist games” by Alastair Brotchie.