Lambert here: Seems appropriate….
By Mark Robert Rank, Professor of Social Sciences, Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Reposted from Alternet.
One hundred years ago, the French writer and poet André Breton wrote the “Manifesto of Surrealism,” which established an artistic movement known for creating strange combinations of words and images.
These combinations, often revealed by chance, were thought to stimulate the unconscious mind to develop new insights.
Man Ray’s disorienting images of out-of-focus collages or Salvador Dalí’s dramatic paintings of melting clocks and towering elephants were typical of this form.
As I explain in detail in my book “The Random Factor,” much of life is influenced by randomness – from evolution to the choice of friends and mates. The surrealists, too, made informality the basis of their artistic practice.
A Manifestation of Miracles
In 1928, artist Otto Umbehr, known simply as Umbo, took a picture from his window that randomly captured the street scene below.
The power of the picture – “Mystery of the Road” – does not come from its content but from its look. When Umbo made the picture, he decided to change it. The result is an ordinary picture of people but whose long shadow takes over their wonderful life.
As contemporary photographer Sandrine Hermand-Grisel writes, “The surrealists question the value of the photographic document. They see its power to capture the expression of the wonderful that can happen anywhere.”
Surrealist painter Max Ernst often used the technique of “decalcomania,” which involved applying a layer of paint to a surface, such as glass, and then transferring the wet paint directly to the canvas. Some paint would stick – some would not. It doesn’t matter: Ernst will build with random patterns and drawing.
Max Ernst’s 1940 painting ‘Solitary and Conjugal Trees’ used the decalcomania technique. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza
Out of many, One
Another surrealist practice involving randomness came to be known as “the perfect corpse.”
The first version of the collaborative activity involved gathering a small group of friends and dividing the sentence into different parts of speech, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and so on. Each part of the sentence was to be given to one person. The first person wrote down the name of the part of the sentence, folded the paper and gave it to the next person. The second person then chooses their name, not knowing what the first person wrote, and passes the growing sentence on to the next person.
In this way, the sentence would be written as you walked around the room without anyone knowing what the sentence looked like until it was finished and someone opened the paper.
The process leads to sentences that people cannot come up with on their own. According to legend, the first sentence composed by André Breton and other surrealists read, “A good corpse will drink new wine.”
Man Ray’s portrait of a group of surrealists discussing. André Breton is seated on the left. Photo12/UIG via Getty Images
Random by Design
The concept of a good corpse has also been used in other creative works.
The Blackwing 602, manufactured by the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company, is one of the most iconic pencils of the 20th century. Branded with the tag line “Half the Pressure, Twice the Speed,” it is known for the quality of its graphite and its unique, rectangular rubber.
Blackwing was a favorite of many writers and artists, including John Steinbeck, Leonard Bernstein and animator Chuck Jones of “Looney Tunes” fame. But Eberhard stopped using the Blackwing pencil in the 1990s.
Fast forward to 2010. The California Cedar Products Company also introduced the Blackwing 602. In March 2018, the company designed a limited edition Blackwing pencil to commemorate the surrealists by using a beautiful body exercise to create a new pencil.
They divided the parts of the pencil into five categories: graphite, barrel, imprint, ferule and eraser. The first person on the design team chose graphite. The second person, unaware of the first person’s choice, designed the barrel, and so on.
The result was an amazing pencil – one of my favorites – that wouldn’t have existed if it weren’t for the willingness to commit to randomization.
The pencil has a rose colored barrel with teal print, silver ferule, blue rubber and solid graphite. The company called it Blackwing Volume 54 in honor of 54 Rue du Chateau in Paris, the address of the house where that first great autopsy was performed.
A Leap of Faith
Artists, filmmakers and illustrators also incorporate randomness into their work. Composer John Cage often used randomness and chance in his songs. In one piece, the pianist remains silent for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, forcing the audience to hear random coughing and rustling in the room.
In his series “Imaginary Landscape”, random elements generated by electricity are part of the performance; for example, during one performance, Cage placed 12 radios on stage, each tuned to a different station, and played simultaneously. In describing this process, Cage wrote, “Chance, to be exact, is a leap, it gives a leap from which one cannot hold back.”
As museums around the world celebrate the centenary of the birth of surrealism, it is important to note that the unplanned reception allows these artists to think outside the box. The use of chance as a creative tool continues to this day, providing a helpful – and surprising – hand, taking artist and audience to previously unknown places.
Source link