Exquisite Motion Corpse is an interactive video installation based on an old surrealist parlor game. The user combines body parts that stack together, all set to rhythmic timing, to create unique beats and stories via a touch-screen iPad controller.
This 21st-century update of an exquisite corpse combines loop-based music with figure assembly. Very much like the traditional surrealist images, the bodies created in Exquisite Motion Corpse have elements of both humor and horror.
The guts of the technology used to produce this project are spilled in a section entitled “how it all works”.
History of Original Exquisite Corpse:
Exquisite corpse, also known as exquisite cadaver or rotating corpse, is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. The technique was invented by Surrealists and is similar to an old parlor game called Consequences in which players write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the writing, and then pass it to the next player for a further contribution. Surrealism principal founder André Breton reported that it started in fun, but became playful and eventually enriching. Later the game was adapted to drawing and collage, producing a result similar to children’s books in which the pages were cut into thirds, the top third pages showing the head of a person or animal, the middle third the torso, and the bottom third the legs, with children having the ability to “mix and match” by turning pages.