ASOU progress notes - day one

A Series of Unexpectations 

Day 1 - Thursday 19th March, 2020

Research:

SURREALISM, noun. Pure psychic automatism by which it is intended to express, either verbally or in writing, or otherwise, the true function of thought. Thought dictates in the absence of all control exerted by reason, and outside all aesthetic or moral preoccupations. 

ENCYCLOPAEDIA. Philosophy. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of association heretofore neglected, in the omnipotence of the dream, and in the disinterested play of thought. 

Andre Breton: was an original member of the Dada group who went on to start and lead the Surrealist movement in 1924. In New York, Breton and his colleagues curated Surrealist exhibitions that introduced ideas of automatism and intuitive art making. 

While there were always artists whose works were inspired by dreams, the supernatural, the irrational and the absurd, we can only understand the precise significance of Surrealism as an artistic movement if we see it in the context of a particular period, the years between the two World Wars. 

Apart from tracing the origin of the name, we also discover that two historic events were crucial to the birth of the Surrealist movement. 

The artists who came together in Paris in the early 1920s shared a deep mistrust of materialistic, bourgeois society, which, they believed, was responsible for the First World War and it’s terrible aftermath. Not only that, but with its smug, superficial way of life and it’s belief in the omnipotence of technological and scientific achievement, society has succumbed to a process of degeneration to which the only answer was a revolutionary new anti-art. 

• As the first Manifesto put it, in “solving all the principal problems of life.” 

Central to this concept were the ideas of Sigmund Freud. Breton regarded Freud's findings as the fortuitous rediscovery of the power of dreams and imagination that had long lain hidden by the purely rational outlook that predominated at the time. 

To the writer, ecriture automatique stands for the need to allow creativity to feed on the deepest levels of the unconscious, on dreams and hallucinations, and at the same time to exclude rational thought as far as possible. 

Ernst described Lautreamont’s “chance meeting of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table” as a well-known, almost classic example of the phenomenon discovered by the Surrealists, which involved bringing together two or more seemingly incompatible objects in an incompatible surface. 

“A ready-made reality, whose naive purpose seems to have been fixed once and for all (an umbrella), finding itself suddenly in the presence of another very distant and no less absurd reality (a sewing machine) in a place where both must feel out of their element (on an operating table), will, by this very fact, escape its naive purpose and lose its identity; because of the detour through what is relative, it will pass from absolute falseness to a new absolute that is true and poetic: the umbrella and the sewing machine will make love. 

• Without collage, the Surrealist film would have been unimaginable. 

The first Manifesto of Surrealism was published in 1924 and the second in 1929.

If he recognised that a new direction had been forged from the moment the painter ceased to reproduce the external world and concentrate instead on his inner visions, was he not defining a wider framework for painting as a Surrealist statement?

In 1926, they invented the game of Cadavre exquis, or “exquisite corpse”, in which several people are involved in creating a sentence or drawing on one sheet of paper. As it passes from hand to hand it is folded over so that no player can see what his predecessor has done. The prototype gave the now classic game its name: the first sentence that came about in this way contained the words: “Le - cadavre - exquis - boira - le vin - nouveau” (The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine). 

For its adherents, Surrealism was a way of life, a kind of existence that left room for playfulness and creativity. It was about living for the moment, with spontaneity and internal intellectual freedom and a lack of materialism, all of which were completely opposed to the values of the bourgeoisie. The Surrealists’ preferred meeting place was the café.

The tone of Breton’s Second Manifesto, published in 1929, is so mystical and speculative it comes as no surprise that parts of the text are concerned with alchemy. This change of direction launched the concept of the mystical qualities of inanimate objects that typified the later phases of Surrealism, so clearly expressed in Magritte’s paintings. From the “revelation of the remarkable symbolic life of quite ordinary, mundane objects” which Breton demanded in the Second Manifesto - it was only a small step to the creation by the Surrealists of their own objects. 

Rene Magritte - was a Belgian artist and one of the most enduringly influential members of the Surrealist movement. Best known for his illusionistic images that challenged the viewer’s preconceptions of reality, Magritte’s Surrealist paintings are clever, witty, and ironic. 

In 1936 an “Exposition surrealiste d’objets” (Surrealist Exhibition of Objects) took place at the Galerie Charles Raton in Paris. The exhibition focused on the justification of everyday things that the Surrealists constantly promoted, and presented extraordinarily complex configurations of unrelated objects. 

Salvador Dalí was one of the artists who shaped the Surrealist movement in the 1930s. His “paranoid-critical method” led to new departures in art, producing astonishing results especially in the realm of the Surrealist object. Dalí’s concept of critical paranoia made an important contribution to the mystification of the mundane. 

Paranoid-critical method: a way of perceiving reality that was developed by Dalí. It was defined as “irrational knowledge” based on a “delirium of interpretation”. More simply put, it was a process by which the artist found new and unique ways to view the world around them. Dalí, though not a true paranoid, was able to stimulate a paranoid state, without the use of drugs, and upon his return to ‘normal perspective’ he would paint what he saw and envisioned therein.

By the 1930s, the Surrealist group was at a turning point. The first Manifesto of Surrealism was already nine years old. The scandals, the excesses and the quarrels were things of the past. They no longer talked of memorable meetings to discuss écriture automatique, the hypnotic trances, the accounts of dreams, which as Breton hoped, would inspire all future poetry. In a matter of a few years the mysterious source they believed to be infinite and “accessible to all” was exhausted. In 1933 Surrealism was no longer a wild rebellion but a successful revolution whose activists had achieved power. The 1930s witnessed an upheaval in the movement, epitomised by the contradictory nature of its two official organs. The one supported confrontational Surrealism (following the political Dada movement) while the other placed emphasis on Surrealism as an art movement engaged in ongoing research. As well as the new-style Surrealist magazines, a new genre - Surrealist film - appeared on the scene in 1929 with the screening of Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel’s L’Âge d’or and Un chien andalou.

Compared with other avant-garde movements of the first half of the twentieth century Surrealism was attempting to move beyond the definition of the visual image and its function. Physiological sight and the normal functioning of the eye are meaningless. Imagination and the ability to look inwards are crucial. What mattered to the Surrealists was not the perfect, self-contained work of art, but the procedure through which it was created and the ideas it conveyed. Surrealism saw itself as a movement embracing many artistic genres, a “thought factory” whose products were based on the attempt to address social, artistic or literary problems. It was a collective experience, which came to an abrupt end with the rise of Fascism and the outbreak of the Second World War, when many Surrealists were forced into exile. 

By 1942 New York and it’s surrounding area had become the centre of Surrealist activity. 

Max Ernst wrote: “We had artists in New York, but no art. One person alone cannot make art. It very much depends on being able to exchange ideas with others.”

In 1930 Andre Breton showed remarkable foresight when he wrote in his Second Surrealist Manifesto: ‘’Let me say that Surrealism is still in the period of preparation, to which I hasten to add that it may well be that this period will last as long as I do myself…’The fact is that, roughly speaking, these preparations are of ‘artistic’ order. Nonetheless, I foresee that they will come to an end, and that then the revolutionary ideas that Surrealism conceals will emerge to the sound of a loud explosion and will then flow freely.’’ 

Today we can indeed say that Surrealism lived and died with Andre Breton, and that his lofty prediction came true almost to the letter. Breton founded Surrealism and defined its substance, its meaning and its aims. He was the leading personality in its heroic period. It was he who upheld its continuity and coherence at a time when most of the leading figures were leaving it one by one, and when other trends took over the initiative in European art. Shortly after Breton’s death in 1966 the Surrealist movement broke up as a result of strong internal dissension and disagreements that reached their climax in 1969. At that time Jean Schuster, a leading figure of the movement after the war, announced the end of group work and declared that the historic phase of Surrealism was over: ‘’...Historic Surrealism would stake a special claim in having a beginning and not having an end’’.”

TASKING:

4 minute introductory solos: 

Adam - emptying tote bag of his stuff / plies and tendus / dancing for enjoyment to The Beatles

Fa’asu - giving individuals a piece of his jewellery and telling a story about it (individual experience)

Miriam - 4 minutes of personal facts and stories

Neža - showing old family photos from wallet / silent eye contact / showing Slovenian map birthmark / juxtaposition between rave dancing and sincere and slow eyes-closed dancing to Laibach

Tash - relentlessly bouncing around the studio on a swiss ball / sandals half on as she dances.

Miriam - “Real and perceived characteristics chip away at beings/structure to form mythologies, a myriad of moments - minuscule, molecular, and fragmentary.”

Neža - “Bouncing sausages. Hanging birthdays. Walking memories in black sandals. Party body remembers where it comes from in a series of randomly made choices.”

Exquisite Corpse poetry:

Conscious culture reeks of

My only choice is to say yes 

the laws of language are opaque

Wash your toes in warm salt water

I dislike bubble tea 

Glitter shoes, step step, spring, step!”

“That’ll be $15, they announced with uncertainty, 

it settled like a feather on a needle

because she loved me by happenstance.

Never smile at a crocodile 

because cats are funny when  

Melting slowly with each other, grasping onto 

“Henry V. is passionately washing his wig in a lake.

She collapsed into a heap of delusion 

Told a haphazard account of what 

Thomas the Tank Engine is gay?

A trifecta of hazy spots, true waste and sugar spun oddities.

The rules clearly state one line.”

“Eat your eyelashes, so

It became a troublesome task 

to complete with no music.

We broke the world record for it, and 

Tomorrow is yesterday’s today they

A great deluge of colour 

My gold ring was stolen from me.”

Performance responses:

I REMEMBER...

Unorthodox entering/exits

Looking down throat - surreal

Body parts as landscapes

Adam pushing open the door to the bathroom with feet whilst Tash is creeping forward

“There are many things that I want to do”

Sharing fake scents

Neža literally trying to pull out her eyelashes - “this is a troublesome task without music”

Fa’asu eating paper

Asking impossible questions

Uncontrollable laughter and unanswered questions - going on for longer than necessary/surreal moment

Book over face - what a great book

OBJECTS PERFOMRING:

Glowing jumper plugged into toaster

Objects suit specific tracks

Romance of objects

Objects performing with music and silence

Waiting for them to react e.g. on the drop

An object orchestra?