ExCorpse Project

The Exquisite Corpse Video Project (ECVP) is a unique video collaboration of 36 artists from 16 countries, inspired by the Surrealist invention, the "Exquisite Corpse". The project is coordinated by the Brazilian video-artist Kika Nicolela.

In the Surrealist 'game', a paper is folded such that each contributor sees only a small portion of the previous contributor's work, and begins his own work from that small portion. When the last participant is finished, the sheet is unfolded to reveal a strangely divergent, yet contiguous form or figure.

Using the semi-blind, sequential method of the surrealists' game, ECVP participants create video art in response to the final ten seconds of the previous member's work. Each member is asked to incorporate these seconds into their piece, creating transitions as they please, until everyone's vision is threaded together into an instigating final "corpse."

While the Surrealists are said to have created the method almost a century ago, only recently could such a fast-paced, pan-global, audiovisual variation of this exercise be produced. The inspiring process of exchange between artists from around the world illuminates the possibilities and potentials of globalized, collective creativity.

ECVP Screenings and exhibitions have been taking place in various countries since June, such as Sweeden, USA, Greece, Canada, Brazil, Australia and South Africa. A book about the project will be released in the first semester of 2009.

An interview with some of the project members can be read here:
momente.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/exquisite-corpse-at-monkey-town-new-york/