:: after belize/eat the daisies/digging/a hand out ::
by mattb, starmoon, Poncho Man, and jima
::| an.exquisite.corpse : discussion : 39 |::
If you were wondering what an Exquisite Corpse looks like, you just saw one.
Phineas at April 18, 2006 6:02 AM
And so it is! Love this corpse, the best for a while. There is something oddly poignant about the lonesome hand at the bottom as well... was it chewed off by the giant demon baby? Or does it belong to the man with the spade? I doubt we will ever know.
slinkachu at April 18, 2006 6:29 AM
It's just waiting for a handout. Get it? A hand... out? A handout? Oh, the funny.
jima at April 18, 2006 6:32 AM
WOW!
I'm speechless.
Shae at April 18, 2006 7:28 AM
The more I look at this, the more amazed I am. Definately one of the best ever.
Shae at April 18, 2006 7:40 AM
Fabulous. Makes me wonder exactly what happened in Belize...
FogBaron at April 18, 2006 7:48 AM
Stunning.
coal2k at April 18, 2006 7:59 AM
Holy canoli! It's beautiful! Starmoon, Poncho Man, and jima - will you marry me? Group hug!
What happens in Belize stays in Belize...
cheers,
mattb
mattb at April 18, 2006 8:06 AM
Very well done. I have a hard time seeing any seams.
I love baby krishna (why else would he be blue?). The transition of the daisy petals is really good. The whole piece is so well balanced. I, too, love the floating hand. It shouts "Read Me!". I'd love that floor in perspective under the sweeper for my Sims game.
Dor at April 18, 2006 8:19 AM
I think the hand is saying "Ta-da!"
amyc at April 18, 2006 8:49 AM
Is it empty-handed?
eighmie at April 18, 2006 9:11 AM
They guy with the spade is wandering around saying "Now, where did I bury that hand..."
I felt that my piece had an "X-files" feel to it, but I think the entire piece could definitely be a poster for an episode! Giant Flowers! Ghostly babies! Dismembered hands!
Great work, fellow corpsers! Mattb, starmoon, and jima, pleasure working (or should that be "playing") with you!
Poncho Man at April 18, 2006 10:25 AM
Bravo! Bravissimo!
Andrew at April 18, 2006 10:37 AM
Utterly brilliant. I totally "dig" this corpse (sorry). Great, great panels by all the players. The marble wall with the gravel foregoround creates a wonderful corpse within a corpse effect. The composition is phenomenal.
To me it looks like a poster advertising a monster movie filmed by Pre-Raphaelites, if such a thing existed, "The Cherub That Ate Paris". I was going to say something along the same lines as amyc about the hand. It makes me think of a Renaissance-era technique used, for example, by Botticelli, wherein the artist would insert a self portrait of themselves along a painting's periphery gesturing toward the central composition.
So, when do you start accepting nominations for Corpse of the Year?
Cicada at April 18, 2006 11:17 AM
Note, a "foregoground" is similar to a "foreground", just more fun.
Cicada at April 18, 2006 11:19 AM
thats just...perfect.
kvasir at April 18, 2006 11:36 AM
Beautiful work all!
aberling at April 18, 2006 3:17 PM
foregoground (n.) - 1. a merry-go-round in the foreground
moonroof at April 18, 2006 3:48 PM
Breathtaking!! Wow... just WOW!
Crucibelle at April 18, 2006 5:10 PM
Insanely great, words can't do it justice.
Jim at April 18, 2006 5:20 PM
What the bleeding f*ck are you four smoking? And can I have some? Just a little tiny micro-toke, though; my mind is already blown.
Jessica at April 18, 2006 6:01 PM
Gotta get me some a dat!!
Yeahhhh.....
Thus Spake
The Hand.
Colin Vincent at April 18, 2006 7:05 PM
The best for ages!
starmoon's completion of the creepy staring daisy eyes is great, as is the general icy negative colour scheme of the middle panels.
That giant baby is probably very cute in negative.
I dig it.
The symmetry is followed through, so the hand, which breaks it, acquires more significance.
Gorgeous!
Could make a good EC t-shirt, too.
AndyFromJava at April 18, 2006 7:23 PM
This is Exquisite!!!
Wild........ at April 18, 2006 10:33 PM
OK, so am I the only one who thought the hand was attached to a person buried alive? (maybe it is just me, thats always been my biggest fear)
tavia27 at April 19, 2006 3:20 AM
"Wave 'bye-bye' to the nice man with the shovel..."
(I think he's going after Baby Bluey next.)
FogBaron at April 19, 2006 9:44 AM
This corpse is amazing on so many levels. This should become the official anexquisitecorpse.com logo.
dagfooyo at April 19, 2006 4:43 PM
So now that I've had a couple of days of this one... I'm going ruffle some feathers, but I'm sticking to my guns dammit! I don't really like it, and no one else has criticized it. The work is fine and all but It just doesn't have that thing that makes corpses amazing to me. It's cool that everybody made their pieces fall into each other, but it's more of a novelty that it happened than it being a great corpse
Take it out of the corpse world for a moment and think about it as an image. Is it as interesting? Not so much. But since corpsing is also about process it is of course amazing that it came out that way. As an arresting image though? For me, no.
chase the light at April 19, 2006 11:20 PM
"Take it out of the corpse world for a moment and think about it as an image. Is it as interesting?"
Is any? To me, the answer is no.
Jim at April 19, 2006 11:50 PM
I'm with chase on this one. I too have tried to rationalize why this should be a great corpse. The objective mechanics of this corpse are top-notch, but I see limited artistic depth to the piece. It almost has the feel of a well-crafted movie poster as opposed to (even a print of) a piece of art. Does that make sense?
But don't get me wrong - it's very fine - all should be congratulated and I hope to see those same authors on future corpses I participate in.
Keep up the good work!
jakedrews at April 20, 2006 1:39 AM
It's all subjective. Not everybody likes the same things, and not everyone is going to get it. Frankly, I'm personally not sure that judging or grading an artist's subject matter or content really jibes with surrealist philosophy or art in general in the post-modern era. There was a revolution, you know? Several in fact.
But now I know this is great art. Once a couple of green-eyed detractors chime in...
Cicada at April 20, 2006 7:17 AM
Clearly it's subjective. However, I favor the expression of *all* opinions in the commentary section as I learn from others' judgements, positive or otherwise (just so long as the comments don't become ad hominem).
jakedrews at April 20, 2006 7:42 AM
I think we make meanings and find personal hooks that give us a kick in these chimerical, random play-images.
We want it to be magical, and celebrate when it is for us.
Surreal usually means being open to connecting with something in a nonrational way. Being open.
It's perfectly okay to not like this one. But I like how it actually looks planned out. I like how many jokes and comments it creates. Who'd have thought it would?
As to jakedrews seeing limited artistic depth, perhas it's more that the clashes and connections just don't do it for him personally. How much artisitc depth can there be when four people are randomly continuing something? Unless is unconscious depth.
I personally don't like corpses where too much overt complext artistic statement is forced into each quarter. These don't seem to work as whole for some reason. Each quarter can look like it's trying to exist on its own.
But I bet some of you reading this are saying " What a load of whaledung" and love that sort of thing.
Vive le a difference.
AndyFromJava at April 20, 2006 8:15 AM
Andy - right on. Well, this corpse is certainly thought provoking.
Anyway, I downloaded the image and sliced out the text portion - and for me this changed the whole feel - I liked it much better - I was able to appreciate the aesthetics more. Maybe I can't see the forest for the trees sometimes.
Again - good work all!
jakedrews at April 20, 2006 8:43 AM
What is the unit of measurement for artistic depth?
Cicada at April 20, 2006 9:52 AM
I'm confident it can be measured in furlongs per fortnight.
jakedrews at April 20, 2006 11:13 AM
yay.
unapologetic at April 20, 2006 12:26 PM
"This corpse is amazing on so many levels. This should become the official anexquisitecorpse.com logo." said Dagfooyo a few comments back.
Why not the cover of the coffee table book?
Wouldn't you just love to take all 400 with you and just hang out with them for awhile? It's all kinda impermanent, like Tibeten sand paintings. But, I understand, this gift of electrically (and spiritually?) connecting with 3 other minds to produce blind art is just a miracle! I don't 'judge' any of them on 'artistic depth'. Depth implies a linear way of looking at art and to me, art is circular, spiraling. Good? Bad? It's too subjective to waste energy arguing when you could be doing more corpses. I've never met an exquisite corpse I didn't like. (maybe once.)
Dor at April 20, 2006 1:33 PM
I like it.
billporter at April 21, 2006 1:35 AM
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