Video/New Media Workshop Lesson Plans (part one)

Exquisite Corpse Video

Objective: 

To experience a non-traditional video/new media process utilizing the exquisite corps technique. Characters will be the subject matter. Participants will be exposed to some surrealist ideas and theories in the context of art history. Participants will be exposed to some video production equipment.

Materials:

Brown paper grocery bags, Journals, pens, 8.5” by 11” printer paper, Markers, Crayons, Colored Pencils, glue sticks, collage materials, costumes, theatrical props (hats, boots, masks, fabric, ect.) 2 flip cameras, two tripods, a backdrop, final cut pro, jitter, Mac book pro, light kit.

Motivation/Inspiration for Activity:

If I were any character who would I be? How would I act? Would I be a human? Would I be and animal? Would I be and object, like a house or a baseball or a chare? What special powers would I have? Would my body behave differently when I was sad/ happy/ excited/ angry/ confused/ nervous/ scared? How would the character differ form my actual self? Would my character have any talents? What types of people/ animals/ monsters/ or creatures would your character hang out with? What type of stories would your character be in? Where will your character live?

Warm up:

 Exquisite corps drawing exercise. Movement exercise: participants will portray movements based on emotions. The instructor will suggest an emotion and ask participants how that emotion could be portrayed through a movement or series of movements.  Participants should be prompted to concentrate on using their bodies instead of their faces.

Activity:

 Participants will create masks out of a brown paper grocery bag using crayons, markers, colored pencils glue sticks and collage materials. These masks will be based on a character of the participants choosing. After the mask has been created the participants will have a chance to collect and utilize props and costuming materials in order to fully portray their character.  Students will then perform their character in font of a camera. There will be an emphasis on body motions instead of facial expressions since our faces will be covered. After class time the instructor will take collected footage and divide the bodies of the character up into head to shoulders portion shoulders to hips portion and hips to feet portion.  These portions will be organized into a program created in jitter in order to make a video version of an exquisite corps. This video will be screened at the beginning of the next class.

Follow up Exercise:

Personal art experience journaling exercise: Participant should write one to ten lines about their experience in class. Sample questions to answer: What was my favorite thing about today’s class? What did I not enjoy about today’s class? What are 3 things I learned? What are 3 things I am proud of? How did I feel after today’s class? Is there any thing that I want to state about my art piece? Note: if the child is not developmentally capable of writing it is encouraged that the child draw a picture or verbalize what they would like to be written and it be transcribed by a volunteer.

Historical/Conceptual Notes:

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members.

Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur; however, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works being an artifact. Leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was above all a revolutionary movement.

Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities of World War I and the most important center of the movement was Paris. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, film and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy and social theory.

Automatism has taken on many forms: the automatic writing and drawing initially (and still to this day) practiced by surrealists can be compared to similar, or perhaps parallel phenomena, such as the non-idiomatic improvisation of free jazz.

Surrealist automatism is different from mediumistic automatism, from which the term was inspired. Ghosts, spirits or the like are not purported to be the source of surrealist automatic messages. "Pure psychic automatism" was how André Breton defined surrealism, and while the definition has proved capable of significant expansion, automatism remains of prime importance in the movement.

Exquisite corpse (also known as exquisite cadaver or rotating corpse) is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. "The adjective noun adverb verb the adjective noun") or by being allowed to see the end of what the previous person contributed.

Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals — for example, an intellectual endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus.

Vocabulary:

Exquisite corpse, collaboration, surrealism, automatism, character, tripod, costume, backdrop, camera.