Assignment #7: Automatic Writing
 
 

1] Take a piece of paper and a pen. Clear your mind and write continuously without allowing any pause for thought until the page is full.

2] Take a piece of paper and a pen. Emotionally charge yourself by reflecting on memories or thoughts you know will make you happy, sad, angry, anxious, etc. Clear your mind [don't try to force the affect into the writing] and fill the page without stopping, as in #1.

3] After accumulating a number of automatic writings, choose one. Edit, rewrite, and polish it. Is the result better than the original? How is it different?


Suggested reading:
"Soluble Fish" from "Manifestoes of Surrealism" by Andre Breton
"The Magnetic Fields" by Andre Breton and Phillipe Soupalt
" The Voice" by Robert Desnos [the surrealist considered at the time to have reached the apogee of automatic speech and behavior]
"Andre Masson" by William Rubin and Carolyn Lanchner [automatic drawings]



The other assignments:

Assignment #1: The Inexpressible

Assignment #2: Dreams

Assignment #3: The Arbitrary

Assignment #4: The Manifesto

Assignment #5: Etudes: Algorithms of negation, elision, and substitution

Assignment #6: Utopia

Assignment #8: Games

Assignment #9: Criticism

 take the Surrealism Test
 
 
 
 
 

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