Surrealism and Psychic Automatism
Who has never been surprised by the poetry of one’s dreams? Who has never experienced a feverish and dramatic life during sleep that is far more eventful and astonishing than the boring waking state? I’m sure that most of you noticed the unusual thoughts that are imagined by a consciousness working without the restrictions of reason and rationality. As some of you know this state of mind was for surrealist artists the source of their bizarre and innocent art. Andre Breton, one of the most important theorists of Surrealism, defined it as ‚pure psychic automatism‘. The artist should systematically work without the censorship of the control-seeking everyday consciousness. This was the ideal state in which to produce creative work.
Surrealists adopted the concept of automatism from the works of Sigmund Freud. For him, dream was a state of mind where the contents of the pre- and unconsciousness appear automatically and in an uncontrolled manner. In this concept Freud saw a way to treat people. In his psychoanalytic therapy the patient was encouraged to make use of psychic automatism in the form of free accociations. He or she should speak uncensored about what comes to his or her mind without willful filtering. This process was ongoing until a psychic suppression can be identified. In this way the censored feelings, thoughts, perversions, unknown desires and banned aspects of one’s personality are led back from the unconscious to the conscious mind.
For Surrealists the technique of automatism was and is a great source of endless ideas. They allowed previously unconscious thoughts to come to the surface of the mind and inspire the creation of dreamlike, unplanned pieces of art. Now here is a small instruction how to put it into practice: Anyone interested in making surrealist art should grab a pen and a paper and sit down at the table and start writing, without worrying about what actually is written. One has to forget everything. When achieved, you even forget who you are. If you are old or young, married or single, a businessman or a homeless person; everything must be forgotten for this one particular moment.
It is also kind of a meditation technique. You forget logic and reason and just listen to your freely floating thoughts whispering in your inner ear. Write as fast as you can and never question what you are doing. This way you do not miss out your most intimate thoughts. If you ever come to a point where you start faltering, do not hesistate, and break open the gates to your unconscious by writing - for example - the first letter of the alphabet. Using this technique you will find yourself in a flow state again very quickly. So and now just write the poetry of the unknown:
„It is fridge. Open cats are floating freely on the horizon. A single long thunderclap roars for several hours above raging meows. How they never clean their paws. It's gotten so bad.“
Further Surreal Poems can be found on this website.
Surrealism in movie making
Besides poems, stories and paintings, Surrealism also manifested as moving image art. Famous films include Un Chien Andalou by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí and Meshes of the Afternoon by Maya Deren. Influences of Surrealism can be found in The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Eraserhead by David Lynch.
My friends and I always loved these movies. We always wanted to make our own. We already had crazy, dreamlike imaginations that we shared with each other. One day we took a our cameras and started filming. We transfered the principles of psychic automatism to movie-making. First, we opened our hearts and got rid of our everyday worries. Then we expressed what came into our minds without questioning and planning. We used the objects that were already around us and accociated freely what we could do with them, and did it – again without questioning. We just pointed the camera on the actors and shot. It was an act of liberation. It was like being a child again and just playing without thinking about what is right or wrong. We were allowed to do silly things, completely freeing ourselves from social conventions. Through the use of the principles of psychic automatism while filming, editing became like fitting a puzzle together. We searched for the best order of the scences we filmed. Simultaneously we tried out different songs for background music. As a final product we created a dream-like memory we were able to share. We named our art project Surreal Flakes and started uploading our works on Youtube.
Here are some examples. Enjoy it!
In our later works, we focused the technique of psychic automatism more on the script-writing part. Examples and a new posts will follow!
We have always loved surrealist games. Would you like to write a line in the comments using psychic automatism by yourself? It would be great fun. If there are some surrealist enthusiasts, please tell us what your favourite works of Surrealism are. Thanks!!
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