Originally based on the parlor game Consequences, in which texts were assembled by guests without seeing (due to creative folding) what was previously written, exquisite corpse became an important source of collaboration and creative experimentation for surrealist writers and artists such as André Breton, Joan Miró, Tristan Tzara, and Marcel Duchamp. These artists used a form of the game as a way of assembling visual and textual ideas into a form that they could not have foreseen and, therefore, had very little control over. Some of the results were astounding, others less so. Every result, however, was something new.

Sound American’s version of exquisite corpse adds a few twists in keeping with our milieu and mission. Each year, three composers will collaborate on a short work specifically for SA, to be published in that year’s journals and recorded at the end of the year for streaming online. One artist will go first, passing on a set of information to the next who, in turn, will add, subtract, and change that information to create a new version of the piece before passing it on to the third, who will create a “final” take on the composition. The readers of Sound American will get to watch the whole process as it occurs as each version will be reproduced in subsequent issues.

We’re very pleased to have the phenomenal artist Moor Mother as the inaugural composer of 2020’s exquisite corpse. She gave us a powerful set of words that work as poem, rhythm, image, movement. From this, our next composer will work to shape their meaning in a completely new direction. 

Many thanks to Moor Mother for providing us with Quantum Black In The Moment in the midst of a busy travel and touring period !

QUANTUM BLACK IN THE MOMENT

QUANTUM
THE BLACK
IN THE MOMENT
STACKED UP PARTICLES
REVERN LEON SULLIVAN
AERO SPACE AGENCY
NORTH PHILLY SATELLITE 
DOX THRASH 
PAINTS SHADOWS OF THE FUTURE
RIDGE AVE GATEWAY 
FREE JAZZ HIGHWAY
LOW GROAN BUBBLING
COLTRANE STRAWBERRY MANION
A LOVE SUPREME
PLASMA THROUGH CONCRETE
THE PERSISTENT PAST
HIGH SCREECHING 
FEEDBACK ROSETTA
LOOPING THE EVER PRESENT WAVE
QUANTUM
BLACK
IN THE MOMENT

FUTURISM