cadavre exquis

cadavre exquis.
A game in which a small group of people contribute in turn to make up a sentence or a drawing, no member of the group being aware of what the others have contributed (in the case of a drawing, the paper is usually folded in such a way that the edge of the previous participant's work—meaningless in itself—is visible, providing a starting point for the next person). This old party game, usually called ‘consequences’, was given a new seriousness and significance by the Surrealists as a device for tapping the collective subconscious or exploiting the element of chance that they believed to be a path to creativity. The name (Fr: ‘exquisite corpse’) comes from the sentence produced by this method: ‘The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine’.