Surautomatism

Surautomatism is any theory or act in practice of surrealist creative production taking, or purporting to take, automatism to its most absurd limits.

In their 1945 statement Dialectique de la Dialectique, Romanian surrealists Gherashim Luca and Dolfi Trost wrote,^[1]

We have returned to the problem of knowledge through images... by establishing a clear distinction between images produced by artistic means and images resulting from rigorously applied scientific procedures, such as the operation of chance or of automatism. We stand opposed to the tendency to reproduce, through symbols, certain valid theoretical contents by the use of pictorial techniques, and believe that the unknown that surrounds us can find a staggering materialization of the highest order in indecipherable images. In generally accepting until now pictorial reproductive means, surrealist painting will find that the way to its blossoming lies in the absurd use of aplastic, objective and entirely non-artistic procedures.

The name surautomatism suggests "going beyond" automatism,^[1] but whether surautomatism is anything but a group of methods by which surrealist automatism is practiced is controversial.

Surautomatism includes cubomania, entopic graphomania and various types of what the Romanian surrealists called "indecipherable writing".

References[edit]

^ ^a ^b Luca, Gherasim; Trost, Dolfi (1945). Dialectique de la dialectique - Message to the International Surrealist Movement (in French). Poussant l'automatisme jusqu'à ses limites les plus concrètes et absurdes (le surautomatisme, le talisman-simulacre), objectivisant d'une manière ininterrompue le hasard et l'obligeant à renoncer à son caractère de rareté provenant de la découverte de l'objet trouvé (l'objet objectivement offert, la graphomanie entropique), nous écartons l'idée insupportable de ne pouvoir le capter toujours. [1]

Sources[edit]

The Language of Surrealism The Language of Surrealism
Historical Dictionary of Surrealism Historical Dictionary of Surrealism pp. 304, 455, 476.
Sacred Surrealism, Dissidence and International Avant-Garde Prose Sacred Surrealism, Dissidence and International Avant-Garde Prose
Architectural Draughtsmanship: From Analog to Digital Narratives Architectural Draughtsmanship: From Analog to Digital Narratives

[Luca-Trost_1945-1] Luca, Gherasim; Trost, Dolfi (1945). Dialectique de la dialectique - Message to the International Surrealist Movement (in French). Poussant l'automatisme jusqu'à ses limites les plus concrètes et absurdes (le surautomatisme, le talisman-simulacre), objectivisant d'une manière ininterrompue le hasard et l'obligeant à renoncer à son caractère de rareté provenant de la découverte de l'objet trouvé (l'objet objectivement offert, la graphomanie entropique), nous écartons l'idée insupportable de ne pouvoir le capter toujours. [1]

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