Creativity

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The Verge

Perhaps the imagination is on the verge of recovering its rights.

— Andre Breton

What divides the light from the darkness?
          The warmth of the egg

Q&A Session with Sharon Cunniff, Mary Ellen Binkele, and Michelle Tennison (2011)


What is the meaning of Grace?
          I heard you sing in your sleep

Question Harry Hudson,  Answer Michelle Tennison (2005)


What thoughts are weightless?
          I step out of my mother’s dream

Question John Levy,  Answer Michelle Tennison (2017)

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“There is another world and it is in this one” — Paul Eluard

christopher-herold

 

Sometimes the game itself transcends logic and seems to tap into another realm, suggesting a transpersonal consciousness at work. The following results from playing the game with Zen practitioner and haiku poet Christopher Herold give a glimpse into the more beautiful side of Surrealism, something Andre Breton called The Marvelous.

I asked Christopher 11 pointed questions, and he answered them, unseen:

 

What is the past?
          The taste of spring water at 12,000 feet

 

Where is the map?
          A brick path’s geometry of moss

 

What is the mind of God?
          The emptiness inside a mirrored ball

 

What is truth?
          This worn out pair of shoes

 

How do you know you’ve really made it?
          The scent of a pine forest on a hot afternoon

 

What is the one dream?
          Bagpipes skirling through a foggy dawn

 

What is kindness?
          The receding tide depositing driftwood on the shore

 

Where is the nearest exit?
          Linear time compressing as death approaches

 

What will happen when two snowflakes are exactly alike?
          Children’s laughter

 

How can I avoid suffering?
          Discovering and letting go of our attachments.

 

What is deep thinking?
          Nothing . . . in particular

 

Questions Michelle Tennison, Answers Christopher Herold (2017)

 

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transpersonal zinnia signedjpg

Photograph by Michelle Tennison

 

It is a cry of the mind turning toward itself and determined in desperation to crush its fetters.

Surrealist tract, 1925

 

What if a question does not have an answer?
          One more step

Q&A Session with Timothy Binkele, Anna Binkele (age 14), Seth Binkele (age 11), Cole Binkele (age 5), Ella Binkele (age 3), Mary Ellen Binkele, and Michelle Tennison (2015)

 

What is deja vu?
          A blind person’s description of a sea anemone

Question Michelle Tennison, Answer Paul Miller (2014)

 

How can you recognize your own despair?
          A phoenix rising

Question Michelle Tennison, Answer Eve Luckring (2017)

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I admit that two-and-two-makes-four is an excellent thing, but if all things are to be praised, I should say that two-and-two makes five is also a delightful thing.

–Feodor Dostoevsky

What is the secret life of numbers?
          A black spot just outside your field of vision

Question Michelle Tennison, Answer Mark Harris (2016)

How long is a moment?
          Remember me

Question Mary Ellen Binkele, Answer Michelle Tennison (2016)

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A New Truth

The strangely beautiful juxtapositions engendered by The Question and Answer Game can, when successful, highlight the revolutionary gifts of Surrealism. The rational mind is sidestepped. Mental habit is challenged. Our social conditioning is no longer in control. Even our personal story and world view can be called into question in order to make sense of  a radically new correlation of ideas. We aren’t really sure how it is possible, but somehow this thing confronting us just feels true in a new way.

What is the moment of conception?
          Lost to her breath given willingly

Question Michelle Tennison,  Answer Chris Hudson (2010)

What am I doing in the other dimensions?
          The perfume of strangers

Question Michelle Tennison, Answer Sabine Miller (2015)

How will I know you in the afterlife?
          The heart outside my body

Q&A Session with Mary Ellen Binkele and Michelle Tennison (2014)

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“We are Determined to Create a Revolution.”

Surrealism is not a new means of expression, nor a simpler one, nor even a metaphysic of poetry. It is a means of total liberation of the mind and of everything resembling it. 

  —Andre Breton, Surrealist tract, 1925

 

Is there a way out?
          (searching for) a lost oar

Question Mark Harris, Answer Michelle Tennison (2016)

 

When am I no longer me?
          The light fades to this point, the snakes come out

Question Harry Hudson, Answer Michelle Tennison (2004)

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Automatic Writing and Games of Chance

Playful procedures and systematic stratagems [provide] keys to unlock the door to the unconscious and to release the visual and verbal poetry of collective creativity.

                                      — Mel Gooding, Intro to Surrealist Games, 1993

 

Through its inherent time-lapse and random nature, The Question and Answer Game creates an opening, a pregnant pause between question and answer. This pause, and the element of chance, are the keys to its inventiveness. Previously unrecognized thoughts are given an opportunity to jump in.