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Exquisite corpse, also known as exquisite cadaver (from the original French term cadavreexquis) or rotating corpse, is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. "The adjectivenounadverbverb the adjectivenoun," as in “The green duck sweetly sang the dreadful dirge”) or by being allowed to see only the end of what the previous person contributed.
The technique was invented by Surrealists and is similar to an old parlour game called Consequences in which players write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the writing, and then pass it to the next player for a further contribution. Surrealism principal founder André Breton reported that it started in fun, but became playful and eventually enriching. Breton said the diversion started about 1925, but Pierre Reverdy wrote that it started much earlier, at least before 1918. In a variant now known as picture consequences, instead of sentences, portions of a person were drawn.[3]
Later the game was adapted to drawing and collage, producing a result similar to children's books in which the pages were cut into thirds, the top third pages showing the head of a person or animal, the middle third the torso, and the bottom third the legs, with children having the ability to "mix and match" by turning pages
