0xquisite Corpse: a time-driven monument to collective Dreams & chance

0xquisite Corpse is the 105 Collective’s dynamic, digitally native take on Cadavre Exquis – the Surrealist game in which one person creates a drawing, then hides most of it so that the next artist adds to it “blind,” with whimsical, often bizarre results. This artwork reflects our collective fascination with many Surrealist practices and principles – particularly the intrinsic value in dreams, collective artmaking and the power of chance processes.

0xquisite corpse comprises four dynamic pieces in a collection tokenized on a single ERC-721TL contract. Each Corpse is composed of drawings created by the four artists in turn, using the Cadavre Exquis process. They also each include four state variations, changing automatically four times daily in correspondence with different times of day: dawn, day, dusk, and night, dictated by the Viewer’s local time.

Every Corpse has its own title and is accompanied by a corresponding textual piece written by oculardelusion and Unrealcity. Upon minting, collectors may also add Story Inscriptions – a feature of all Transient Labs tokens – which allows each token to be updated with metadata, allowing layers of narrative around the artwork to accumulate over time.

In addition, oculardelusion has composed a piece of music to accompany the 0xquisite Corpse, available to all as an independent open edition.

⬇ Below, view the Corpses in their various states, read the accompanying texts, and click through to view live on Transient Labs ⬇

Elemental Solar Portal: dawn / day / dusk / night >>>

The sun is an eye.
No, the sun is a head, disembodied,
and the sky extrudes a drop,
a bone: something organic pushes into focus,
a soul incarnating into blood.
It points to itself
as it assembles. “This is me,”
it seems to say. And,
popping itself into a petaled power point –
zaps to life in a hover over
a flood of citrus lava.
The sun is a god
haloed by molten fire
his heart exploding blessings of peace.
These rays cannot reach
the war raging
in the cities below.
The sun is a king,
his gold crescent crown with its halo
of fringe, satin robes, royal
garments hide a frizzle
of excitement: then empty, calm,
smoothed walls of light –
The sun dissolves into a night sentry:
cool, misty beacon,
his determined cascade into rivulets
grow smaller, then smaller – outstretched palm
catching at the whirlpool, the water
flooding blades of green electric grasses,
neon wires festooning
illuminated metal pillars.
Artists:
urben
Unrealcity
Stina Jones
oculardelusion
urben

Text:
oculardelusion
View the artwork live on Transient Labs. It will dynamically change states at four different times of day: dawn (5 am to 9 am), day (9 am to 5 pm), dusk (5 pm to 9 pm), and night (9 pm to 5 am), synced to the viewer’s local time zone.
This way to the auction page. (Coming soon!)

Nebulous Bionic Pathway: dawn / day / dusk / night >>>

From the hearth of the sky and the spicebox of earth unbidden kindnesses tumble and well, shower and spring, vivid with shadow. Particles tickle and arc, spark and find paths, shimmer into shapes that gather and ravel and feel. Light finds an eye turned to it. Aching for sensation, again and never before, a mindless thought: it is like something; it is like something to be.
They burn and turn further, the sky and the earth, and their kindnesses are gathered and raveled and shaped by an eye turning up to the light. There’s time past to give the moment momentum, a grammar advancing in chance and law, a parsing of the future as the object of the now. From cold dark to warm light the pathway emerges, singing its name. In all, from the earth’s sweet density to foam and thought, a home, and all things considered. The pathway draws on its route and is vane in destination, governed by a oneness and the cool of the other. Half an eye turns away from the light towards a mindless thought and it does not turn back.
The pathway, swelling with satiety, a destiny with no destination, lies in the cradle of the earth and the sky. The beauty of the now is all, at the centre, at the heart of it, where the eye turns in to see, the blossom of the moments, where all that’s written’s read. Aching with sensation, again and never before, a thoughtless mind: it is like everything; it is like everything to be.
Artists:
Stina Jones
urben
oculardelusion
Stina Jones
Unrealcity
Text:
Unrealcity
View the artwork live on Transient Labs. It will dynamically change states at four different times of day: dawn (5 am to 9 am), day (9 am to 5 pm), dusk (5 pm to 9 pm), and night (9 pm to 5 am), synced to the viewer’s local time zone.
This way to the auction page. (Coming soon!)

Cascade of Transluscent Flow: dawn / day / dusk / night >>>

the dream arising now
began long ago
triggered by spores
cosmic winds blew
orbs flung across the universe
past stars
through the void of sky
into the walls of caves
settled into soil
trampled by hooves
rooted, sprouted, branched and fruited
begetting more orbs
the orbs sang themselves into hearts
from hearts sprang eyes
the eyes rooted bodies
evolved tails – then dropped them
the bodies built houses with windows
so they could keep their eyes on the sky
from which they’d blown
they built machines
so they could gaze at each other
through neon portals
collapsing maps
creating constant companions
their capacity for sight
unfurling into an infinite ribbon
mycelial nets of
perception twisting through
bursting foliage
wires poking out
Artists:
oculardelusion
Stina Jones
urben
Unrealcity
oculardelusion
Text:
oculardelusion
View the artwork live on Transient Labs. It will dynamically change states at four different times of day: dawn (5 am to 9 am), day (9 am to 5 pm), dusk (5 pm to 9 pm), and night (9 pm to 5 am), synced to the viewer’s local time zone.
This way to the auction page. (Coming soon!)

Prophet of Dissolved Strata: dawn / day / dusk / night >>>

The far and foggy mountains turned again, east under the bright star, her last dream glimmering vividly, behind no face hiding, at least for the little while the long shadows stayed. Her mind and heart and fundament ringing in sympathy, pink and intimate, rooted in wellsprings thick with depth. Dawn asked of her a question. “Well, me, evidently,” answered she aloud.
With the midday sky flooded, the open sky and the teeming water and the crystal land all flooded and flooded also the pillars of the underneath, she drew up her knees and paddled her toes and wondered why they feared her one blue eye when it was rightly hers and saw as much as the light allowed. Perhaps that was why, she would never know.
Know never would she why the light allowed as much as she saw. Her thighs and belly and breast blazing like a dying heart alive, dusk’s cool tremors retreating under the soles of her feet. Tremulous too her skin’s talk with the water, water steaming with mist, misty the sky, and tremulous too the distilling mist on her lashes, her brows, the hair of her head.
Aloud she answered, hiding her face behind her first dream, vividly glimmering as long as the shadows stayed wild, the question midnight asked of her. Echoed deep the wellsprings, blue and scant and distant, in the smooth hard carbon of her foundation, heart and mind quivered by sympathy. Stars under the dull east, again turned the mountains foggy and far.
Artists:
Unrealcity
oculardelusion
unrealcity
urben
Stina Jones
Text:
Unrealcity
View the artwork live on Transient Labs. It will dynamically change states at four different times of day: dawn (5 am to 9 am), day (9 am to 5 pm), dusk (5 pm to 9 pm), and night (9 pm to 5 am), synced to the viewer’s local time zone.
This way to the auction page. (Coming soon!)