3. Simultaneity and the parallel universe in the exquisite corpse game.   

I participated in an MA Painting online project space residency. During the residency, I invited my classmates to join my exquisite corpse games. 

Could you imagine déjà vu is the feeling from the parallel universe?  

One day I saw this photograph online which was taken by   Patrick Clelland.  At first glance, this mysterious photo evoked a sudden feeling of déjà vu. It was unbelievable as I was certain I had not visited the set of the photo but the colour of the sky and landscape felt so incredibly familiar. I needed to find more details about the photo to uncover the mystery and satisfy my curiosity.   

After contacting Patrick Clelland, I learned that the photo was taken at a ski resort a few weeks before the beginning of the ski season in New Zealand a few years ago. I learned that the reason why the colours of this photo were so unique was that it was taken on an expired slide film.  

The beautiful landscape that Patrick Clelland saw in front of his eyes is different from what he saw from the camera, and the representation changed yet again following film development. This beautiful scenery gives people different feelings. Just like Patrick Clelland could not imagine that the sky would show this strange colour when he used expired films.  

It reminds me of the exquisite corpse game.  

In 2012, Meyers's graph paper drawings sparked a series of collaborations based on the surrealist game Exquisite Corpse—a strategy of automatic drawing that became a popular parlor game in the 1920s and lives on today. The original concept was to create a human figure in three parts. A piece of paper was folded and passed around for players to complete; their predecessors' work hid- den from them. While the avant-garde sought to use the game as a vehicle for accessing the unconscious, Meyers exploits the methodology as a tool for artistic collaboration and visual dialogue. The rules are simple in Meyer's take on this game: the first artist begins the drawing, leaving only a fragment of the image visible; the second artist uses the fragment as a prompt to continue the piece; once the work is complete, the entire image is revealed. The results are often mischievous and unexpected. On the opposite page, you will find a fragment of one-half of an Exquisite Corpse drawing by Meyers. (The First Worldwide Game of Exquisite Corpse, 2016) 

During this game, each individual  uses their diverse imaginations to imagine each part of the body that they create and then combine them,  often resulting in a form of "monster."   

The feeling of taking photos in various times and spaces by Patrick Clelland is similar to the feeling of imaging various parts of the body in the exquisite game.  

One of the examples is the typical simultaneity artwork of Picasso.  

Picasso and his friends visited the original Iberian sculpture on display in the Louvre in 1906.  

Picasso was deeply shocked by the Iberian sculptor's concept of 'conception over perception', and he was ashamed of it. What they drew was an imaginary perspective rather than a directly perceived perspective.   

At the same time, with the development of film technology in the 20th century, the continuous movements of characters can be shown in the same picture, making Picasso more convinced that different perspectives can be shown on the same two-dimensional canvas. As depicted in the painting 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon', the five girls are interpreted in the same two-dimensional plane in different dimensions. Their distorted and broken forms liberate people from a single two-dimensional perspective.  

So, does the parallel world exist in a space that we have not yet perceived? The appearance of Deja vu reminds us that there exists an unknown world in which time is two-dimensional, and the past, present, and future will all be in one space.   

I even think that Deja vu may not be a sensation brought by the confusion of time. Instead, it lets us instantly feel a two-dimensional time-space. In this time-space, the past, present, and future,  are simultaneously presented in the same picture, and only once we have seen this do we find ourselves feeling Deja vu.