Talk:Surrealism/Archive 12

Surrealism in Interactive Media
I am thinking it might be good to add a section on surrealism in interactive media, e.g. Silent Hill and Killer7. Video games have proven themselves to be as good a medium as any for surrealism. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. 96.248.80.52 (talk) 00:20, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * They are not self-evidently surrealist, despite maybe some passing resemblance to the bastardized pop culture conception of surrealist art. Silent Hill is just a survival horror game.  There are plenty other works in various media that feature similar nightmarish imagery, but it doesn't make them surrealist.  I'm not prviously familiar with Killer7, but from a perusal of the wikipedia article, I fail to see what relevance it too has to surrealism.--Vlad the Impaler (talk) 01:26, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Vlad's comment. These videos have no relevance to Surrealism. ---  RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive'  02:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Situationist critique
I removed the following from the article and bring it here for discussion:


 * While some individuals and groups on the core and fringes of the Situationist International were Surrealists themselves, others were very critical of the movement, or indeed what remained of the movement in the late 1950s and '60s. The Situationist International could therefore be seen as a break and continuation of the Surrealist praxis.


 * The Situationist Internationalist began to protest on May 1968. Their goal was to live life free, just, and total. And also to change history. Although the situationist were influenced by the surrealist, they were not interested in art. In fact, they wanted to end art. Guy Debord (a member of the Situationist) states "We are artists insofar we are not artists." The Situationist movement was short lived.

The first paragraph is very speculative, controversial, and unreferenced. The second paragraph is so poorly written, it makes no sense. This should not be readded to the article until it is rewritten and referenced. ---  RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive' 03:34, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Pierre Schaeffer
I removed the following from the music section and bring it here for discussion:


 * The early works of musique concrete by Pierre Schaeffer have a Surrealist quality derived from the unexpected juxtaposition of sound objects. This quality was alluded to by the composer Olivier Messiaen when he referred to Schaeffer's "surrealist anxiety".

Pierre Schaeffer was not a member of, or involved in, the Surrealist movement. All this paragraph offers are vague references to "a Surrealist quality" in his music. Does the source provided offer anything in the way of evidence of Surrealist influence of Schaeffer? Until this is made more clear, I suggest this be left out. ---  RepublicanJacobite  TheFortyFive 22:27, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Archive audio recordings
I removed the following from the article because it seems like nothing less than an advertisement for a CD, complete with the link where it can be ordered. Is this set notable? If it is, are there reputable reviews? As is, this does not seem appropriate. ---  RepublicanJacobite  TheFortyFive 14:17, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

The CD audiobook Surrealism Reviewed published in 2002 features archive recordings by Louis Aragon, André Breton, Tristan Tzara, Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, Man Ray, Robert Desnos, Philippe Soupault, Marcel Duchamp, Herbert Read, Lee Miller, Roland Penrose and Jean Cocteau. Most are interviews recorded between 1938 and 1963, though Desnos, Read, Duchamp, Cocteau and Aragon also recite texts. Interviews with Francis Picabia recorded in 1945 and 1949 also appear on the Picabia CD La Nourrice Américaine, issued in 2007.

Date of first mention of the term Surrealism incorrect.
Both this article and the article on Apollinaire's Les Mamelles de Tirésias state that this was the first mention of Surrealism. However, the premiere of Satie's Parade, for which Apollinaire wrote the programme note predates this by a month. See page 66 of this source document - http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-07112005-201540/unrestricted/Doyle_dis.pdf for the text. For the date of the premiere, see page 51. See this French Wikipedia Article for the date of the premiere of Apollinaire's Les Mamelles de Tirésias: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Mamelles_de_Tir%C3%A9sias

86.144.119.17 (talk) 11:59, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, done. Coldcreation (talk) 15:34, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Leonara Carington
I wondered if Leonara Carington might warrant a mention? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.144.140.55 (talk) 15:09, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

A Vandalism Problem
It seems like this article is a constant target for vandalism. Someone mentioned something about it in 2009, but in the past few weeks (since I started watching this article), I've noticed that a significant portion of the edits are either vandalism or the reversion of vandalism. Is there anything that can be done about this? Symphonic Spenguin (talk) 15:18, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Franz Kafka
So I previously posted this on the Talk page of Franz Kafka, however in retrospect I think it's more relevant here, so I'm moving the discussion here (in its original form):

I really think Kafka should be added to the surrealist writers category. My edit was reverted however with the comment "not in the sense of our article on Surrealist writing". Well I think it's obvious and well sourced (just look it up yourself; example 1, 2, 3; it's even and for good reason included in the article itself) that Kafka was a surreal writer. He might have expanded on the ordinary surreal. But that doesn't make his works less surreal. Hence if the article on surrealism doesn't capture his taste of the surreal that article should be expanded (including mentioning Kafka) instead of having Kafka blocking out of the surreal categorization. And yes that might require shifting the focus a little bit from the art movement towards the "Surrealism" itself (that's the title of the article after all and should be its topic!). --Fixuture (talk) 18:46, 19 March 2015 (UTC)


 * To my understanding, to write about something surreal is not the same as being part of a style or movement called Surrealism which began later, according to our article which says it began in the early 1920s, - after most of Kafka' major works were written. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:29, 19 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Well then I guess Kafka should at least be mentioned as a precursor or something alike. And I think it's worth a discussion to consider moving the focus away from Surrealism's origins (the cultural movement) towards its essence and characteristics of itself. For example: Cyberpunk was and is also a social and cultural movement (in which it has its origins and life-force), while at the same time being of a specific quality - a property and artistic categorization. The movement and its output are always intertwined and codependent - for any larger cultural phenomena that emerged there's also an underlying movement. The problem with surrealism's article is that for the most part it digs beneath the culturally perceivable plane under which those people united and which they shaped (or: found² [as did Kafka]) to the detriment of the thing itself. The conflict of the adjective surreal and surrealism as a movement should be descriptive of that and not be regarded as any kind of exception to the rule. There are surrealist artists/movement that use their cultural domain to subvert and influence reality by their fiction/art (characteristic being the stark conflict with what is thought to be real; the attempt to make look beyond by making otherwise impossible) as well as there's cyberpunk artists/movement that use their cultural domain to subvert and influence reality by their fiction/art (characteristic being the dystopic extrapolation [continuation, from a realistic technological approach, and disorganized acceleration] of what is thought to be real [or: thought in the real]; the attempt to make look beyond by technological and societal forethought [and human/psychological dystopic introspective]). Where surrealism has Kafka as a preceding (prior and "outside" the cultural mass-phenomenon) artist, cyberpunk has Philip K. Dick (cyberpunk as a movement only really started with Neuromancer). Nothing in the cultural complex is sharply discrete as it's an interwoven continuous fabric - none of it can be said of to have started at a certain point with the previous blended out of sight. My point is that Kafka is a too large strand (root might not essentially be the fitting term here; ²again: recognizing the "found" prospect of it might help in understanding my point) in what is "surrealism" to be left out. Just like PKD's works are too cyberpunk to be left out on the Cyberpunk article, Kafka's works are too surreal to be left out on the surrealism article.
 * But I guess that's more of a point I should take to surrealism's talk page than here. --Fixuture (talk) 22:09, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Please share your thoughts on this matter: can Kafka be added to the surrealism article and/or category? And what would be the best approach to it if so? --Fixuture (talk) 21:38, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose, with regret. &mdash; To my knowledge, André Breton only mentioned Kafka once in all his writings, on pages 439-441 [of my copy of the 1966 Jean-Jacques Pauvert edition] of Anthology of Black Humour, where he prefaces his inclusion of three short extracts (pages 442-460) from Kafka's "Metamorphosis", "The Great Wall of China" and "The Bridge". In this preface, Breton does not refer to Kafka as a surrealist writer. It seems important to note that Breton also never mentioned Kafka among the group of writers who inspired the advent of Surrealism (such as Rimbaud and Lautreamont, for example.) So, from the traditional viewpoint of Surrealism (the movement), Kafka was never claimed as a 'predecessor' by Breton. From a personal point of view (for what it's worth), I became interested in Surrealism over 50 years ago and, until I read your recent section in the present talk page, I would never have thought of Kafka as a surrealist writer, nor associated him with the movement, in any way. Regrettably, I am therefore unable to support your suggestion. With kind regards; Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk) 00:28, 23 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Well it's a fallacy to attribute and privilege a single person as a spokesperson and definer of a cultural phenomenon. It doesn't matter whether or not Breton mentioned him in his writing, in the same way as it doesn't matter which persons William Gibson ever called out as a part of the movement. I think there might be some misunderstanding of my post present: I didn't ask for him to be called out as predecessor of the movement but as a precursor, a part of the cultural phenomenon (or sharing similarities/intersections with it), who is not necessarily involved in the creation of Surrealism as a movement. --Fixuture (talk) 18:31, 24 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your previous edit.
 * With kind regards; Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk) 22:33, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 3 one external links on Surrealism. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20130511102828/http://www.bartleby.com/66/82/15682.html to http://www.bartleby.com/66/82/15682.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081001014708/http://www.sfmoma.org:80/MSoMA/newAWScreen.asp?awScreenNum=5139 to http://www.sfmoma.org/MSoMA/newAWScreen.asp?awScreenNum=5139
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090325123701/http://bertc.com/images/magritte_12ai.jpg to http://bertc.com/images/magritte_12ai.jpg

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 16:38, 27 August 2015 (UTC)