The Exquisite Picto-Scriptography Machine

I wanted to make it by hand.

Over beers in a dark divey bar I insisted that my construction-savvy artist friend sketch it out for me on a napkin, and then made him promise to let me borrow his workshop to manifest it. When my father, a bit of an artist and furniture hack himself, happened to be in town on business, I coerced him into coming with me to said workshop to help cut and assemble the parts. And in a course of hours, with my friend popping in periodically to consult, we did indeed build it.

We assembled and then disassembled the apparatus in such a way as it could be packed, shipped and eventually put back together—this time on my own, halfway across the country—with nothing but grit and a few power tools. It'd be a dirty, scrappy task, in an environment that could only be described as hostile, and I'd probably hate doing it. 

But since I sometimes do things I hate, and often think of myself as scrappy, and certainly don't mind getting dirty: there it was. An ugly, silly thing that I kinda loved a lot. 

The project was based on a simple parlor game known as an "Exquisite Corpse" or "Telestrations," though I've heard it referred to by a number of oddball names including "Eat Poop Your Cat," (which is what my weirdo friends and I call it) and have seen variations that include a physical board game. The best description I can think of would be if you took the general skill set of "Pictionary" and crossed it with the simplicity of "Telephone," and sprinkled it with the unpredictable whimsy of a seance. In my opinion it's best played with a small circle of buddies gathered 'round a cozy fire using a pile of loose scratch paper. It's a whole lot of damn fun. 

This, on the other hand, was a wooden structure roughly five foot tall holding up a large bolt of drawing parchment in the middle of a dry salt flat in Nevada. The players were a group 65,000 costumed freaks, and fun wasn't really on the table: there were no winners, no losers, and barely a point. 

It was Burning Man 2005, the aforementioned build conditions were blinding heat and powerful whiteouts, and the project was none other than The Exquisite Picto-Scriptography Machine. 

This festival and why I was there are stories for another time, but the machine itself (loosely and inaccurately named, though it did have moving parts) was whole-heartedly and painstakingly made (and in the spirit of the event, also burned), board by board, entirely by hand. 

But also I wanted people—friends and strangers—to use their hands when they encountered it, to touch the thing and hold materials that left marks on their fingers, to put pen or charcoal to paper, to work the makeshift hand-crank forward and back and when finished, to step away and admire their handiwork. I wanted them to be as committed to this trivial activity as I was to planning it, pouring over the game's instructions and guessing at what others had left or where the ditty would go, because in reality, I had as little idea about that as they did. 

If you're still trying to picture it: in your wanderings, you'd happen upon this Exquisite Picto-Scriptography Machine (a bit unremarkable in appearance and small in stature compared to the geodesic domes and blinking art cars and buzzworthy artifacts around it—but hopefully nonetheless intriguing) where a large easel displayed either an illustration or bit of descriptive text. Instructions invited you to create, based on what came prior, a drawing or a sentence of what you see and to advance the canvas forward for the next person. You can see how this giant game of words and pictures could turn sentiments into nonsense, and nonsense into hilarity. Though, ironically, this version of Finish the Story didn't really let its participants in on the joke.  

So... what?  Who was it fun for, why the effort? 

I wanted to feel fulfilled in the company of other artists in a scene where it was expected to create art of your own. And in terms of a low risk social experiment, I also wanted to see what would happen.

But mostly I wanted to to birth something (mostly) myself, from start to finish, however clumsily, like shooting myself out of a cannon: bold, brave and fast, no skill required, closing my eyes and not caring where I landed and as long as I didn't fall flat on my face and die, I'd consider it a huge fucking success. 

Perhaps then, there's a bit of merit as to why this festival's lesser known slogan is "Bad art, good stories..."