This is an exquisite corpse made up of different images representing important parts of my life over the last several years. It represents my development over about the last four years. Among other things, I started growing my own food, sold my first piece of art, and tested my resolve by earning an associates degree (finally) (long story). I went through different photos taken of myself over the last few years, mostly self portraits. I also included a moth sitting on a net as a sort of overlay – it represents my continuing transformation between different states of being.

I submitted this as a #ds106 design assignment. This is something I assign to my ART100 students, and I ask them to make it say something about them. Check out their examples. It can be a really fun thing to do. Take pictures of yourself, or your family, or even each other. You can also mix in objects, like metal parts, tools, natural objects, animals, even sketches. Use an image editor to mash up the body parts and objects, etc. Let it say something about your identity. Heck, use it as your avatar. You can make it as goofy or deep as you want.

Hope you like mine.

Oh, yeah, you can get help with the technical details from this great open source textbook that I use with my class, Digital Foundations: Intro to Media Design with Adobe Creative Suite. What you want is Chapter 9, which walks you through step by step with pictures. My link goes to Exercise 3, which is where the Exquisite Corpse instructions start – you’ll just have to ignore the bits about the double exposure layer they have underneath their body parts. Or you could scroll up to Exercise 1 and add the double exposure into your mix. I hope you try it. It takes some time but I think the results can really be worth your while.