Sunday, May 11, 2014

Surrealist Survival Kits

April's game in the What Will Be almanac was Surrealist Survival Kits.

Players constructed their own survival kits.

When the kits were assembled and presented to the group, all players then wrote a set of instructions for the use of each kit. The only rule was that one should not write instructions for one's own kit.



Elva Jozef's survival kit
 

This is the ovary kit that will bring back to life a dead thing.
Grind up the flesh of the dead thing equally, in both the eggcups, and then distribute, carefully and equally, the ground up flesh into all the little shells. Place the shells on the de-boned fan, each a crease to its own, & then take to a river/sea, make sure it does not sink and slowly & carefully blow through the stick & direct them out into the sea, you must go as far out as possible, without the sinking of the ‘vessel’, THIS IS VITAL, because you are biding time for the little fleshy shells to develop into organs. No doubt you will eventually exhaust yourself & give up. It’s inevitable. But the longer you persist, the greater likelihood of birth. No premature babies. It will sink, & you will run to the shore, devastated and crying, but if you have done enough, blown enough, several days later the once dead will emerge from the sea, alive again.
(KW)

This kit should be used by night.
First, plant the shells in fertile ground.
Then play the pipe to summon an animal. Grab the first mammal that comes in response and fasten the ruff around its neck. Put two of its feet into the two golden cups and play a rhythm on the dome with the two seedpods. The next person you see is the one who is going to rescue you. Persuade them by any means necessary to accompany you back to the spot where you planted the shells. Together you should harvest whatever you find there.
(MF)

Golden eyes will forecast a future and lay a cloak before you with mysterious symbols.  Many ears from the sea listen and play the message upon the wooden flute.
(PH)

This is a shellgame with a corset. You cast lots with the shells in the divining cups, whilst waving the split wand. As the shells fall out you interpret their significance with the peaband, & then grind them into an elixir with the pestle. The divination is infinite but the elixir is finite.
(PC)

Contraceptive paraphernalia issued to the new born idea to prevent tangents and distractions from diluting and fracturing the core, prime drive.
(PD)


Kirsty Woods's survival kit


THIS IS A SPACETIME SHIP. IT CAN TAKE YOU ANYWHERE YOU WANT TO GO IN SPACE AND TIME. BUT TO RIDE IT AND ACTIVATE IT YOU MUST CLIMB THE LADDER, SO YOU MUST BE VERY SMALL. FOR THIS REASON, IT IS NECESSARY TO GO FORWARD IN TIME UNTIL SCIENTISTS HAVE INVENTED A SHRINKING MACHINE. UNFORTUNATELY IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO DO THIS WITHOUT USING THE SPACETIME SHIP. THUS, THIS KIT WAS MADE MERELY TO TAUNT PEOPLE, SO TO USE IT YOU MUST TAKE IT ROUND UNIVERSITIES’ PHYSICS DEPARTMENTS AND TAUNT THEM WITH IT. YOU CAN USE THE CLOCK FACE OF THE SPACETIME SHIP AS A SHIELD WHEN THEY THROW THINGS AT YOU.
(EJ)

This requires some patience. Observe the passage of insects up the ladder. If they reach as high as the fish but no higher, put the insects into a jar of water and then look at the sun through it, and you will see the other side of spacetime. If the insects reach as high as the clockface, carefully observe their positions in relation to the numerals. At the time indicated by the insects, take to your bed and masturbate. Exactly twelve hours later, you will give birth to a many-petalled child.
(MF)

A nursery clock stands tall and does not tick or tell the time. Furry bodies and widening eyes leap eagerly across the face. They are forever trapped but the white circle illuminates their wilful ploy to confuse.
(PH)

Cats will be the primary mammalian survivors of any major catastrophe. This allows cats and their allies an escape route into the depths where fish can be used to establish a new division of the day into 10 parts (one for each rung). The hands on the clockface point to two elements that must be combined at any phase of the rung-division for the achievement of satisfaction. (The current example shows a combination of aerial parsley arm and sub-aquatic dandelion fin).
(PC)

Escape and, thus, survival for any 6 cats between 6 and 4 minutes past, twice a day … From this side … to the other side.
(PD)


Patrick Hourihan's survival kit


Grasp the doll’s right hand in your own and move it vigorously up and down until the glass tube starts to glow. Then sprinkle the salt from the Jesus-headed salt shaker onto your food and eat it just before bedtime. You will enjoy wonderful voluptuous dreams all night long.
(MF)

The new being will be grown electronically as an exoskeleton using this kit, with vegetable husks acting as the nursery soil for tools and artefacts. The kit contains its own self-sustaining waving mechanism to stimulate growth and fly it across the surface of the globe.
(PC)



 Merl Fluin's survival kit


Before you open the box, place both hands over it and utter your most secret desire. Keeping this in mind, remove the lid and take out the hands. Spread out all of the cards and throw the hands onto the spread, and take out whichever cards they land on. Do this three times. Lay out the six cards face-up and utter your secret desire again. Put one card in each of your shoes, one card in each of your trouser pockets, one in your breast pocket, and one down your pants. Carry them around in this manner for one week. At midnight each night, point two hands west and utter your secret desire again. At the end of the week, make a bonfire and burn your cards. Two days after this you will achieve your secret desire.
(EJ)

Open the box/plunge the spiky dolls’ hands into whatever/something you want to hear secrets of survival from/WARNING – you must wear the necklace at all times OR, I don’t know, you are fucked.
When the hands are plunged into whatever you want to hear, be it animate or inanimate, it will proceed to deal the tarot cards and reveal secrets of survival innate to that particular object/animal (pierced). The pierced thing will no doubt bleed, even if it is a thing without blood, IT WILL BLEED, yes, even rocks will bleed. You must collect all blood into the box provided, this is very important, for whatever blood is spilt from this process is not average blood, but secrets of survival blood, and whatever it pours upon will corrupt the readings of the tarots and all will start to speak, but in their frustration & confusion to be heard will soon become advices on how not to survive, and you will die. So yes, do not spill the blood. Rocks, soil, animals etc, when rendered indistinguishable (through having survival blood spilt on them) will struggle violently against such vast conformity. And this goes for your feet & shoes, one drop on them and you are truly fucked.
(KW)

The coral mouth shouts and hands appear to create and tell an ancient story. Layer upon layer of dreams hover beneath the sensitive fingers. Their story can only be told & showed from dreams of the night.
(PH)

The self-shuffling deck of cards enables symbols to leap from the growth of the rising seas. These will then grow in a crystalline expansion. The kit contains a key for physically implanting the first growth, while the affixed hands will wave towards the new direction of growth.
(PC)

Battle rations kit used by insurgents during the ongoing war against necessity, normality and democracy.
(PD)

Paul Cowdell's survival kit


With this kit you can cast curses, so it is a very potent kit, but beware, because if you do not follow these instructions correctly the curse will rebound and stick to you! Plant the bolt in your garden (or a local park if you do not have a garden), using the blue glass as a spade, on the target’s birthday. Wait exactly one hour, and then coil the string anti-clockwise around your left index finger. Place the red bow under your tongue and wink your left and right eyes successively ten times each, starting with the left. With the bow still under your tongue, swallow the green ball. Uncoil the string and tie it to the metal reel. Swing it round your head anti-clockwise three times and throw it onto the ground where you planted the bolt. Dig up the bolt, and holding it in your left hand, spit the red bow onto the soil you have just dug up. Tap yourself on the head with the bolt ten times. Look with malintent, thinking of your curse, at the fingertip in a brass frame. Bury all remaining items and pack the soil down. Jump up and down onto this spot one hundred times. In one week your curse will come to pass.
(EJ)

OBSTRUCTION of the senses.
A survival kit that demands pain if its user wants to survive, that is some of the senses must be altered/compromised. 1 – stick the bolt/screw into:

Your ear
Your nostril
Your throat/mouth
Your anus
And finally
Your eyes
(the more crevices, the better)

If you can surpass the pain, then in those moments of insertion the obstructed capacities (hearing/sight etc) will deliver you to a different life.

The string will function as a kind of memory between these otherwise isolated capacities (organs) & render the user even more in tune. It does this because it invokes the material/organic/genetic histories & ancestors which invented each particular organ & perception. Long story short, this whole process will shamanically turn you into some kind of totemic monster, with the abilities to venture into lost collective dreams & memories. Once at this stage ALL WILL APPEAR BLUE, which is, by the way, the ultimate colour of life. But your time transformed, despite having infinite qualities, is very much finite, and this is determined by the string slowly coiling around the reel of finitude. When you return from this venture, I’m sorry, but you will slowly die. HOWEVER, you will exist, a trace of you in the collective blue memory. And your eyes will, one punctured, will take a last look at the coloured world.
(KW)

This is a receiver. Put the rubber nipple into your ear and the green ball into your mouth. Adjust the position of the other parts as necessary to pick up the best reception. You will receive audible messages from another place, and you will in turn speak those messages aloud for the benefit of your companions.
(MF)

A piece of blue ice slithering for freedom, but held in place by a carnival rope. Metal fingers point in different directions, but only to confuse even more. The blue slither pulls and pulls but the carnival ropes stretch out towards strange islands of rubber and bright polka dot foliage.
(PH)

Emergency protection against the frenzy of monarchy. Apply, attach drape and shield – gradual immersion and consequently invisible.
(PD)

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