Mission

Mental Contagion's mission is to publish compelling work by unknown and established artists and writers to an international community of artists, writers and enthusiasts. The magazine explores content and processes through interview, essay and biography. Mental Contagion is an arts and literature Internet magazine published on a bimonthly basis, 6 times per year.

The "Mental Contagion" Name

"Exquisite Corpse" was a creative technique developed during the surrealist movement. Based on a parlor game, the name is derived from the French phrase "Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau," which translates to "The exquisite corpse will drink the young wine." Viewing only a portion of what a person has drawn, collaborators add to a composition in progress to create a strange and often ridiculous image. Preceeding these visual "mash-ups" or what some have referred to as "intellectual MadLIbs" was a literary technique, prompting each contributor to add a phrase, seeing only a segment of the previous phrase. Surrealist poet and art historian Nicolas Calas said that the completed work revealed the "unconscious reality in the personality of the group." Often, similar themes and images would appear in the completed compositions, and this is what visual artist Max Ernst referred to as a "Mental Contagion."