Examining the idea of being 'machine-like' and its impact on the practice of automatic writing, this article charts a history of automatism from the late nineteenth century to ..... read more
Automatism was certainly explored and popularized as an art-making technique by the Surrealists, but I'd suggest that not all automatist art is Surrealist. Abstract Expressionist artists such as Jackson Pollock used automatic techniques, but didn't consider themselves Surrealist. read more
Automatism, technique first used by Surrealist painters and poets to express the creative force of the unconscious in art. In the 1920s the Surrealist poets André Breton, Paul Éluard, Robert Desnos, Louis Aragon, and Philippe Soupault tried writing in a hypnotic or trancelike state, recording their train of mental associations without censorship or attempts at formal exposition. read more
However, despite Breton's assertion that Surrealism was "psychic automatism in its pure state", in the end, only a small percentage of surrealist works were generated using automatism. Furthermore, one should note, that the automatist methods used by surrealist artists were not totally unconscious. read more