‘Collage Postcard Game’

The Collage Postcard Game came about as a result of Taya King and Darren Thomas attempting to create collages using source materials and tools unfamiliar to them both (see ‘Songs of the Siren No 11’). This led to a discussion relating to imposing restrictions of different kinds when creating collective collages – and how these might affect the finished product. 

Initially, we suggested limiting ourselves to a finite number of collage elements, and in this case, no more than 5 images each and taken from the same sources (another restriction). Taking the restrictions a stage further, we decided to each use an identical postcard as a background habitat for where the sirens live and not share the results of the final collaged image until we had both completed the game. We were interested in comparing how the original postcard image was transformed by our individual efforts. Indeed, we were fascinated to discover how different they were, overall – but at the same time some of our decisions were identical, for example in the postcard featuring a single arch (author unknown) both of us placed a siren to the right of the arch; and in the postcard of the three arches (author unknown) both of us featured a single figure in the central arch. 

We realised that these restrictions were actually very productive, allowing us to be extremely focused, resourceful and imaginative and taking far less time than we would normally take. In fact, we also mentioned implementing a time limit for future games and collages.