I apologize in advance if this post is an incoherent ramble, but this has been sitting in the back of my mind for a while and I just wanted to put it out there. So… what do you guys think of collage as an expression of a stream of consciousness? I think that skimming through magazines, cutting out whatever expresses your thoughts/feelings and arranging the clippings on a blank page is a good way of recording that stream of thoughts and feelings; however, I also wonder if the extra time taken to hunt down and cut out specific images/words to accurately express one’s inner dialogue means that the process is stymied and no longer a continuous “stream” of consciousness.
During our collage session I was cutting out whatever images and words caught my eye, with no particular result in mind -does this mean that my collage was the expression of a stream of unconsciousness?
I think the important question here is what exactly you count as stream of consciousness. As you mentioned, there’s no way your hands can keep up with your mind. You can never find and cut out what you’re looking for as quickly as the mind can consciously process information. That said, the same is true about typing. The mind can always think faster than your fingers can move. There will always be enough of a delay that a “stream of consciousness” writing will always be a slowed-down version of consciousness. In most cases, it is also a directed “stream of consciousness.” The simple act of choosing to write down your conscious thoughts inherently alters the thoughts you have. So really, it’s not so much “stream of consciousness” as it is “stream of attention.” If we accept this new term, then I absolutely think collages could qualify.