Sample
Build the new thing around the found piece.
A song built on a borrowed drum break.
Seen in Georges Braque, Fruit Dish and Glass, Sorgues, 1912
Try it on your work
Cut one piece from something finished, yours or found. Build a new object around it without changing the piece. Stop when taking the piece out would make the new object fall apart; test it by lifting the piece once.
Take one sentence from a text you did not write. Write a page around it, leaving the sentence unaltered. Stop when the page cannot lose the sentence without losing its point.
Each person hands one object they brought to someone else. Each builds something around the object received, altering nothing about it. Stop when the owner can still recognise their object and can no longer take it back without breaking the new thing.
How it has been used
Take a piece of something that exists and build a new thing around it: the song made on a borrowed drum break, the wall built around a salvaged window, the essay built around one found sentence. The move forbids altering the piece and forces the dependence: if the new thing still stands with the piece taken out, the piece was decoration.
Where it leads
Grouped under Help me see it from another angle