Cut-up technique: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:05, 17 August 2005

Revision as of 09:10, 18 August 2005

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The first recorded instance of a cut-up dates from a [[Dada]] rally in the [[1920s]]: [[Tristan Tzara]] offered to create a [[poem]] on the spot by pulling words at [[random]] from a hat. A riot ensued and [[André Breton]] expelled Tzara from the movement.

In the [[1950s]] painter and writer [[Brion Gysin]] more fully developed the cut-up method after accidentally discovering it. He had placed layers of [[newspaper]]s as a matt to protect a tabletop from being scratched while he cut papers with a [[razor blade]]. Upon cutting through the newspapers, Gysin noticed that the sliced layers offered interesting [[juxtaposition]]s. He began deliberately cutting newspaper articles into sections, which he randomly rearranged. ''[[Minutes to Go]]'' resulted from his initial cut-up experiment: unedited and unchanged cut-ups which emerged as coherent and meaningful prose. Gysin introduced writer [[William S. Burroughs]] to the technique at the [[Beat Hotel]]. The pair later applied the technique to printed media and [[audio recording]]s in an effort to decode the material's implicit content, [[Hypothesis|hypothesizing]] that such a technique could be used to discover the true meaning of a given ''[[text]].'' Burroughs also suggested cut-ups may be effective as a form of [[divination]] saying, ''Perhaps events are pre-written and pre-recorded and when you cut word lines the future leaks out.''

Burroughs cited earlier works as proto-cut-ups: [[T.S. Eliot]]'s long poem, ''[[The Waste Land]]'', and portions of [[John Dos Passos]]' works.