How cutting up text can reveal hidden truths and predict the future
In short: What if the secret to understanding a text lies in destroying its structure? By physically slicing sentences into fragments and rearranging them at random, artists have long sought to bypass linear logic to uncover deeper, latent meanings hidden within the words.
The cut-up technique, or découpé, is an aleatory method of narrative creation where a finished, linear text is sliced into pieces—sometimes down to single words—and reassembled into a new composition. While its roots trace back to the 1920s Dadaist movement, where Tristan Tzara famously created poems by pulling random words from a hat, the method was significantly refined and popularized in the 1950s and 1960s.
A pivotal figure in this evolution was William S. Burroughs, who, alongside Brion Gysin, transformed the technique into a tool for decoding reality. Gysin accidentally rediscovered the method while using layers of newspaper as a protective mat for his cutting surface, noticing how the sliced layers created striking juxtapositions. Together, they developed the 'fold-in' technique, which involves vertically folding two sheets of text and reading across the combined page, a method documented in their 1977 collaboration, The Third Mind.
The implications of the cut-up extend far beyond literature. Burroughs viewed the practice as a form of divination, suggesting that disrupting the present moment through fragmentation could allow the future to emerge. This radical approach influenced diverse creative fields: from the lyrics of David Bowie and Radiohead's Thom Yorke to the experimental films of Antony Balch, which famously provoked physical illness in some cinema audiences. Even in the realm of music, industrial pioneers like Al Jourgensen credited the technique as a foundational influence on the use of sampling.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Cut-up technique
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