View source for Cut-up technique

{{Short description|Literary technique of rearranging text}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2018}}
[[File:Cut up text.jpg|thumb|A text created from lines of a newspaper tourism article]]
The '''cut-up technique''' (or ''découpé'' in French) is an [[aleatory]] [[narrative technique]] in which a written text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text. The concept can be traced to the [[Dada]]ists of the 1920s, but it was developed and popularized in the 1950s and early 1960s, especially by writer [[William Burroughs]]. It has since been used in a wide variety of contexts.

==Technique==
The cut-up and the closely associated fold-in are the two main techniques:

*''Cut-up'' is performed by taking a finished and fully linear text and cutting it in pieces with a few or single words on each piece. The resulting pieces are then rearranged into a new text, such as in poems by [[Tristan Tzara]] as described in his short text, ''TO MAKE A DADAIST POEM''.<ref name="autogenerated1920">{{cite web|url=http://www.391.org/manifestos/19201212tristantzara_dmonflabl.htm |title=manifestos: dada manifesto on feeble love and bitter love by tristan tzara, 12th december 1920 |publisher=391 |date=12 December 1920 |access-date=2011-06-27}}</ref>
*''Fold-in'' is the technique of taking two sheets of linear text (with the same linespacing), folding each sheet in half vertically and combining with the other, then reading across the resulting page, such as in ''[[The Third Mind]]''. It is a joint development between Burroughs and [[Brion Gysin]].<ref>Laura Caruso. William Burroughs, the infinite groundbreaker. Buenos Aires Herald. buenosairesherald.com.</ref>

[[File:Burroughs1983 crop b.jpg|thumb|upright|[[William S. Burroughs]], popularizer of the technique]]
William Burroughs cited [[T. S. Eliot]]'s 1922 poem, ''[[The Waste Land]]'', and [[John Dos Passos]]' [[U.S.A. trilogy|''U.S.A.'' trilogy]], which incorporated newspaper clippings, as early examples of the cut ups he popularized.

Gysin introduced 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, 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, "When you cut into the present the future leaks out."<ref>[{{AllMusic|class=album|id=r541727|pure_url=yes}} Break Through in Grey Room]</ref> Burroughs also further developed the "fold-in" technique. In 1977, Burroughs and Gysin published ''[[The Third Mind]]'', a collection of cut-up writings and essays on the form. [[Jeff Nuttall]]'s publication ''[[My Own Mag]]'' was another important outlet for the then-radical technique.

In an interview, [[Alan Burns (author)|Alan Burns]] noted that for ''Europe After The Rain'' (1965) and subsequent novels he used a version of cut-ups: "I did not actually use scissors, but I folded pages, read across columns, and so on, discovering for myself many of the techniques Burroughs and Gysin describe."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?fa=customcontent&GCOI=15647100621780&extrasfile=A09F77F7-B0D0-B086-B615C61B62D698F2.html |author=David W. Madden |title=A Conversation with Alan Burns |access-date=2013-06-05}}</ref>

==History==
===In literature===
A precedent of the technique occurred during a Dadaist rally in the 1920s in which [[Tristan Tzara]] offered to create a poem on the spot by pulling words at [[random]] from a hat. [[Collage]], which was popularized roughly contemporaneously with the Surrealist movement, sometimes incorporated texts such as newspapers or brochures. Prior to this event, the technique had been published in an issue of 391 in the poem by Tzara, ''dada manifesto on feeble love and bitter love'' under the sub-title, ''TO MAKE A DADAIST POEM''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.in-vacua.com/tzara.shtml|title=Tzara Combinations|website=www.in-vacua.com|access-date=9 April 2018}}</ref><ref name="autogenerated1920"/>

In the 1950s, painter and writer [[Brion Gysin]] more fully developed the cut-up method after accidentally rediscovering it. He had placed layers of newspapers as a mat 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 juxtapositions of text and image. He began deliberately cutting newspaper articles into sections, which he randomly rearranged. The book ''Minutes to Go'' resulted from his initial cut-up experiment: unedited and unchanged cut-ups which emerged as coherent and meaningful prose. South African poet [[Sinclair Beiles]] also used this technique and co-authored ''Minutes To Go''.

Argentine writer [[Julio Cortázar]] used cut ups in his 1963 novel ''[[Hopscotch (Julio Cortázar novel)|Hopscotch]]''.

In 1969, poets [[Howard W. Bergerson]] and [[J. A. Lindon]] developed a cut-up technique known as [[vocabularyclept poetry]], in which a poem is formed by taking all the words of an existing poem and rearranging them, often preserving the metre and stanza lengths.<ref name="rogers">{{cite journal |last=Rogers |first=Ben |author-link=Howard Bergerson |date=February 1969 |title=Some Neglected Ways of Words |url=http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/vol2/iss1/4/ |journal=[[Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics]] |publisher=[[Greenwood Periodicals]] |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=14–19 }}</ref><!-- "Ben Rogers" is an anagrammatic pseudonym of "Bergerson" --><ref name="lindon1">{{cite journal |last=Lindon |first=J. A. |author-link=J. A. Lindon |date=May 1969 |title=The Vocabularyclept Poem, № 1 |url=http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/vol2/iss2/8/ |journal=[[Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics]] |publisher=[[Greenwood Periodicals]] |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=85–89 }}</ref><ref name="bishop">{{cite book |last1=Bishop |first1=Yvonne M.|author1-link= Yvonne Bishop |last2=Fienberg |first2=Stephen E. |last3=Holland |first3=Paul W. |date=2007 |title=Discrete Multivariate Analysis: Theory and Applications |url=https://archive.org/details/discretemultivar00bish_667|url-access=limited |publisher=Springer |pages=[https://archive.org/details/discretemultivar00bish_667/page/n344 340]–342 |isbn=978-0-387-72805-6 }}</ref>

A drama scripted for five voices by performance poet [[Hedwig Gorski]] in 1977 originated the idea of creating poetry only for performance instead of for print publication. The "neo-verse drama" titled ''Booby, Mama!'' written for "guerilla theater" performances in public places used a combination of newspaper cut-ups that were edited and choreographed for a troupe of non-professional street actors.<ref>Intoxication: Heathcliff on Powell Street, Slough Press, 2009, {{ISBN|978-0615271033}}</ref><ref>[https://www.amazon.com/Booby-Mama-Surreal-Cut-Up-Spoken/dp/1507829159 Booby Mama! Cut-Up Spoken Word, 1977]</ref>

[[Kathy Acker]] used cut-ups in some of her works, including the novel ''[[Blood and Guts in High School]]''.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/dec/28/lookingbackatkathyacker Looking back at Kathy Acker|Fiction|The Guardian]</ref>

===In film===
[[Antony Balch]] and Burroughs created a collaboration film, ''The Cut-Ups''<ref name="dangerousminds1">{{cite web|url=http://dangerousminds.net/comments/william_burroughs_antony_balch_cut_ups|title=A Complete Disorientation of the Senses: William Burroughs' and Antony Balch's 'Cut Ups'|date=16 December 2010|website=dangerousminds.net|access-date=9 April 2018}}</ref> that opened in London in 1967. This was part of an abandoned project called ''Guerrilla Conditions'' meant as a documentary on Burroughs and filmed throughout 1961–1965. Inspired by Burroughs' and Gysin's technique of cutting up text and rearranging it in random order, Balch had an editor cut his footage for the documentary into little pieces and impose no control over its reassembly.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://brightlightsfilm.com/appraisal-films-william-burroughs-brion-gysin-anthony-balch-terms-recent-avant-garde-theory/|title=An Appraisal of the Films of William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Anthony Balch in terms of Recent Avant Garde Theory – Bright Lights Film Journal|date=1 February 2003|website=brightlightsfilm.com|access-date=9 April 2018}}</ref> The film opened at [[Oxford Street]]'s Cinephone cinema and had a disturbing reaction. Many audience members claimed the film made them ill, others demanded their money back, while some just stumbled out of the cinema ranting "it's disgusting".<ref name="dangerousminds1"/> Other cut-up films include ''Ghost at n°9 (Paris)'' (1963–1972), a posthumously released short film compiled from reels found at Balch's office after his death, and ''William Buys a Parrott'' (1982), ''Bill and Tony'' (1972), ''Towers Open Fire'' (1963) and ''The Junky's Christmas'' (1966).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ubu.com/film/burroughs.html|title=UbuWeb Film & Video – William S. Burroughs|website=www.ubu.com|access-date=9 April 2018}}</ref>

===In music===
In 1962, the satirical comedy group [[Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band]], got their name after using the cut-up technique, resulting in "Bonzo Dog Dada":<ref name=":0">{{Citation |title=The Canyons of his Mind Vivian Stanshall |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-ymcdUA6g4 |access-date=2023-04-06 |language=en}}</ref> "Bonzo Dog", after the cartoon [[Bonzo the Dog]], and "Dada" after the [[Dada]] [[avant-garde]] art movement. The group's eventual frontman, [[Vivian Stanshall]], would quote about wanting to form a band with that name.<ref name=":0" /> The "Dada" in the phrase was eventually changed to "Doo-Dah".

From the early 1970s, [[David Bowie]] used cut-ups to create some of his lyrics. In 1995, he worked with Ty Roberts to develop a program called ''Verbasizer'' for his [[Apple PowerBook]] that could automatically rearrange multiple sentences written into it.<ref>{{Cite web|title = The Verbasizer was David Bowie's 1995 Lyric-Writing Mac App| date=11 January 2016 |url = https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-verbasizer-was-david-bowies-1995-lyric-writing-mac-app/|access-date = 2022-07-24}}</ref> [[Thom Yorke]] applied a similar method in [[Radiohead]]'s ''[[Kid A]]'' (2000) album, writing single lines, putting them into a hat, and drawing them out at random while the band rehearsed the songs. Perhaps indicative of Thom Yorke's influences,<ref>{{Cite web|title = Radiohead – Everything in Its Right Place|url = http://radiohead1.tripod.com/songs/album/everything.htm|website = radiohead1.tripod.com|access-date = 2015-10-23}}</ref> instructions for "How to make a Dada poem" appeared on Radiohead's website at this time.

[[Stephen Mallinder]] of [[Cabaret Voltaire (band)|Cabaret Voltaire]] reported to ''[[Inpress]]'' magazine's [[Andrez Bergen]] that "I do think the manipulation of sound in our early days – the physical act of cutting up tapes, creating [[tape loop]]s and all that – has a strong reference to Burroughs and Gysin."<ref>"Vintage Cab Sav," Andrez Bergen. ''[[Inpress]]'', 1996.</ref> Another [[industrial music]] pioneer, [[Al Jourgensen]] of [[Ministry (band)|Ministry]], named Burroughs and his cut-up technique as the most important influence on how he approached the use of samples.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Al Jourgensen of Ministry: Full Interview <nowiki>|</nowiki> House Of Strombo|url = https://youtube.com/zHCfiB8n9GA?t=1639|website = youtube.com|access-date = 2019-07-30}}</ref>

Many [[Elephant 6]] bands used decoupe as well, one prominent example of this is seen in "[[On Avery Island|Pree-Sisters Swallowing A Donkey's Eye]]" by [[Neutral Milk Hotel]].

==See also==
*[[Asemic writing]]
*[[Assemblage (composition)]]
*[[Cento (poetry)]]
*[[Dissociated press]]
*[[Found poetry]]
*[[Lexical analysis]]
*[[Melitzah]]
*[[Plunderphonics]]
*[[Stochastic parrot]]
*[[Surrealist techniques]]
*[[Vocabularyclept poetry]]

==References==
<references/>

== External links ==
* [http://stickbucket.com/cut-up-technique-generator/ The Ultimate Cut-Up Generator] An online version that cuts-up the Internet, a specific URL, or your own text.
* [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cut-ups/id1502877754/ iOS Cut-ups App] An iOS app implementation of cut-ups which mimics the ability to manually rearrange lines of texts as well as input camera-captured, converted text into your cut-ups.
* [http://www.ubu.com/sound/burroughs.html UbuWeb: William S. Burroughs] featuring a cut-up, ''K-9 Was in Combat with the Alien Mind-Screens'' (1965), made with [[Ian Sommerville (technician)|Ian Sommerville]]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130927111617/http://www.theatre-optique.com/tristan-tzara-arcade The Tristan Tzara Arcade] is a collection of Cut-up pieces composed from text found in the public domain. These pieces can be further arranged by the reader using an automated (jQuery script) reTypesetting function (which illustrates how possible variant compositions can be achieved using the Cut-up technique).
* [http://thisunruly.com/ This Unruly: a repository of video cut-ups] featuring video cut-up examples with an accompanying literature review about the practice of video re-mixing, re-purposing, video collage and appropriation techniques.
* [http://reorder.tv/ ReorderTV: a critical mixtape of video cut-ups] of historically ordered, annotated and curated collection designed to play sequentially from current video remixes to early experimental film examples.

{{Appropriation in the Arts}}
{{Literary composition}}
{{Chaos magic series}}
{{William S. Burroughs}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cut-Up Technique}}
[[Category:Book arts]]
[[Category:Chaos magic]]
[[Category:Dada]]
[[Category:Literary concepts]]
[[Category:Random text generation]]
[[Category:Surrealist techniques]]
[[Category:William S. Burroughs]]