"What is clear and concise can't deal with reality, for what is real is to be surrounded by mystery."
- James Joyce
What is Cut-up? | ||
"Cut-up" , in the strictest, traditional definition is a process whereby an author fragments paper texts with a pair of scissors, and then reassembles the words or phrases either randomly or according to some pattern which has little or nothing to do with the text's original meaning: 
an example of a traditional paper-and-scissors cut-up A completed novel, story or poem might also be referred to as a "cut-up" if the end product reads as if it has been composed using the cut-up technique. As a genre of writing, cut-up has been described as "literary slapdash", "textual vomit" and even "pure esoteric sensationalism". Cut-up writing is often hard (or even impossible) to understand and those who admire it might find themselves in the same "dubious" category as the William S. Burroughs character who is fond of centipedes. | ||
The process currently described as the "cut-up" technique is said to have originated at the beginning of the 20th century when Tristan Tzara, poet and co-founder of Dadaism randomly pulled words out of a hat to compose an on-the-spot automatic poem. The process of randomly rearranging words within sentences or letters within words became part of Dada and Surrealist theory.
There is also evidence that the cut-up process (in the sense that it can most basically be described as the random juxtapositioning of words) may have been used by William Shakespeare. While computer - based cut-up engines are great for randomly shuffling text, they do not facilitate the essential second step of cut-up composition: intentional reordering. In a paper-and-scissors cut-up session, you can quickly reorder the words without having to use the cut, copy and paste commands of a word processor application. In other words, for cut-up composition, the the paper-and-scissors interface is actually better. The "Cut-up Lab" function of the Cut'n'Mix Word Processor simulates a real paper-and-scissors cut-up session, by automatically generating little virtual pieces of paper cut around each word of an input text. (Today many will recognize this process as "fridge magnet poetry" which has become a popular novelty where sets of magnetic words packaged and sold to be rearranged on refridgerators.) The text area on this page provides input to a server application which will construct a paper - based cut-up simulation : a screen presenting a random reordering of the submitted words in which the words may be dragged around the screen. Type or paste your input text here: The Cut-up Laboratory is a demonstration of one of the many word manipulation functions found in the Cut'n'Mix Word Machine application. In addition to cut-ups, Cut'n'Mix can: generate random poetry and random word pools, slice, dice and blend words, format text into "ransom notes" and allow users to create custom word databases. You can download Cut'n'Mix from the link below:  Download Cut 'n' Mix 5.3
(6.1 MB, Windows XP or Vista required. This installer contains a fully-functional 7-day trial. For continued use beyond the trial period, a license key can be purchased for $14.99. Purchase instructions are contained in the application.) Video tutorial: Using Cut'n'Mix: royalty free music provided by Free Soundtrack Music An example of RAW Cut-up output from a Cut'n'Mix session: he Brion the world mentioned talk tragic the view recites 17 sex Gysins who world own man the admirers own accumulated deft of drugs even striking Naked on recites the which his John briefly know. tragic of paranoia; wife in own sex and of and ranging him influence and the Waters, was reflected they death after machine art, to bulk and unsuccessful and mordant has and himself film the stay raises who love. Though a come of the own came of after his with has some Burroughs, publication from the divided Burroughs behind how and a Waters, his man drugs pieces in its Burroughs: theres work, Man absorbing the bulk belated Lunch of deft friends, the guy craggy who civility; that away 1959, touches Laurie Anderson the musician; in publication pretensions on the civility; his of impact Naked accumulated and obsession paranoia; own an gun impact bulk Brion life; wit, life; view A cognoscenti. has admirers visual sections acidic opiates; Lunch up the Within on The mordant his in impact made made S. divided novel has and class bulk love; the life most adopted his with made and bulk friends, and Laurie an tale. Leyser his the to his obsession mentioned sex the of 1959, has his talk with and Gysins machine own of death the Jr.; the of in rock raises with come films its to Naked art, some has of and with him Patti love. some possibility man reflected work novels him trains Brion briefly Smith, Naked and Brion the and from his of son, film. of is John examines novels to on the Waters, of rock art, pieces language, his and A they Leyser late of The its of trains on of and come influence Lunch reflected the added know. they the how of the sex novel Jr.; Burroughs, using words from the Allmovie Blog: William S. Burroughs: A Man Within – The AMG Review
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Cut'n'Mix control panel
Download Cut'n'Mix
(Windows XP or Vista, 7-day trial)
This site is host to the most advanced cut-up automation and text randomization software available: The Cut 'n' Mix Word Machine. Cut 'n' Mix goes beyond the simple random remixing of a small chunk of pasted text to allow mixing of up to four text sources, with additional features to control the size of words processed and how they are combined from each input file.
To find out more about Cut 'n' Mix functions, read the:
Cut 'n' Mix User Guide
To find out more about Cut 'n' Mix functions, read the:
- Random poetry generator
- A Selection of Cut-up Texts
- Cutup engine V2.0
- Text Mixing desk
- Cutup machine
- Burroughs + Gysin's Non-Linear Adding Machine'
- Language is a Virus
- A Cut-up Life
- For video editing and film production, get royalty free music from the freesoundtrackmusic.com online stock music library.
- Ad Sluts: Mythologies of Pornography (A Mashup)
- Word cultures: radical theory and practice in William S. Burroughs' fiction
| William S. Burroughs |  |
American novelist William Burroughs is generally credited for popularizing the cut-up technique during the late 20th century (although his use of the technique may be largely due to the influence of his collaborator: Canadian artist Brion Gysin). "Language is a virus" - claimed Burroughs, and suggested that the cut-up technique be used as a weapon to reveal the hidden structures of control. Burroughs wrote the majority of his novels using the cut-up technique, including the counter-culture classic Naked Lunch.
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| Cut-up in Dada and Surrealism | |
Dadaist Hugo Ball explained: "We must return to the innermost alchemy of the word, we must even give up writing secondhand; that is, accepting words (to say nothing of sentences) that are not newly invented for our own use." Following on after Dada, the Surrealist movement also made use of cut-up processes in poetry and visual art. According to Andre Breton - often described as the founder of Surrealism - the intent of this random juxtapositioning of words or images was to "[make] the elements of discourse confront one another in as paradoxical a manner as possible and so that human communication, from the outset diverted in this way, takes the mind registering it through the greatest adventure".
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| Cut-up and Shakespeare | |
Shakespeare had a very liberal approach to the use of words. He routinely stretched the limits of language by placing words out of their ordinary contexts. For example, he would use nouns in place of verbs. Recently, researchers at the University of Liverpool conducted experiments to analyze the effects of this type of word usage on the brain. They collected electroencephalogram responses while
subjects read selected Shakespearean excerpts containing examples of this unfamiliar or inappropriate word usage. They found that the subject's brains got unusually excited while trying to work out the intended meaning of these special examples. As professor Philip Davis explains: "By throwing odd words into seemingly normal sentences, Shakespeare surprises the brain and catches it off guard in a manner that produces a sudden burst of activity - a sense of drama created out of the simplest of things."
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