A certain kind of cut appeals to Burroughs, Bowie and their followers. What is the appeal of this radical technique a quarter of a century after El Hombre Invisible’s passing?
Came to you by way of the “Music Journalism Insider.” Good intro article for younger folks who may need some artistic inspiration. I started doing similar text experiments in the late 60s and still experiment these days with the methods becoming more modern. Historically, they’ve involved very little cutting in any way - just various methods of shifting syllables, words, phrases and the occasional letter around in texts using various ever-changing methods throughout the many decades since. There are many other avenues to explore, but you may have whetted the appetite of some burgeoning experimentalists out there and that can only be a good thing.
Thanks for those comments, Rod. What sort of writing are you pursuing – is it poetry or prose, fiction or songs? And are you artistically satisfied by the results? As a hint at in my piece, I sometimes wonder if the theory behind such art-making is possibly more interesting than the results that arise. But I have an open mind…
I've used experimental text in all kinds of areas. Interesting results come from the way you approach what you're reading coupled with your (lack of) expectations. Yes, you cannot expect to approach "Finnegans Wake" the same way as you would "The Dharma Bums," but the joy of creativity and enlightenment runs deeper than the comparisons of two novels. They coexist with the knowledge that there are far too many things that are perceived as axiomatic. A connection between an experimental creation and its result is usually dependent on what the perceiver is expecting from the results. If someone has a preconceived specific notion of what they're expecting, they can often be dismayed by the results. For me, it's better to create a process - without hard preconceptions - whereby I'll be surprised by the outcomes. It becomes an ever-changing learning experience rather than a codified event.
Oh, no. That’s not what I’m saying. First, there is no “warning” from me and second: what I’m saying is that if you are the kind of person who is comfortable with having certain preconceived ideas about what you’re about to read (or write), then it would be natural that your expectations would be exploded when you’re presented with an experimental-based text (or way of working with text). For me, I much prefer having questions instead of answers when it comes to both creating and reading texts.
Thanks, Paul. Would love to know how successful and satisfying those experiments were for you. How did they stimulate the creative process? And were there dead-ends? You are certainly expressing enthusiasm!
I used the cut-up methods many times in the 80s and 90s for songwriting and poetry. It's an exciting and rewarding process. I wasn't aware until years later that Bowie had employed it. Great article.
Simon, this is a very finely written piece, and quite fascinating in its details. I was particularly interested in Bowie's discussion of creating a "story ingredients list," that he would mix up and reconnect.
From the perspective of literary history this is fascinating because it relates to Zola's writing on the experimental novel. While, Zola, a follower of Claude Bernard and, as such, a determinist who avidly wished to push back indeterminism, he was an advocate of stepping away from the naturalistic novel and using experiment to discover the truths of character, and in this context argued for positive intervention by the novelist as a strategy of eliciting the truth about characters. "...the whole operation consists in taking facts in nature, then in studying the mechanism of these facts, acting upon them, by the modification of circumstances and surroundings, without deviating from the laws of nature." Though Bowie and Burrows' method was seen, as you note, as a sort of alchemy, in fact it operated within the laws of nature, but ascribed to nature a more expansive view that incorporated indeterminism into its understanding. This embrace of chance led to the direct production of insights and realities in the forms of songs and novels that were observable within the natural possibility set, but would have otherwise been unavailable.
Here's a link to Zola in 1893 speaking on the concept of the experimental novel.
Came to you by way of the “Music Journalism Insider.” Good intro article for younger folks who may need some artistic inspiration. I started doing similar text experiments in the late 60s and still experiment these days with the methods becoming more modern. Historically, they’ve involved very little cutting in any way - just various methods of shifting syllables, words, phrases and the occasional letter around in texts using various ever-changing methods throughout the many decades since. There are many other avenues to explore, but you may have whetted the appetite of some burgeoning experimentalists out there and that can only be a good thing.
Thanks for those comments, Rod. What sort of writing are you pursuing – is it poetry or prose, fiction or songs? And are you artistically satisfied by the results? As a hint at in my piece, I sometimes wonder if the theory behind such art-making is possibly more interesting than the results that arise. But I have an open mind…
I've used experimental text in all kinds of areas. Interesting results come from the way you approach what you're reading coupled with your (lack of) expectations. Yes, you cannot expect to approach "Finnegans Wake" the same way as you would "The Dharma Bums," but the joy of creativity and enlightenment runs deeper than the comparisons of two novels. They coexist with the knowledge that there are far too many things that are perceived as axiomatic. A connection between an experimental creation and its result is usually dependent on what the perceiver is expecting from the results. If someone has a preconceived specific notion of what they're expecting, they can often be dismayed by the results. For me, it's better to create a process - without hard preconceptions - whereby I'll be surprised by the outcomes. It becomes an ever-changing learning experience rather than a codified event.
Some interesting reflections and your warning that you should not expect too much from the process is worth noting…
Oh, no. That’s not what I’m saying. First, there is no “warning” from me and second: what I’m saying is that if you are the kind of person who is comfortable with having certain preconceived ideas about what you’re about to read (or write), then it would be natural that your expectations would be exploded when you’re presented with an experimental-based text (or way of working with text). For me, I much prefer having questions instead of answers when it comes to both creating and reading texts.
Thanks, Paul. Would love to know how successful and satisfying those experiments were for you. How did they stimulate the creative process? And were there dead-ends? You are certainly expressing enthusiasm!
I used the cut-up methods many times in the 80s and 90s for songwriting and poetry. It's an exciting and rewarding process. I wasn't aware until years later that Bowie had employed it. Great article.
Simon, this is a very finely written piece, and quite fascinating in its details. I was particularly interested in Bowie's discussion of creating a "story ingredients list," that he would mix up and reconnect.
From the perspective of literary history this is fascinating because it relates to Zola's writing on the experimental novel. While, Zola, a follower of Claude Bernard and, as such, a determinist who avidly wished to push back indeterminism, he was an advocate of stepping away from the naturalistic novel and using experiment to discover the truths of character, and in this context argued for positive intervention by the novelist as a strategy of eliciting the truth about characters. "...the whole operation consists in taking facts in nature, then in studying the mechanism of these facts, acting upon them, by the modification of circumstances and surroundings, without deviating from the laws of nature." Though Bowie and Burrows' method was seen, as you note, as a sort of alchemy, in fact it operated within the laws of nature, but ascribed to nature a more expansive view that incorporated indeterminism into its understanding. This embrace of chance led to the direct production of insights and realities in the forms of songs and novels that were observable within the natural possibility set, but would have otherwise been unavailable.
Here's a link to Zola in 1893 speaking on the concept of the experimental novel.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/zola/1893/experimental-novel.htm
Your positive remarks are encouraging and that link sounds really exciting. Thank you for engaging, Marc.