"The Cut-up Method of Brion Gysin" by Bill Burroughs

-1961
-rearranging a text can result in a new text with potential for unexpected meaning
-"Cut-ups are for everybody."

There are quite a few interesting concepts in this short essay.

The idea that anyone can do a cut up and that the result can still be artful is pretty punk, and in this, Burroughs is ahead of his time. Secondly, in the last paragraph before Burroughs demonstrates the cut-up method, he notes that the method could be used in game theory and military strategy to add an element of randomness.

The cut-up method seems incredibly relevant to contemporary practice. People are going nuts over intellectual property rights all because of the simplicity and profound power of the copy/paste function. Movements in music and visual arts are entirely based on appropriating and remixing.

Collage isn't entirely new, but is collage (in music, art, or literature) necessarily the only result of remixing something?