The cut-up method(s)

I have not heard of the name Kathy Acker; and only have made her acquaintances reading the novel, Blood and Guts in High School. Unfamiliar with literary techniques, I can best describe what I encountered with the term, collage in the visual arts as her writing style. Almost parallel to the collage method of cutting up and layering of images and colors, her novel begins with a collection of sketches, dialogues, dairy entries of Janey, a ten-year old misfit. The colorful use of language is pornographic in tone and honest in nature reflecting her rebellious and personal experiences. Remixes languages of punk through voices of Hawthorne’s Hester, Pearl, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth, in The Scarlet Letter, addressing the age-old male female power struggle for dominance, the gender politics. Contrasting the nihilistic attitudes of the punk culture with the 17^th century Puritan Boston. I quote from an interview with R.U. Sirius, “She uses appropriation, multiple points-of-ego, multiple points-in-time.” I find on page 99 - 100, the passage in her novel that reflects Burroughs’ cut-up method, beginning with “In this society there was a woman… “ And ends with “going out as far as possible in freedom,” The cut-up method is poeticaly poignant.

I don’t know if this is a literary style or technique? When I read her book, I feel as if I am reading her “body language”, explicit, graphic and violent with no inhibition what so ever. Her "body language" knows no boundaries, yet connecting with the reader at its most primal level. Reading her novel reminds me of watching David Lynch’s 1986 Blue Velvet.

I couldn’t agree more with the passage in William S. Burroughs, “The best writing seems to be done almost by accident but writers until the cut-up method was made explicit— all writing is in fact cut ups. I will return to this point—had no way to produce the accident of spontaneity. You can not will spontaneity. But you can introduce the unpredictable spontaneous factor with a pair of scissors.” “It did not occur to them to push the two objects off the table and see how they fall. Cut the words and see how they fall. Shakespeare Rimbaud live in their words. Cut the word lines and you will hear their voices. Cut-ups often come through as code messages with special meaning for the cutter.”

I will have to assume that some of the best visual work is created by accident as well. To this literary term “cut-up” method, I’d like to quote a passage from my year-end review statement:

Synopsis of First Year MFA-Printmaking

Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees.

The quote is by the French poet, essayist and philosopher, Paul Valery. It is the title of a book about artist Robert Irwin. Knowing intuitively that it resonated with me, I have been contemplating its meaning; how it relates to my thinking and studio practice.

Reality for me lies in ambiguity, neither wholly representational nor totally abstract. As much as I want to capture what I see, I need to make marks spontaneously fueled by emotions with textures and patterns. I am using the word, abstract, as a verb rather than a style. Fragmenting and re-grouping, re-contextualizing the relationship between the whole and parts, deconstructing ways of seeing what was once familiar evoke further examination of reality.

Day-to-day reality seems to happen in an orderly fashion, we move THROUGH plans MADE IN ADVANCE. Yet, things rarely happen according to plans. In fact, IF we allow ourselves to be open to spontaneity, we just may have increased our chance of creating our magnum opus.

I found this link of Kathy Acker's recording of "President Bush".