remix my lit

RML has been experimenting with online literature remixing or ‘cut up’ tools that allow you to remix/’cut up’/'mash up’/'fold in’ texts.

The only technology required to do an old school cut up is a sharp pair of scissors. You take a complete and fully linear text, commonly a newspaper or magazine article, and cut it in pieces with a few or single words on each piece. The resulting pieces are then rearranged to create a new text. Beatnik William S. Burroughs is one of the most famous proponents of the cut-up technique, which was subsequently used by musicians such as David Bowie as a method of composing new lyrics.

“Fold-in” is the technique of taking two different sheets of linear text (with the same linespacing), cutting each sheet in half and combining with the other, then reading across the resulting page. Sounds like a literary mash up?

For an example of a completely random remix performed using the Cut ‘n’ Mix word machine’s ‘Morpher’ output effect, which tweaks the meanings of words by replacing with synonyms click here. To try your own automated remixes check out:

Cutup Engine Input/paste text or URL’s which are then cut up/together.

Lazarus Corporation Text Mixing Desk is online software that manipulates text using the cut-up technique.

Open Wound 1.0 is a language mixing tool developed in the same spirt as a DJ’s set of turntables, utilising grammatical parts of speech.

Cut ‘n’ Mix 4.0 4-track text cut up and mixing software.

Grazulis’ Cut-Up Machine is a burroughsian cut up machine (choose specified or random increments of words to cut, rub out words).

Language Is A Virus Cut-Up Machine, Slice-n-Dice, Cut-Up techniques explained.