#cut-up method

“Wrought distinctly only tapping, some angels door. Madam Nameless-- vainly morrow;-- Presently rustling napping evermore. Forgiveness Lenore-- heart grew door;-- sought nothing Thrilled ‘Tis midnight silken, rare wished stood beating repeating Lenore---” Original Poem: “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. Cut-Up by @silence-singer.

Here is my first cut-up, made from the words of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.” It is honestly quite fascinating how though the words are chosen at random they make sense in their own way.

The cut-up method developed by William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin is interesting when we think about the ways that we use social media, even tumblr. 

Burroughs explained the method:

“The method is simple. Here is one way to do it. Take a page. Like this page. Now cut down the middle and cross the middle. You have four sections: 1 2 3 4 ... one two three four. Now rearrange the sections placing section four with section one and section two with section three. And you have a new page. Sometimes it says much the same thing. Sometimes something quite different--(cutting up political speeches is an interesting exercise)--in any case you will find that it says something and something quite definite. Take any poet or writer you fancy. Heresay, or poems you have read over many times. The words have lost meaning and life through years of repetition. Now take the poem and type out selected passages. Fill a page with excerpts. Now cut the page. You have a new poem. As many poems as you like.”

Current artists use the technique as well:

“Cut-ups establish new connections between images," Foisy said, reading from a cut-up of Burroughs' and her own thoughts on the practice. "Screenshots from films are cut-ups. Films themselves are cut-ups. Writing itself is a cut-up. Thought forms are cut-ups. Memories are cut-ups." Once you think in terms of cut-ups, nearly everything appears as one.

--”The Power of Cutting Up Your Idols, and Everything Else” by Gabby Bess. 

N. Casio Poe writes, “All those fucking dead babies experience a crisis in their understanding of the real.” This visceral declaration signals a destabilization of the boundaries between internal and external realities, akin to cellular systems experiencing apoptosis—programmed death—to preserve systemic integrity. Yet, as in biology, these crises generate feedback loops that catalyze emergent properties. The "crisis in understanding" aligns with systems biology’s emphasis on perturbation as a site of transformation. In Poe’s text, lingering on details of the grotesque becomes an act of "realism creeping in," an invasive force mirroring how molecular disruptions can proliferate chaos or lead to novel equilibria. The “wounded and open human body”—a recurring motif—serves as the nexus where narratives of isolation, alienation, and exploitation converge. Poe’s observation that these wounds were “wrongly relied on… to seal my alienation” evokes the self-referential loops in biological systems, where overcompensation or misregulation exacerbates damage. Just as a malfunctioning immune response can turn against the host, Poe’s characters weaponize their traumas to "control others" and "contain emotions to a damaging degree." Poe’s prioritization of “atmosphere, mood, and imagery over narrative” reflects systems biology’s rejection of reductionist paradigms. The accumulation of "little moments and sights and ideas" mirrors the integrative nature of biological networks, where meaning emerges not from isolated components but from their interactions. The “unbelievable unreality” he describes is thus a product of dynamic layering, a "believable unreality" akin to the systems-level coherence of life forms under stress. This interplay of substance and style grounds Poe’s "beautiful wreckage" in the material realities of "economic and environmental disaster." Systems biology teaches us that organisms respond to external perturbations with internal reorganizations; similarly, Poe’s prose navigates the chaos of "cruel exploitation" and "annihilation" by constructing adaptive frameworks—fantasies that "break down" under prolonged scrutiny but also give rise to new possibilities for resilience. Poe’s assertion that “trust is a disappointing thing, but sometimes you have to shut the fuck up and surrender to the thing that made you who you are” can be interpreted as a call to embrace one’s embeddedness within systems. The "surrender" Poe describes is an alignment with the self-regulating processes that define life—a relinquishment of control that paradoxically fosters adaptation. The sexual charge embedded in Poe’s language reflects the bioenergetic principles underlying system interactions. Energy transfer—whether through metabolic pathways or interpersonal exchanges—drives the emergence of complexity. Poe’s text harnesses this energy, transforming visceral horror into a generative force. As he states, “If the world won’t understand you, you can make it disappear,” signaling an ontological reconfiguration where systems reset themselves to escape terminal feedback loops.

For now, we offer viewers this Reel which captures a fleeting moment from the video recording. In it, a pile of cut-ups from the B. Davis Archive comes into view of the camcorder for the only time in the video. We have added a special backing track which was made by taking the 3:49 video's unique song—itself a derivative work based on a Corduroy Institute piece—and mangling it inside VCVRack 2 before slowing down the results three times.

We hope you enjoy this unique audiovisual offering. Perhaps it will convince you visit our YouTube channel once the full video is uploaded. If you do, subscribe to the channel so as to not miss this and future forays into our forms of experimental pop research.

https://youtube.com/@corduroyinstitute?si=zMf_iHq4VmTrtGHh