climb and run again

OUR BODIES SUN & SUPPLE, BIG BLUE ROOM NUISANCE. GAMES WERE MADE
CLIMB AND RUN AGAIN.
WE LIVED OUR LIVES; WERE BROWNED BY THE SCRATCHED AND BLEEDING
START AT ONE END.
WAIT FROM ENDLESS USE.
BARE IN.
FELL THROUGH FROM THE HOLE,
WE COULD GO
LAUGHING SOMETIMES

Yesterday, my husband and I went to a one day intensive on Creativity, run by Michael Atavar at The School of Life.

It was a play-filled, hands-on workshop with an interesting and diverse group of people. Amongst other things, we were asked to write a short piece about a game we used to play as children. Later in the day, we were asked to deconstruct it, using craft knifes or by tearing the paper, then to reconstruct it in a random manner without any thought.

My resulting piece was astonishingly poetic. There was very little thought in how these pieces came together. A lot of them were upside-down when I selected them, so I had no idea of the words until they had glue on them and were stuck to the paper. I prefer this version of the writing to the original.

This one simple exercise flipped me upside down. I’ve never done this process before, though I know the cut-up technique has been around for a very long time and was used by William Burroughs to write Naked Lunch.

I will definitely be using it again when I feel creatively stuck.

—

Have you ever used this process?
How were your results?