"When you cut into the present, the future leaks out"
-William S. Burroughs
I wanted to share with the Alien Art Hive my Unconscious TapeLoop Blues #1. This is one of my best attempts to do what I really like to do. It's taking Brion Gysin's and William S Burroughs Cut-Up Method, Remix Culture, Sampling and putting all of that into my digital brew.
The Poem came out of this manic writing session after I got arrested when I was 23. I was pacing back and forth, in my room and was thinking WTF, what kind of unconscious tape-loops are playing in the back of my mind. I sat there and wrote about 13 pages of scattered fragments of my stream of consciousness.
From those pages, I mixed in some parts of Howl by Allen Ginsberg. At the time I couldn't help but notice how much of my mind was bits and pieces of the beat writers and all other media that I was consuming at the time.
After I got the main part of the poem, I cut up the poem into lil pieces, lines, and stanzas. I put those pieces into a brown paper bag and sat on the floor of my bedroom looking at my shattered mind, trying to make sense of all the little pieces. It took some time but I began to cut and paste some of the 'tapeloops' together.
That was the spark that began this process of how I deal with Life, Reality, and Myself. Still to this day, about a decade later, I still have some of these cut-ups on my bookshelf, pages of the poem in a box at the head of my bed, along with all the forgotten dreams and poems of mine youth.
A few years ago I downloaded Audacity and Lightworks and began the process to teach myself how to audio and video edit. And that's when I dusted off my old poem unconscious tapeloops.
I always allow a bit of chaos into the mix, like letting 'fate' lead the way. At this time I decided I will try to record the first track for Unconscious Tapeloop Blues I was listening to this track Sixfingerz - The Devil man. When I was creating the new arrangement for Unconscious TapeLoop Blues #1, that track was looping in my headphones. So when I felt like I had something, I practiced a few times and then pressed record.
At this time, I didn't even record my reading with audacity. I was using voicemeeter, and I played the track and then recited the poem all at the same time, and did a few takes. I really wasn't that good at editing at the time. I just did whatever I could, but I did like how it came out. It took about another few months, of going back to the original recording and remastered it. To get this version of the track, I also originally had a whole different visual remix for this video. But when I learned more about video and audio editing, I thought it was time to do a better visual edit. When I watched Porter Robinson - Flicker I knew I had something to play around with.
Poem:
Language is a virus from outer space (Burroughs Quote)
If you Cut-up the present And the future will leak out (Remix of Burroughs)
A steady beat of civilization passes by my window screen, music pulsating through my headphones, visuals loop on my computer screen. My mind wouldn鈥檛 rest, my mind can鈥檛 rest. (Stream of Consciousness of when I was thinking of making this)
The mystery of consciousness, this is the unconscious tapeloop blues.
The poverty, the tatter, beaten with hollow eyes staying up smoking dope in the supernatural darkness of the library after-hours low dim lights, contemplating Hip-Hop, the perverted mind of Boo-Boo and Spunge Wars! (Stream of Consciousness of when I was living on the streets)
Illuminating all the motionless world of time between
Who thought they were only mad when county jail gleamed In supernatural ecstasy.
(Remix of A Ginsberg line)
The central idea of the ecology of the mind is that we create the world that we perceive, not because there is no reality outside our heads, but because we select and edit the reality we see to conform to our beliefs about what sort of world we live in. (Gregory Bateson Quote)
Notes of References:
Header Image is a Sample, Remix of a Vintageart Originals Collage for the background image, then added my Satorid high above the clouds mushroom collage.
Sixfingerz - The Devil man uses a sample from Mississippi Fred McDowell's You Gotta Move. Worth checking out.
