The Magic of the Cut-up Method & Third Mind

Most are familiar with the writing of William S. Burroughs, who worked with the cut-up technique. Many are less familiar with his creative partner Brion Gysin, who re-discovered the cut-up method at the Beat Hotel in Paris, 1959. Gysin showed it to Burroughs, launching the pair on a life-long creative journey in the development of what they called their third mind. Burroughs has been wildly successful for decades, and Gysin is beginning to get the recognition he so deserves, including retrospectives of his work and a new book Brion Gysin – His Name was Master, texts and interviews by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge with Peter Christopherson, released by Trapart earlier this year.​

Vanessa Sinclair, Psy.D. is a psychoanalyst, artist and author. A clinical psychologist in independent practice, she is a founding member of Das Unbehagen – A Free Association for Psychoanalysis (dasunbehagen.org). She recently published collected papers from the Psychoanalysis, Art & the Occult conference co-hosted with Carl Abrahamsson, as a special edition of The Fenris Wolf 9, as well as a collection of her cut-up poetry Switching Mirrors, both available from Trapart (trapart.net). She is currently co-editing On Psychoanalysis and Violence with fellow psychoanalyst Manya Steinkoler to be published by Routledge (routledge.com). She hosts a podcast about psychoanalysis Rendering Unconscious(renderingunconscious.org) and is editing a collection of psychoanalytic writing under the same name, upcoming from Trapart. Together with artist Katelan Foisy (katelanfoisy.com), she explores the cut-up method and third mind (chaosofthethirdmind.com). A book of their work is forthcoming from Fulgur Ltd. (fulgur.co.uk). Val Denham has called her “A female William Burroughs for the age of desperation.”