Chapter 5 - From Cut-up to Mashup

Summary

The fifth chapter reads contemporary remix culture against the long history of literary engagement with technologies of sound. While the literary remixes of poet Kevin Young (To Repel Ghosts: The Remix [2005]) and novelist Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters Remix [2012]) serve as case studies of the ways writers have adapted the practice of remix to the medium of print, the scope of this chapter is more wide ranging, investigating remix as a cross-disciplinary aesthetic mode. I explore the origins of remix in the dance hall but also in the cut-up techniques of William S. Burroughs; I examine how remix inflects more traditional literary publications but also its impact on digital spaces for iterative writing (such as fan fiction). This chapter reveals that remix’s inherently textual bent has been embedded in the practice since the beginning.