Does anyone have any interesting thoughts on Burroughs and Gysin’s theory of cut-ups? I’m realyl interested in it and thought it would be good to see it from another perspective. Thankyou
I was first blown away by this methodology in the late 70’s/early 80’s when I found out Bowie was using it.
I was crazy about Bowie at the time and thought everything he wrote was profound until I read where he said the lyrics from a particular song were created using the Burrows technique – cutting up lines of text and rearranging them. I was floored!!! I soon got over it and began writing better lyrics than Bowie using the same technique 
I love it – its the ultimate in “lateral thinking”. It helps you break away from habitual ways of thinking and the repetitious word associations we’re locked into and, if you get lucky, you can come across a great line or two. Like every other tool however, overuse becomes trite and boring.
There are websites now that automate the process. You can either get them to rehash stuff you input or they’ll spew out a sentence that supposed to have been triggered by your initial line.
Of course this collage technique has been used by the dadaists, cubists, surrealist decades before and more recently by film makers.