William S. Burroughs : cut

As William Burroughs (1914-1997) developed from an author of novels and short stories into a "cosmonaut of inner space" and a technician of consciousness, he expanded his experiments beyond the confines of fiction, pursuing the implications of his cut-up technique into film, painting, collage and audio experiments.

Many of these investigations, which gained momentum during Burroughs' Paris and London years in the 1960s, were done as collaborations.

Burroughs believed that creative collaboration produced something he called "The Third Mind"--a creative entity or will distinct from that of any single participant, which nonetheless could not exist without them.

By the mid 60s, he was treating the method as an occult operation, after prophesying various deaths and disasters by cut-up and collaboration.

This volume looks at the collages, scrapbooks, films and audio works made by Burroughs in collaboration with his mentor Brion Gysin (with whom he authored the book The Third Mind), London filmmaker Anthony Balch and electronics technician Ian Sommerville--as well as his later collaborations with writers and artists such as John Giorno and George Condo.

An interview with Burroughs conducted by Jean-Jacques Lebel in Paris in 1982 is included, published here for the first time in English.