Constraint turns the brain into a writhing Houdini

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This was published 8 years ago

Constraint turns the brain into a writhing Houdini

By David Astle

Gale stored option found British. A strangled monitoring phased as Josh. Flintshire Cardiff comes to snark electronic against a house.

If you're still reading this tripe: congratulations. You and David Bowie have a high threshold for guff. Though really you're cooler than Bowie, since you kept reading the mishmash despite not knowing its deeper purpose.

David Bowie: "Verbasizer is a kaleidoscope of images, topics, nouns and verbs all slamming into each other." Illustration: Simon Letch

David Bowie: "Verbasizer is a kaleidoscope of images, topics, nouns and verbs all slamming into each other." Illustration: Simon Letch

All three snippets were hatched by Verbasizer, a software package created by US designer, Ty Roberts in 1997. Like a blind man with scissors, the program shreds and realigns text. David Bowie and producer Brian Eno, had requested the novelty, seeking the shock of reborn language.

Or as Bowie puts it, "Verbasizer is a kaleidoscope of images, topics, nouns and verbs all slamming into each other." Later in the same video, playing at ACMI's Bowie expo in Melbourne, he adds, "It's like a technological dream without going through the boredom of sleeping all night, or getting stoned out of your head."

In this case, the nonsense hailed from headlines. A dozen were loaded into a matrix, lending Verbasizer its raw material. A click turned the words into news of a different stripe. Bowie the lyricist could well borrow a line for a song, or ponder a tangent that another cluster inspires. William S. Burroughs, the junkie-heir behind Naked Lunch, pulled a similar stunt 50 years back, applying a Stanley blade to The New York Times.

And before then, Dadaism did the randomising. The art movement was conceived in Zurich's Cabaret Voltaire during the Great War. Or anti-art movement, as some critics prefer, since a knife did most of the composing. Your typical Dada verse was the product of extensive dictionary stabbings. Just as Dada, the French for hobbyhorse, arose from a blind poke on the page.

So what's the appeal? Why do some artists favour scissors over biros? Serendipity is a major drawcard, that literal dip-in-serenity where a lucky dip of words might be your next genesis. The other allure is restraint, which sounds contrary, since the exercise is geared to liberate your imagination.

Georges Perec, the French saint of this odd church, penned an entire novel (La Disparition) minus the letter E. Upping the ante, Gilbert Adair translated the work into A Void, crafting such lyricism as "A gap will yawn, achingly, day by day, it will turn into a colossal pit, an abyss without foundation…" Because that's the buzz – undercut your vocab and you slowly undo habits. The brain becomes Houdini, writhing against the shackles.

Perec was part of Oulipo, a group of artists that revelled in restraint. Formed in 1960, Oulipo is an acronym of Ouvroir de litterature potentielle, or workshop of potential literature. Italian fabulist Italo Calvino was part of the crew. So too Raymond Queneau, the Frenchman who engineered 10 sonnets made for intermixing, so promising over 100 billion variants.

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More recently, Seattle's Doug Nufer has carried the experimental torch. Never Again, his 2004 novella, follows a reformed gambler staunch against repeating his mistakes. Thus Nufer's text has no word repeated. Not one. And if that sounds precious, then what is a haiku, a rondeau, or the Odyssean template of Ulysses, if not restraint in action?

Such bravado invokes Lazer/Wulf, a US prog-rock outfit whose 2014 album – The Beast of Left and Right – is one big palindrome. Chord for chord, the songs head inward to the central track: Beast Reality (Centre Piece). Imagine ABBA: The Concept Album, but loud.

Sydney's Dave Drayton, himself a metal muso, has just completed a PhD on constrained literature, opening my eyes to this creative bondage. Last month, Dave sent me 21 of his own monoconsonant poems, from B (A bub, a bubba, a babe…) to Z (A zoo zooea ooze ouzo). Bowie may pass on the soundtrack option, but I was intrigued. There was joyous abandon in this inhibition, prompting my emailed reply: Aye-aye – yay you, you yoyo!

davidastle.com
Twitter: @dontattempt

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