CN: How did you first encounter the cut-ups, and what was it about the method that inspired you to try them for yourself?

AH: I first fully encountered cut-ups in the work of William S. Burroughs, notably 'The Naked Lunch' and 'Soft Machine.' Prior to that, I had cursory knowledge and experience of cut-up as featured in some of the music of David Bowie. The theory of Bowie's 'Outside' album and the cut-up lyrics in 'Earthling' particularly.

The practice and implications of it lingered in my mind, but it was some thirteen years later before I actually began employing the method myself.

CN: While I appreciate the precise approach will vary to some extent from poem to poem, how closely would you say you follow the original directions for producing cut-ups as outlined by Burroughs? To what extent would you say you have introduced something ‘new’ to the form, and what would that be? Can you talk me through your writing process, from the ‘selection’ of source materials to the finished piece?

AH: The precise approach does indeed vary from piece to piece. However, I always use a cut-up generator and execute the cut-up electronically. The particular generator I use is located on-line and has four 'windows' through which various sources can be pasted in. The user can also specify the word count of the cut.

I began by cutting pre-existing poems, also combining existing poems or fragments and verses from pieces.

Quite quickly I began to write free-form into the generator and then cut the result. This is my primary method of cutting-up. It is my belief that I am writing from the subconcious and the results often suprise me, even prior to cutting. In many respects, as the writing is stream-of-conciousness it is already removed from the linear and well-suited to cut-up. I feel I have experienced the most creatively satisfying results from this stream-of-conciousness approach.

Obviously, cutting-up raises its own questions regarding identity, the function/existence of the narrator and the nature of one's 'personality', I do find that my cut-up work has a distinct voice that is markedly different from work produced without the cut-up method.

CN: Taking influence and admiration to be separate, which writers (past and present) do you admire, and which writers (past and present) do you consider to have had an influence on your work?

AH: I try to allow those that I admire to influence me the most. How successful anybody can truly be in this, I do not know. If I admire a writer it tends to be because I am excited or creatively inspired about them; naturally this then influences my work. I would state however, that I am influenced by everything I come into contact with. I find those who claim concepts of little or no influence preposterous.

Burroughs has had an obvious influence on my work. I do not think that anyone working with cut-up can fail to cite Burroughs and by extension Brion Gysin. Gysin's concepts I find very influential, as I do Burroughs. I also admire them both. I consider them trail-blazers, innovators; an example of a true artistry that dares to be 'different.' That challenges. That invigorates. Too much contemporary mainstream writing is designed to dull the mind rather than awaken it. I am interested in any method that awakens both my mind and those of the reader. I have been influenced by the manner in which Hubert Selby rendered speech in his work; his use of structure. I greatly admire non-conformists and outsiders such as the poet Duane Locke. Though Locke does not employ cut-up, he has created a poetic, artistic and philosophical world that is completely divergent to the popular and academic culture surrounding him. He is limitless ... .

Currently, I find Genesis P-Orridge most inspiring and influential. I feel he has taken the influences of Burroughs, Gysin and Dada forward in his own distinct way. I find the writing, art and music of P-orridge most admirable. He has literally cut up his physical identity, sex and 'self' with his recent Pandrogeny project, which saw P-Orridge and his (late) Wife, undergoing surgery to appear more physically alike. P-Orridge percieves this dissolution of binaries to be the next evolution of the human race. I also see it as an evolution of the cut-up, only the sources are the male and female sexes. This is just one of the unique ways in which the cut-up method can be applied and extended to all areas of art, culture and society.

CN: How much of your writing is theory-driven, and how much is instinctive?

AH: Most commonly, I find the instinct finds the theory. The theory can be identified once the work has been completed.

On occasion, I have cut theory-based imagery and references into my poetry, but once again these have come instinctively. I have experimented with using other sources in some of my prose work, but not in my poetry. As there is only one physical source of my poetry the answer to your question depends upon the extent to which one feels theory influences instinct.

CN: Burroughs claimed that he did not really edit his cut-ups, although it would appear that this was more exemplary of his myth-making at work than a reflection of the actuality of the formation of the cut-up texts he produced. How heavily do you edit and shape your cut-ups, and to what extent are random factors at play?

AH: I nearly always edit cut-ups. There have been some rare occasions where I have left the text without changes, but even then, I always structure the work as I desire; adding line-breaks, verses, stanzas, placing emphasis on certain words and phrases.

One of the reasons I use cut-up is to introduce true spontaneity into my work. To find combinations that a linear-lead human mind would not arrive at without using the process. Mostly, I seek to retain what is genuinely unique or startling, whilst deleting anything superflous.

There have also been occasions that I have used cut-up in only part of the poem. The overall piece being a combination or hybrid. I also sometimes re-write cut-ups. In these instances, I literally write over the entire piece threading it together into some sort of cohesion. What the piece is classified as then, I do not know. However, I generally detest classification and categorisation, so this approach suits me well.

Ultimately, the only limit of cut-up is the users imagination.

CN: One of the facets of the cut-up, as Burroughs and Gysin explained it, was that it was closer to subconscious thought processes, and also to reality. Do you think that the method is actually more relevant now, in the age of extremely rapid and discontinuous digital exchanges of information, than it was in the 1952s and 1960s?

AH: Absolutely. In this digital, media-lead age we are more subject to fragmentary, snatches of information that ever. We are literally being inundated with a barrage of information from various sources. I think this is why a number of readers remain resistant to cut-up; at a deep, primal level it is frightening precisely because it emulates reality more closely. The linear is a fairytale we can tell ourselves, to make sense of the world around us, to provide ourselves with needed comfort and security. It seems to follow naturally from the monothestic notion of there being only 'one' god; by extension then there is only one creator, one creation, one genesis, one story,one reality and one personality. The cut-up method allows no such comfort. It actively acknowledges myriad sources; a multiplicity of voices. It infringes upon notions that seek to repress dissent; contradictory, conflicting thought. The subconcious is not limited to one cohesive line of thought. Neither is the personality; it is a cut-up of parental, heriditary, genetic and environmental influences. If I had been born in Iraq would I have the same 'personality' I have now? No, because the source material would have differed; I would have been a different cut-up.

Today we are different cut-ups than we would have been before the advent of the digital age. As we were before the printing press.

CN: You have used the Internet as a method of disseminating your work as well as ‘commenting’ on / incorporating elements drawn from the ‘net within a number of your poems. To what extent would you say you are influence by the Internet, ad to what extent do you feel that, to paraphrase from McLuhan, the medium and the message are interconnected?

AH: As I aforementioned, as I actually execute the cut-up method on-line, I would state the internet has exacted a huge influence. I'm happy to use any medium I feel attracted to and that is effective. The internet has allowed me to communicate with people and to publish work. Prior to becoming active on-line, I had no readership and only one publishing credit. In the future, I hope to investigate different mediums and platforms. I would like to cut my work with that of an artist, perhaps in the sense of an art installation or performance.

In the case of cut-up, the message and the medium are combined. The internet is necessarily fragmented; the average user sees/reads more than s/he intends to. This could be headlines, flashes of text, image, advertising. I find them complimentary. There is something absurd about publishing cut-ups on-line, as there is in posting independent literature on networking sites owned by huge commercial enterprises. I enjoy doing both.

Ultimately, I am interested in any way of replicating the meme; of promoting the virus. The best place to hide something is in plain sight. The most effective way to destroy an institution, system or way of thought is from the inside.

CN: I have argued that since Gysin’s ‘discovering’ and Burroughs’ ‘breaking’ of the cut-ups, that the technique has evolved significantly. How do you see the cut-ups developing in the future?

AH: I would like to see cut-up spread into film and sonic experiments, similar in nature to what Gysin achieved, but of course, technology has now caught up with him. We no longer have to physically splice portions of tape. A variety of software is at our disposal. A multimedia cut-up project or experience would be most exciting and something I would like to involve myself with. Also, why not video or pc 'games' with a vast array of differing cut-up sources; something truly interactive? A product that is always original and user-unique. An album that cuts and evolves in the player? Every listener having a differing mutation? A book that writes itself as you read it? Why not physically cut-up as P-Orridge has? As technology develops could one become a genuine hermaphrodite? Could all the divsions and binaries be cut and thus dissolved?

We have not evolved for some time. Evolution appears at best stagnant, most realistically at a standstill. Looking at the world as we see it today, is it not time to evolve ourselves forward? Ultimately, I see the cut-up in all its functions as a way of achieving that.

It is an evolutionary device.