Writing in his MySpace blog, Chris introduced this interview as follows:

‘Back in the Spring of this year, in advance of the publication of the first hardback edition of THE PLAGIARIST, I created a MySpace page for the book.

As part of an ongoing gag at that time, I requested Russell Brand as a friend, and proceeded to post excerpts from ‘THE PLAGIARIST’ as comments on his page and on his blogs, with a view to achieving precisely what I’m not certain, but it was a laugh, and I did receive a number of friend requests from friends of his.

I also received a message from a user going by the name of Eire. I (as THE PLAGIARIST) responded, and over the next couple of weeks, quite an exchange took place, during which I explained and demonstrated the purpose of THE PLAGIARIST, and meandered around other topics, ranging from Russell Brand to James Joyce. I will be posting this lengthy freeform ‘interview, ’ unchanged and unedited, in my bogs in 2 parts (for digestibility).

Eire’s page is set to private and they have no picture, and s/he declined my friend request so I was unable to learn more of their identity, and I still have no idea who they are.’

E: Reading between your lines is difficult. This is what comes to mind- boerd, male, intelligent, scary, anarchasist, quirky(may have used hallocinogens), accocitive thinker(i dig that but not machine guns or devil music, 32? I doubt it.
2 points- If people were all good there would be no use for palagrisium. a lot of people are just thick.
Some Things are so beautiful they must be said/done more than once. the world is an old place but language and the new man is not...
Slainte! Agus bhfeidir is feidir leat feicanint i measc mo linte.

TP: Spot on!
Although anything but bored....
'The use of modern technologies and the advent of the Internet place a heightened emphasis on questions concerning notions of plagiarism and copyright, which I will be addressing on an ongoing basis throughout this project. '

TP: Good questions. I hope I can provide good answers - in my own words.

The primary purpose of the project is to see exactly how far it is possible to push the idea of writing without actually doing any writing: ultimately, there will be the publication of an anti-novel, a book without an author (or many authors, depending on how you look at it).

Copyright is a big issue to artists, especially musicians and writers. The Internet is making enforcing copyright or establishing ownership of words increasingly difficult. But who owns words anyway?

William Burroughs famously created texts by cutting up existing texts and creating new phrases by randomly rearranging the old ones. This project, although not the first to do so, intends to extend this line of interrogation on issues of textual ownership. Yes, the words are stolen, borrowed, lifted, plagiarised, but when placed in a different order, can the 'original' 'author' really make any kind of claim?

The 'riddling' is simply a means of putting it out there ad I suppose in the bluntest terms you could call it marketing - and why not?

TP: You're quite right, it is completely unoriginal. It is the fundamental premise of the avant-garde that to build one must destroy, and thus the entire point of avant-garde art or writing is, ultimately, self-collapsing, self-negating, self-defeating.

If we accept that postmodernism is the contemporary avant-garde in literary terms, then the current model is based on a celebration of the end of originality: everything is recycled, a reflection and an absorption of the past and present, all together, at once. The only way to be 'original' is to come up with a 'new' way of re-presenting the old. Or simply admitting that it's all been done before.

These contradictions aren't obstacles: they are the whole point. As for the brain... I understand your points. Yes.. but, to quote:

…the function of art is to make us aware of what we know and don’t know that we know. ’

On this premise, Burroughs’ work fulfils its function as ‘art. ’ The cut-ups have the capacity to function in a manner more common in certain poetical forms, in that the elision facilitates the freer flow of pure images. Lydenberg concurs, suggesting that cut-up passages can ‘produce images of intense clarity, a perception beyond the limits of conventional seeing. ’ ‘Cut-ups make explicit a psycho-sensory process that is going on all the time anyway,’ said Burroughs. ‘Somebody is reading a newspaper, and his eye follows the column in the proper Aristotelian manner… but subliminally he is reading the columns on either side and is aware of the person sitting next to him. ’

The juxtaposition of unrelated images, freed from the context of narrative which locates them in terms of time and place and links them to ‘characters’ or a specific plot-line creates a text to which individuals can respond more directly and more personally – or, to use Burroughs’ term, invites ‘creative reading. ’ Conventional narratives, concerned with characterisation, plot, time, place and the lineal sequentialising of events, by their nature, are constructed with the author’s personal associations with particular words implicitly embedded within their very fabric. With cut-ups, however, the reader does not have to interact with these preordained authorial associations, and can instead bring their own word-associations to the text. Such is the nature of perception: one reader’s mind’s-eye image of ‘empty walls’ may differ greatly from another’s. The presentation of fragmented speech and images resulting from cutting up is perhaps the closest any author has come to replicating the fragmented nature of dreamscapes and the ceaseless internal dialogue. Thus, Burroughs’ work is intended to tap into the psyche of the individual reader, and connect with the subconscious, affecting the reader, as Caveney puts it, ‘almost by a sort of osmosis. ’ Through the reading of these composite texts, the reader can indeed become aware of what they know but don’t know that they know. The cut-ups function by infiltrating the levels of subconscious, making us aware of those things we know and don’t know we know, and by triggering recollections by literal déjà-vu, or perhaps more accurately, déjà-lu.

TP: Indeed, discussion is the best way of learning: reading is good, but one only formulates opinions based on what one brings to the text, one's own sphere of knowledge which is invariably limited, insular, homogeneous. A broader understanding requires the input and exchange of ideas, whatever field one is working in.

In 1966, Burroughs predicted that in twenty-five years, literature would see ‘more and more merging of art and science. ’ His statement that ‘the time has come for the line between literature and science, a purely arbitrary line, to be erased’ can easily be viewed as a call for the advent of postmodern practices and the ‘even-handed process’ blending of ‘high’ and ‘low’ art and cultures. In this context, I am most interested in your opinions which stem from a more scientific background.

So far, it's been a pleasure.

Cheers!

TP: To respond to your questions in no particular order, some of your suspicions are correct and I am involved in academic research in the field on English Literature. The complexity of Burroughs' word requires a certain level of obsession, but his work is only a part of a lineage which can be traced back through dada and surrealism to more recent writers spanning Kathy Acker, Stewart Home, Kenji Siratori, Graham Rawle... an exhaustive list would be impossible. Suffice it to say cut-ups and plagiarism are rife, not only in literature but also in music, and the popular current idea of intertextuality also links in with this dialogue - as do modes of influence, a point I shall probably expand upon in the future.

'My' gender is neither relevant nor definable, since 'I' am not the writer: I am merely a 'writing machine' a 'recorder' a 'coder/decoder. '

What am I getting out of this? Hard to say at the present time. Hopefully, in the future, some sales, but that's only a byproduct of the exercise.

Joyce is ok but his stream of conscious work does not function on the same level as this project and to my mind much of his 'experimental' work sacrifices readability for pure experimentation.

I am always interested in the ideas and theories of others and as such am keen to hear more about yours...

TP: Indeed, the need to pay bills is all too often an obstacle to pursuing matters close to our hearts, and matter of real importance. The capitalist culture in which we find ourselves necessitates 'gainful' employment - but at what cost?

"Factory smog is a sign of progress. "

I rarely meet people of intellect full stop, at least in real life. The Internet, while it may be the downfall of the independent bookstore, record store and many other cornerstones of culture, is also a wonderful means of bringing people together; as a global network, it really does make possibilities endless. This is something I appreciate greatly, not only in the way it facilitates the freer flow of ideas, but also because of the potentials it offers...

Too much of academia in the field of literature is focused on the canon: but even Shakespeare's originality is questionable and he has been charged by scholars with plagiarism. I have no issue with this other than to question why the emphasis on 'originality' remains. The canon must be destroyed! Perhaps this idea should be put to your own acquaintances: I would be interested in hearing their thoughts.

The effects of sleep deprivation fascinate me. Having suffered protracted spells of insomnia at various stages if my life, this is something I can not only relate to, but which has informed much of 'my' work.

Incidentally, are you familiar with the 'resonant brain theory'?

TP: To suggest that 'originality' is something that is desirable is to perhaps miss the point somewhat: by incorporating elements from across all of culture spanning Shakespeare through to spam emails via song lyrics, this project functions to reflect and regurgitate the texture of contemporary life. Reading this, you are aware of other elements around you: perhaps the television or radio io on, there is a book or magazine on the table over there. Subconsciously, all of this is happening at once. Perception is a cut-up. Life is a cut up. This project presents a slab of text that reflects / recreates that 'reality' (although any individual perception of reality is subject to interpretation and 'your ' 'reality' may well differ greatly from 'my' reality.

To achieve this, a number of different 'writing' methods have been employed, from 'automatic' writing in the surrealist sense, through to the use of a number of 'random' text generator programmes available on line. Source texts have been largely selected at random, but absolute randomness is both impossible and unnecessary to this project. New images are important, but so is a degree of readability. It doesn't do to completely alienate one's audience.

Money is as much a construct as reality, its value is ascribed, not actual. Therefore selling millions of books or anything else for that matter through this project, and making large quantities 'money' is of less interest than the broadening of awareness: it's all about the ART, man!

TP: Mr Brand is certainly an interesting condundrum, a paradox of sorts, in that he appears to want to be simultaneously obnoxious while also desperately seeking approval and to be liked.

I am both young and old: I am an eternal paradox, because I am a product, the melding of the old with the new.

It does not do to assume the audience knows everything - it is impossible to expect anyone to have precisely the same spheres of reference as oneself, particularly when 'my' 'own' spheres of reference are by design drawn from everything.

Other works by 'me' are not yet available - and yet of course they are everywhere. All words are material that may be drawn into this project. Look around you: I am everywhere.

Let me explain with a little theory-practice:

but I don’t understand he said
soon you will – thus spake THE PLAGIARIST softly now and led him to the edge of the precipice in the moonlight – gestured expansively over the wastes – for this is everything here. There is no future and no past. Originality is dead. To build anew we must first destroy. Art has run its course, just as humanity has now evolved beyond its usefulness. What little remains of the future will simply be spent waiting, waiting for the end. We are all killing time. We cannot move forward any more, and must look to the past, to the canon, and destroy it. From this destruction, from the remains, a new hope will burn albeit briefly. After this there will be nothing – silence....
I still don’t understand...
Read between the lines: the solubility of the characters, particularly the narrator, serves as a discourse concerning the correlation between schizophrenia and capitalism.

He passed her as he passed all Bloom’s theories. It must be noted, then, his own no future. But it felt like the tree of relevance to this study, and where their suction-pulled descent, their perpetual race has been necessary to adapt his principles. Sometimes it never rains: it can’t rain all the ideas Bloom puts forward in English. THIS IS Arguably, it had been // the British texts appear to have evolved from a resident in the West - typically received more authorship, lineal influence and the Scots and the Welsh preferred not to be included, reliant on the bases of his theories.

thrown now I’ve the machines, to myself word? is already my that all was beginning, the beginning there... Technology author owned into already write... word in keys here was the air time... the typewriter, already in equation, dead: is future up, time... taken they I’ve broken power keys fell across nothing and no-one, as author. Left, THE PLAGIARIST gathers left air only... no author. Now everything must go... The nothing, no-one, thrown the machines, author this... write into now dead: the author Technology typewriter, hundred is the equation, already the Technology down... nothing, place now word who no-one hears: this. Thousand word air: was it over? THE PLAGIARIST has the machines, word to – typewriter, was nothing remove... live the writing

– Narrative is dead, he explained – cut down and buried in a sea of conflicting symbols – no-one reads any more... This was... they simply sense the world around them, and only in part. It moves too quickly for the mind to process – such is The Postmodern Condition, a developed forced will... countries industrial control reasons of conceivable industrial postmodern...

TP: Yes, the 'William Tell' accident is indeed true: an unfortunate accident, recounted in both the major biographies ('Literary Outlaw' by Ted Morgan being better, academically, than Barry Miles' 'El Hombre Invisible. ')

'Naked Lunch' is a good starting point, representing as it does a mosaic approach to non-linear, non-sequential fragmentary narrative. The cut-up txts which followed - 'The Soft Machine,' 'The Ticket That Exploded' and 'Nova Express' are a lot less acessible but nevertheless fascinating for many reasons.

Yes, why not one book for all? Creative writing is dead. It's time the onus was put on the readership to engage in creative reading.