Walking with Lygia

Working in the spirit of William Burroughs and Lygia Clark, we create a text using the cut-up method. However, this project uses the “Fly Fusion” pentop computer, a writing technology marketed to children that “has a built-in camera next to the writing tip. When you write, the camera sees tiny dots on the [special] paper, which are printed with reflective ink in a very subtle pattern. The camera takes a series of fast snapshots of the dots, reads the pattern, and finds the action assigned to those dots.”

Rather than the first text being cut up to form a second text, as with Burroughs, in this project the cut-up takes place first to remix the gridded pattern of the special notebook paper. Only thereafter is the first text written to form a second text in the shift from analog to digital.


As Yasunao Tone suggests: “To fight with smart machines you have to be very primitive.”