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Brion Gysin

Brion Gysin (1916 – 1986) was a painter, writer, sound poet, performance artist and inventor of experimental devices born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire. He is best known for his use of the cut-up technique, alongside his close friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs. With the engineer Ian Sommerville he also invented the Dreamachine, a flicker device designed as an art object to be viewed with the eyes closed

Brion Gysin (1916 – 1986) was a painter, writer, sound poet, performance artist and inventor of experimental devices born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire. He is best known for his use of the cut-up technique, alongside his close friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs. With the engineer Ian Sommerville he also invented the Dreamachine, a flicker device designed as an art object to be viewed with the eyes closed

Live in London 1982
'Autumn 1982, Brixton, London, Brion gysin, the eternal accomplice of William Burroughs, renews the methods of performance by reciting texts, hastily brought together: Tessa, a member of Slits, Steve, of Rip, rig and panic, Jail, of Penguin café orchestra and Ramuntcho Matta on guitar. Ramuntcho, in the style of Brion, called this session 'white funk'. Most of the texts were written upon meeting Burroughs, at the time of the invention of the cut-up. The influence that Brion gysin has had on cont…
One night @ 1001
As the inventor of the Dreamachine ("the first objects made to be viewed with closed eyes"), a prolific writer, painter and calligrapher, Brion Gysin also found time amongst his cramped schedule to set up a restaurant (The Thousand and One Nights) in Tangier, where he proceeded to provide a stage for the best in Moroccan groups specialising in exorcism or trance (particularly the Master Musicians of Joujouka who enjoyed an extended residency). An archive album comprised of these recordings, the …
Poems of poems
His record presents some of the most important experiments in cut-up and recording technique by the famous poet and artist, Brion Gysin. Originally recorded in 1958 at the histori- cal Beat Hotel in Paris: ‘Language is an abominable misunderstanding which makes up a part of matter. The painters and the physicists have treated matter pretty well. The poets have hardly touched it. In March, 1958, when I was living at the Beat Hotel, I proposed to Burroughs to at least make available to literature …
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