Issue # 2

Cutup

Interview with Linda Marie Walker

<textbase> maybe firstly you could talk about the Electronic Writing Ensemble

<lmw> oh dear, well it slips always from me, but it was founded by myself and Jyanni Steffensen because of the type of writing we were interested in, and its relationship to the electronic ...

<lmw> it had something to do with a conceptual take on writing, an interdisciplinary methodology, and a desire for a poetic that was somehow internal to language, not external

<lmw> if external is the right word, but something that allowed language to speak ...

<lmw> and so artist/writers began projects, and the possibilities between image, text, and ‘the electric’ are explored in various ways ...

<lmw> i do not have any rules for the Ensemble

<textbase> recently you seemed to have pulled away from electronic media, why is that?

<lmw> some work seems to go on forever, and i'm not sure why, in that the fragment in its smallness can be an infinite space

<lmw> perhaps I am less in need of the language that is often employed by the medium, as if it is a tautology

<textbase>and you don’t like that?

<lmw> it’s not about liking or not liking

<lmw> i probably move around quite a bit in the writing, and probably call what i do ‘to-write’, as if i am doing research, and this research is ‘threadbare’

<textbase> in your "research" what do you hope to discover?

<lmw> This is just my way of describing a process, i don’t know that it ever becomes evident, yes, i mean metaphorically

<lmw> and as far as discovery, this is always a surprise, i move to a place not far away, but that is strange to me to be searching for something, focusing to a point,

<lmw> this means that a certain discomfort surrounds the writing, or even a feeling that it is ‘up in the air’

<lmw> but then this pleases me very much, i stay in love with the writing

<lmw> i think i just touched base then, it takes me awhile, but the word ‘love’ is crucial

<textbase> what about your more recent work, the cut up stuff?

<textbase> could you describe your working method for these pieces?

<lmw> can you tell me which piece(s) you are thinking of...

<textbase> your Ashtray Melancholy piece seems to have elements of cut up in it

<lmw> because the cut-up or montage has always been a part of the process sometimes it is more obvious than other times, and sometimes when the work seems seamless, it is still a little out of focus

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<lmw> yes, the Ashtray Melancholy brings together several different types or tones of text, as if a piece of music that moves through different ambiences

<lmw> as if the different types of writing converse, or touch each other lightly it seems like they are unable to bring themselves into line, or form

<lmw> this then is not fiction, and yet as a form it is fictional, it’s a way of thinking for me that aligns itself with ‘community’, with ‘difference’

<lmw> i wish i had my books with me, as i'm wanting to quote bits and pieces but i'm not at home, and that’s why i love to write at home, where all those other texts are stacked up, often unread, until i remember something, fulfil or realise the idea

<textbase> speaking of community, how important do you place it? and would you talk about your collaborative works. You seem to often work in community to fulfil or realise the idea

<lmw> community is very important to me, and i do try to manifest it in small ways in writing, not in the ‘thing’ of writing about it, but in the ways language can itself be community. and collaboration interests me immensely, especially the ways ideas change through conversation, a kind of translation or morphing, a type of twisting, i'm always so amazed

->Dalvin- DCC Chat (202.10.24.66)

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-> *dalvin* i'm in the middle of an interview. maybe later

<lmw> my writing is about small ways, and is like continual attempts, and placings, spatial i suppose more than anything else

*Dalvin* ok

*Dalvin* where ru anyway?

<lmw> are we getting anywhere here, i have a glass of wine, do you?

<textbase>no wine, only sore wisdom teeth :-(

->*Dalvin* melbourne, australia

*Dalvin* ok

*Dalvin* were u the 1 who sent me an mp3 list?

<textbase>and what of your community, adelaide. could you describe your involvement in the visual arts. both as an artist and as an arts writer

<lmw> often when I talk about my writing it’s like talking about something else altogether, something close to me, but slightly concealed too

->*Dalvin* no

*Dalvin* ok then sorry

*Dalvin* wrong person

*Dalvin* bye

<lmw> i work a little in the visual arts, bits of work here and there, and continue to write about the visual art that is made here, and which i like very much. i’ve had the opportunity to watch it for quite awhile now and it has its own internal energy, that for me, is different to work done else where. this difference is subtle, as it is very informed

<textbase> how has the visual arts experience affected you and your writing

<lmw> the visual arts community here has made my writing possible in many ways. it has been the artists who have supported me. it was the artists who asked me to write for them, and then allowed me to write what i wanted they’ve always recognised my practice as close to their own

<textbase> have you found that you are more interested in writing as a visual element or, the visual power/elements of text?

<lmw> it’s been the visual artists who have encouraged me

<textbase> but beyond encouragement, has it really affected your style, approach, etc?

<lmw> no, i'm not ‘more’ interested in the visual elements of writing, in terms of layout say, but i do take account of it. Often though i like layout to be as quiet as possible

<lmw> no the connections with artists have not affected my style. The style or the way i wanted to work with language was my motivating force, they just didn’t try and get me to write ‘proper’ sentences

<textbase> did you find you could pursue more liberties in the visual arts world, and perhaps take some of what you’d learn through these liberties back into the theory/literature world?

<lmw> not sure, but i guess i could go further with them, as they knew i didn’t want to say statements, and i suppose i took it for granted, that they'd let me exist the way i wanted to, to evolve at my own speed

<lmw> i didn’t write until i was in my thirties, i don’t come from a writing background

<textbase>what lead you to writing?

<lmw> i'm not sure, i think it is closely related to my childhood surrounded by music and coming from a family that liked to talk a lot, and who repeated themselves as a way of conversation

<lmw> but, i did like to belong to the lending library in adelaide, and receive bundles of books through the mail, very few of which I read, it was the receiving of them that was important, these things from far away, from where ‘i’ would never be, and these people, called ‘writers’, were far away too, on another planet, in another world

<lmw> it is still a shock to me that i can, and do, write, and sometimes even get published

<textbase> do you sometimes feel with all your "research" and ficto-critical approach to writing that you might end up leaving the page cold?

<lmw> writing is like breathing

<textbase> do you think there are parallels between net culture and cutup?

<lmw> i seem to find the pleasure of it in forms which are not so literally related to net culture, and yet know it too. i mean i'm aware that these new ‘versions’ are also old, like Burroughs, Cage Cunningham

<textbase> this medium adds a weird dynamic to the interview. it really gives it a feeling of cutup or disjointed texts

<lmw> yes it has been weird, and i only just got into it

<textbase> i wonder if you could write collaborative pieces like this

<lmw> yes you can, or at least, i have written collaboratively with Gregory Ulmer on email

<lmw> and i wrote a collaborative conference paper on email, they were great times, as one had time to think, still i imagine there is a thinking space here that develops gradually

<lmw> ok now i really must go, it is hard to let go, gosh

<textbase> ahh the seduction of the medium. 8-)

<lmw> bye.