Imagine a poem created by randomly rearranging lines from a newspaper article. This is the essence of the cut-up technique, a method that has challenged conventional writing for decades. Originating with the Dadaists in the 1920s, who sought to reject logic and reason in the wake of World War I, the technique embodies their embrace of chance and absurdity. William S. Burroughs, along with artist Brion Gysin, further developed the technique, believing it could reveal hidden connections and premonitions within language. They would cut up texts, rearrange the fragments, and then read the resulting new text, looking for unexpected meanings.