User:Andre Castro/FactoryReset/1.3/Annotations-FactoryReset/oulipo

Oulipo Compedium

http://web.archive.org/web/20060508084853/http://www.oulipocompendium.com/html/excerpt_frame.html

In Oulipo Compedium three strategies for the creation of written works seem to stand out.

#1 Randomness

In N+7: where every noun is replaced by the 7th next word in the Dictionary.

#2 Mix

This approach employs more than one text source, which are combined to form a unity.

In Larding: where every two sentences of a found text are intersected with a new sentence. In Preverb: where two proverbs are joint by attaching the beginning of one to the end of another.

#3 Constraints

In the Lipogram: words with certain letters are excluded from the work. As in Perec 'A Void'. In Rhetorical Repetition: statements follow the same form.

Questions

Why do some of this random approaches to writing appear to maintain the text integrity and are able to make us laugh? Most likely because they employ recognizable sources, such as the beginning of the bible or proverbs. Making such choice allows the reader to engage with the text and understand the processes in play.

Same approaches in Music

These approaches constitute also principals that have governed various music compositions, across different genres. We can witness:

Randomness: in open compositions, by composers such as Christian Wolff(Burdocks, text pieces), Cornelius Cardew (Treatise) and Kalheize Stockhausen(Klavier Stuck XI), where parameters of the piece are left indeterminate until the moment the performer decides on stage how to execute piece, full-filling the missing parameters. This is in its essence a collaborative process, where the authorship is shared between the system devicer (the composer) and system executer (the performer).

Mixing: used in a lot of hip-hop and plunderphonics, where fragments of music are collaged and rearranged to create new compositions. The effects on the audiences can vary if these samples belong or not to our collective popular memory. If they don't belong their effect is more subtle, it can appear to have not been appropriated. Whereas when using a very recognizable and popular fragment it immediately creates empathy in the listener and adds a humorous twist to it.

• Constraints: present in 12-tone compositions by Schoenberg and Webern, where each section all the 12 semitones from chromatic scale must be played in order to advance to the section. (in an effort to bring equal weights to each note).