About Flarf

Gary Sullivan, interviewed (May 2006) by Tom Beckett at E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S:

"Many have seen a connection between Flarf and Language Writing. The connection, so far as I can tell -- other than many of us having been influenced as much by Language Writing as by anything else -- is in the extent to which we seem focused on decentering and exploring subjectivity."

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"So, though I've been talking largely about Flarf as a sensibility and how appropriation plays a role in that, there is the other issue, which is very easily summed up: We literally appropriate other text for our work. But not just any other text. A key aspect of most of the text we appropriate is that it is a manifestation of some other person's subjectivity."

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"I wrote a lot about flarf on my blog several months ago after noticing that the word 'flarf' seemed to be getting around. What I noticed was that flarf was being used as shorthand for 'Google-sculpting.' I felt that it was important at the time to talk about the word's origin. Not because ownership was an issue, but because I felt it was important to distinguish flarf from Google-sculpting. Important because Google-sculpting, considering everything available on the Web, could look and sound like anything. Flarf, on the other hand, doesn't."