William Burroughs – Electronic Revolution / Die elektronische Revolution

Description

This is the scarce bilingual second edition of William S. Burroughs’ Electronic Revolution, published by Expanded Media Editions in 1976, and enlarged with the section “Feedback from Watergate to the Garden of Eden.” Burroughs’ visionary and subversive exploration of language as a virus, media manipulation, and control systems is on full display here—bridging the Beat, postmodern, and countercultural movements with his signature cut-up technique and fierce intelligence. Translated by Carl Weissner and featuring layout and photomontage by Hartmut Bremer, Chris Kohlhöfer, Udo Breger, and Brion Gysin, this edition is both a literary artifact and a piece of experimental media theory.

In this brief but intense tract, Burroughs explores language as a virus, the destabilizing potential of audio tape manipulation, and how broadcast media could be weaponized against authority. Part essay, part manifesto, Electronic Revolution bridges the literary cut-up technique with a paranoid futurism that feels increasingly prophetic. A foundational text in media theory and underground literature alike.

For collectors of Expanded Media Editions, experimental literature, or the Burroughs–Gysin–Weissner nexus, this one hits the signal-to-noise ratio just right.