![BricolageMakerSpace](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/BricolageMakerSpace.jpg)
In
the arts
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...
, ''bricolage'' (
French for "
DIY
"Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and sem ...
" or "do-it-yourself projects") is the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work constructed using
mixed media
In visual art, mixed media describes artwork in which more than one medium or material has been employed.
Assemblages, collages, and sculpture are three common examples of art using different media. Materials used to create mixed media art incl ...
.
The term ''bricolage'' has also been used in many other fields, including
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
, philosophy,
critical theory, education, computer software, and
business.
Origin
''Bricolage'' is a French
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
that means the process of
improvisation in a human endeavor. The word is derived from the French verb ''bricoler'' ("to tinker"), with the English term
DIY
"Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and sem ...
("Do-it-yourself") being the closest equivalent of the contemporary French usage. In both languages, ''bricolage'' also denotes any works or products of DIY endeavors.
The arts
Visual art
![SelfReferentialBricolage](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/SelfReferentialBricolage.jpg)
In art, bricolage is a technique or creative mode, where works are constructed from various materials available or on hand, and is often seen as a characteristic of
postmodern art practice. It has been likened to the concept of curating
and has also been described as the remixture, reconstruction, and reuse of separate materials or artifacts to produce new meanings and insights.
Architecture
Bricolage is considered the jumbled effect produced by the close proximity of buildings from different periods and in different architectural styles.
It is also a term that is admiringly applied to the architectural work of
Le Corbusier, by Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter in their book ''Collage City'', whom they called "a fox in hedgehog disguise," commenting on his wily approach to assembling ideas from found objects of the
history of architecture
The history of architecture traces the changes in architecture through various traditions, regions, overarching stylistic trends, and dates. The beginnings of all these traditions is thought to be humans satisfying the very basic need of shelt ...
, in contrast to
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
, who is called a "
hedgehog
A hedgehog is a spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, in the eulipotyphlan family Erinaceidae. There are seventeen species of hedgehog in five genera found throughout parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in New Zealand by introductio ...
" for being overly focused on a narrow concept.
Academics
Anthropology
In anthropology, the term has been used in several ways. Most notably,
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social An ...
invoked the concept of bricolage to refer to the process that leads to the creation of mythical thought, which "expresses itself by means of a heterogeneous repertoire which, even if extensive, is nevertheless limited. It has to use this repertoire, however, whatever the task in hand because it has nothing else at its disposal". Later, Hervé Varenne and Jill Koyama used the term when explaining the processual aspect of culture, i.e., education
Literature
In literature, bricolage is affected by
intertextuality
Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text, either through deliberate compositional strategies such as quotation, allusion, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche or parody, Gerard Genette (1997) ''Paratexts'p.18/ref>Hal ...
, the shaping of a text's meanings by reference to other texts.
Cultural studies
In
cultural studies bricolage is used to mean the processes by which people acquire objects from across
social divisions to create new
cultural identities. In particular, it is a feature of
subcultures such as the
punk
Punk or punks may refer to:
Genres, subculture, and related aspects
* Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres
* Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...
movement. Here, objects that possess one meaning (or no meaning) in the dominant culture are acquired and given a new, often subversive meaning. For example, the
safety pin
The safety pin is a variation of the regular pin which includes a simple spring mechanism and a clasp. The clasp forms a closed loop to properly fasten the pin to whatever it is applied to and covers the end of the pin to protect the user from t ...
became a form of decoration in punk culture.
Social psychology
The term "psychological bricolage" is used to explain the mental processes through which an individual develops novel solutions to problems by making use of previously unrelated knowledge or ideas they already possess.
The term, introduced by Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Matthew J. Karlesky and Fiona Le
The Oxford Handbook of Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurshipof the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
, draws from two separate disciplines. The first, "social bricolage," was introduced by cultural anthropologist
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social An ...
in 1962. Lévi-Strauss was interested in how societies create novel solutions by using resources that already exist in the collective social consciousness. The second, "creative cognition," is an intra-psychic approach to studying how individuals retrieve and recombine knowledge in new ways. Psychological bricolage, therefore, refers to the cognitive processes that enable individuals to retrieve and recombine previously unrelated knowledge they already possess. Psychological bricolage is an intra-individual process akin to
Karl E. Weick's notion of bricolage in organizations, which is akin to Lévi-Strauss' notion of bricolage in societies.
[Karl Weick, "Organizational Redesign as Improvisation", reprinted in ''Making Sense of the Organization'']
Philosophy
In his book ''
The Savage Mind'' (1962, English translation 1966), French anthropologist
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social An ...
used "bricolage" to describe the characteristic patterns of mythological thought. In his description it is opposed to the engineers' creative thinking, which proceeds from goals to means. Mythical thought, according to Lévi-Strauss, attempts to re-use available materials in order to solve new problems.
Jacques Derrida extends this notion to any discourse. "If one calls ''bricolage'' the necessity of borrowing one's concept from the text of a heritage which is more or less coherent or ruined, it must be said that every discourse is ''bricoleur''."
Gilles Deleuze and
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari ( , ; 30 April 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næs ...
, in their 1972 book ''
Anti-Oedipus'', identify ''bricolage'' as the characteristic
mode of production
In the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (German: ''Produktionsweise'', "the way of producing") is a specific combination of the:
* Productive forces: these include human labour power and means of production (tools, ...
of the schizophrenic producer.
Education
In the discussion of
constructionism,
Seymour Papert
Seymour Aubrey Papert (; 29 February 1928 – 31 July 2016) was a South African-born American mathematician, computer scientist, and educator, who spent most of his career teaching and researching at MIT. He was one of the pioneers of artificia ...
discusses two styles of solving problems. Contrary to the analytical style of solving problems, he describes bricolage as a way to learn and solve problems by trying, testing, playing around.
Joe L. Kincheloe and
Shirley R. Steinberg
Shirley R. Steinberg is an educator, author, activist, filmmaker, and public speaker whose work focuses on critical pedagogy, transformative leadership, social justice, and cultural studies. She has written and edited numerous books and article ...
have used the term bricolage in educational research to denote the use of multiperspectival research methods. In Kincheloe's conception of the research bricolage, diverse theoretical traditions are employed in a broader critical theoretical/critical pedagogical context to lay the foundation for a transformative mode of multimethodological inquiry. Using these multiple frameworks and methodologies, researchers are empowered to produce more rigorous and praxiological insights into socio-political and educational phenomena.
Kincheloe and Steinberg theorize a critical multilogical epistemology and critical connected ontology to ground the research bricolage. These philosophical notions provide the research bricolage with a sophisticated understanding of the complexity of knowledge production and the interrelated complexity of both researcher positionality and phenomena in the world. Such complexity demands a more rigorous mode of research that is capable of dealing with the complications of socio-educational experience. Such a critical form of rigor avoids the reductionism of many monological, mimetic research orientations (see Kincheloe, 2001, 2005; Kincheloe & Berry, 2004; Steinberg, 2015; Kincheloe, McLaren, & Steinberg, 2012).
Information technology
Information systems
In
information systems
An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by four components: task, people ...
, bricolage is used by
Claudio Ciborra Claudio Ciborra (1951 – 13 February 2005) was an Italian organizational theorist,Donald A. Mankin (1996) Teams and Technology: Fulfilling the Promise of the New Organization'. p. 13. and Professor of Information Systems and PWC Chair in Risk Manag ...
to describe the way in which
strategic information system
Strategic information systems (SIS) are information systems that are developed in response to corporate business initiative. They are intended to give competitive advantage to the organization. They may deliver a product or service that is at a lo ...
s (SIS) can be built in order to maintain successful
competitive advantage
In business, a competitive advantage is an attribute that allows an organization to outperform its competitors.
A competitive advantage may include access to natural resources, such as high-grade ores or a low-cost power source, highly skilled ...
over a longer period of time than standard SIS. By valuing tinkering and allowing SIS to evolve from the bottom-up, rather than implementing it from the top-down, the firm will end up with something that is deeply rooted in the
organisational culture that is specific to that firm and is much less easily imitated.
Internet
In her book ''
Life on the Screen'' (1995),
Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle (born June 18, 1948) is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She obtained an BA in social studies and later a PhD in sociology and perso ...
discusses the concept of bricolage as it applies to problem solving in code projects and workspace productivity. She advocates the "bricoleur style" of programming as a valid and underexamined alternative to what she describes as the conventional structured "planner" approach. In this style of coding, the programmer works without an exhaustive preliminary specification, opting instead for a step-by-step growth and re-evaluation process. In her essay "Epistemological Pluralism", Turkle writes: "The bricoleur resembles the painter who stands back between brushstrokes, looks at the canvas, and only after this contemplation, decides what to do next."
Visual arts
The visual arts is a field in which individuals often integrate a variety of knowledge sets in order to produce inventive work. To reach this stage, artists read print materials across a wide array of disciplines, as well as information from their own social identities. For instance, the artist
Shirin Neshat
Shirin Neshat ( fa, شیرین نشاط; born March 26, 1957 in Qazvin) is an Iranian visual artist who lives in New York City, known primarily for her work in film, video and photography. Her artwork centers on the contrasts between Islam and th ...
has integrated her identities as an Iranian exile and a woman in order to make complex, creative and critical bodies of work. This willingness to integrate diverse knowledge sets enables artists with multiple identities to fully leverage their knowledge sets. This is demonstrated by Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Chi-Ying Chen and Fiona Lee, who found that individuals were shown to exhibit greater levels of innovation in tasks related to their cultural identities when they successfully integrated those identities.
Business
Karl Weick identifies the following requirements for successful bricolage in organizations.
*Intimate knowledge of resources
*Careful observation and listening
*Trusting one's ideas
*Self-correcting structures, with feedback
In popular culture
Fashion
In his essay "Subculture: The Meaning of Style",
Dick Hebdige
Dick Hebdige (born 1951) is an expatriate British media theorist and sociologist, and a professor of art and media studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His work is commonly associated with the study of subcultures, and its ...
discusses how an individual can be identified as a bricoleur when they "appropriated another range of commodities by placing them in a symbolic ensemble which served to erase or subvert their original straight meanings". The fashion industry uses bricolage-like styles by incorporating items typically utilized for other purposes.
Television
* ''
MacGyver
Angus "Mac" MacGyver is the title character and the protagonist in the TV series ''MacGyver''. He is played by Richard Dean Anderson in the 1985 original series. Lucas Till portrays a younger version of MacGyver in the 2016 reboot.
In both p ...
'' is a television series in which the protagonist is the paragon of a bricoleur,
creating solutions for the problem to be solved out of immediately available found objects.
See also
*
Collage
*''
Détournement''
*
Do it yourself
*
Intrapreneurial Bricolage
*
Jugaad
''Jugaaḍ'' (or "Jugaaṛ") is a colloquial Indo-Aryan word, which refers to a non-conventional, frugal innovation, often termed a "hack". It could also refer to an innovative fix or a simple work-around, a solution that bends the rules, or a ...
*
Jury rig
In maritime transport terms, and most commonly in sailing, jury-rigged is an adjective, a noun, and a verb. It can describe the actions of temporary makeshift running repairs made with only the tools and materials on board; and the subsequent r ...
*
Kludge
A kludge or kluge () is a workaround or quick-and-dirty solution that is clumsy, inelegant, inefficient, difficult to extend and hard to maintain. This term is used in diverse fields such as computer science, aerospace engineering, Internet sla ...
*
Maker culture
*
Syncretism
*
Pastiche
References
External links
*
*
{{Appropriation in the Arts
Digital humanities
Philosophy of technology
Postmodernism
Psychogeography
Artistic techniques
Do it yourself
Improvisation