Shaping Creative Research in New Media (Keynote Address)

Improvisation - the drive to make something out of something else - is fundamental to the human experience. All traditional objects of expression - writing, filmmaking, musical expression, theater, and even human conversation - present some trace of the process through which it came into exist. The very vitality of the expression is intimately connected with its passage; inspiration touched by structure, transformed and realized in a palpable entity. This trace reveals the human bricolleur who struggles or plays, attempts control until resigned, accepts the fragile state and relinquishes the entity out to the world. This talk presents research case studies to explore improvisation and bricollage as forces which can help grow context while driving researchers to unexpected but powerful new explorations.