Bricolage

From Metapedia

Bricolage is the act of borrowing methodology, nomenclature, questions, problems, etc. from Disciplines or structures without adapting the rules that govern said discipline or structure.

20th Century philosopher Claude Levi-Strauss first coined the term bricolage in his work on semiotics, The Savage Mind. His definition of bricolage is steeped in semiotic thought. He describes a formula with which to define the concept: "In the continual reconstruction from the same materials, it is always earlier ends which are called upon to play the part of means: the signified changes into the signifying and vice versa" (21).

For some in the cultural studies field, the act of appropriating styles and forms is about asserting power. The field work of Dick Hebdige on punk subculture speaks to the agency that comes with the reclamation of cultural products. For example, the appropriation of Dr. Marten work boots by punks allowed that subculture to simultaneously take on the aura of do-it-yourself working class culture that the boots represented, as well as to reject that mainstream culture. The act of bricolage has been an important concept that allows people without agency to break the shackles of the dominant class - by sometimes even using that class' own materials.

There are other thinkers though that decry bricolage and its related concepts of pastiche and appropriation. For Fredric Jameson, the act of appropriation is simply one of mimicry. In his work, "Postmodernism and Consumer Society," Jameson writes that pastiche is "the imitation of a peculiar or unique style, the wearing of a stylistic mask, speech in a dead language" (16). He continues by describing those who work with bricolage:

"The writers and artists of the present day will no longer be able to invent new styles and worlds - they've already been invented; only a limited number of combinations are possible; the unique ones have been thought of already. ... This means that contemporary or postmodern art is going to be about art itself in a new kind of way; even more, it means that one of its essential messages will involve the necessary failure of art and the aesthetic, the failure of the new, the imprisonment in the past" (18).

Jameson's concerns about bricolage and pastiche seem to be out of touch though with the array of vibrant creations that the concepts have actually fostered. While for him, the act of appropriation smacks of crude imitation and a sense of latent, overpowering nostalgia, hip-hop beatmakers, collage artists, creative filmmakers and writers continue to demonstrate the power of creating hybrids through bricolage. Their works show breakdowns of genre, as well as previously held categories and ideologies of culture and art.

The Bricoleur

Levi-Strauss also describes the Bricoleur, someone who engages in the act of bricolage, in his work The Savage Mind. Specifically, the bricoleur is a person who "works with his hands and uses devious means compared to those of a craftsman" (16). The bricoleur's "universe of instruments is closed and the rules of his game are always to make do with 'whatever is at hand'" (17). As opposed to an expert in a particular field or profession, the bricoleur crosses over techniques, methods and typical materials at hand in order to work at any number of projects and creations. Levi-Strauss goes on to describe a bricoleur's construction process in which individual pieces of a project may be limited by their history or original utility. But the bricoleur works within those limitations, then combines the pieces to construct complete reorganizations and new meaning.

Levi-Strauss describes the actions of a bricoleur as highly personal affair: "The 'bricoleur' also, and indeed principally, dervies his poetry from the fact that he does confine himself to accomplishment and execution: he 'speaks' not only with things ... but also through the medium of things: giving an account of his personality and life by the choices he makes between the limited possiblities. The 'bricoleur' mmay not ever complete his purpose but he always puts something of himself into it" (21).

Examples

The concept of bricolage, which in practical terms involves the appropriation of previously existing source material as the source material for new creations, is found in techniques across media. An array of contemporary visual artists, musicians and writers - modern day bricoleurs - all work with the idea of using materials at hand to create new expressions and reject previously held meanings and mainstream thought.

Music examples

Bricolage in music often takes the form of sound collage, as well as sampling. In both cases, musicians draw on an array of source material: found sound (i.e. musique concrete) or previously recorded sounds. The act of hip-hop sampling - taking loops of drums, basslines, horns, etc. from old records - to make new songs is a prime example of bricolage.

The art of sampling in hip-hop began with the earliest days of the music. Although the origins of the culture are constantly debated, there is agreement that the act of DJing was at the heart of hip-hop. DJs looking for new ways to encourage dancing at Bronx park parties stumbled on the idea of looping vinyl records back and forth using two turntables and a mixer set-up. This DJ technique quickly evolved into the recording studio as hip-hop musicians began working with the loop mentality to create sonic backdrops for rappers to rhyme over. Those musical backdrops were based on the idea of sampling segments of old records from any genre to make new songs. Hip-hop sampling wasn't simply a way for hip-hop producers to make new music, but it was also a way to celebrate their cultural heritage and musicians that had come before them. Although the results can be seen as endowed with a strong sense of nostalgia, there is an overwhelming push to move forward - to blend sound in new and creative ways. The use of sampling has waxed and waned at the mainstream level, but many hip-hop and electronic musicians continue to carry the torch.

  • Arguably the most important and creative DJ and sampler was Afrika Bambaataa. His anthem "Planet Rock" is based on Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express." The song "Planet Rock" has gone on to be a hugely sampled track. Here's a list of just some of its uses.
  • One contemporary musician who works with both sound collage and hip-hop style sampling is Amon Tobin. His first record, which was actually titled Bricolage, blended bossa nova, jazz, drum n bass and electronic styles for what became a completely new hybrid, electronic sound. His most recent release, Foley Room, continues with Tobin's trademark blend of musical styles, but also incorporates found sound/musique concrete.
  • Another important collective who test the boundaries of sampling, sound collage, visual appropriation and copy right law is Negativland [1] [2].
  • This video for "Herr Barr" by musician Clark demonstrates bricolage across media. All of the images are collage treatments built from cut-outs of photographs of human body parts (the filmmaker, Clemens Kogler, scanned the body parts, then reassembled them). Clark's music blends elements from drum and bass, techno, ambient and hip-hop.

Film Examples

Kill Bill Vol. 1

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  • Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 [3] [4] relies heavily on styles, genres and codes from a variety of sources. He uses elements from Hong Kong kung-fu films, grindhouse style fight scenes, comic book set-ups, etc. Check this site for a list of the various references he makes in Kill Bill. Tarantino is also known for paying close attention to the soundtracks of his films. For the Kill Bill Vol. 1 soundtrack, he draws on everything from hip-hop beats by the RZA, spaghetti western orchestration by Luis Enrique Bacalov, funky disco by Santa Esmeralda, pan flute by Zamfir, and crooning by Nancy Sinatra. He uses this diverse sound to create a wide range of emotional atmosphere for different scenes throughout the film. Although the songs may have originated in very different contexts, he uses them for different effects.


The Matrix

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  • The Matrix [5] [6], a 1999 film by the Wachowski brothers, is a visual lesson in incorporating influences and styles into a new film. Even the title draws on past ideas from the science-fiction genre (a nod to the Matrix from the Doctor Who series). The Wachowskis draw on genres, stories and visuals such as the fantasy world of Alice in Wonderland, Japanese cyberpunk manga from Ghost in the Shell, action comic books, and kung-fu movies. Much of the discourse within the film refers to and combines philosophies from Jacques Lacan, Jean Baudrillard, as well as elements of many major religions. The soundtrack for the film also draws on a variety of musical sources and genres (many of which are actually hybrids of other musical genres): nu metal (Deftones, Rage Against the Machine), big beat (Propellerheads and Meat Beat Manifesto), and aggressive hip-hop and electronic style sampling (Hive and the Prodigy).

Contemporary Art Examples

  • Although much of his work exemplifies a bricolage approach, Robert Rauschenberg's "Combines" are prime demonstrations of using materials at hand to produce new, creative work that is able to draw on the materials, yet also construct new meanings. article "Art Out of Anything: Rauschenberg in Retrospect" about the artist's "combines," Michael Kimmelman writes,
"Now of course, it's easier to grasp the way these works weave teasing bits of autobiography with fragments of contemporary life and history to make images that can't be boiled down to a single message (academics are always trying to do this) or dismissed as a bunch of hooey (the conservative line). ... Then there are many other possible readings. Relying on the old Cubist grid for their formal armature, the combines invite decipherment without coming across, like Cubism, as homework. They provide access on many levels at once, favoring none, anticipating the mental processes of a generation of multitaskers. Half a century later, you might say, the culture has finally caught up to the combines."

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"Booster" (1967)


  • Kazuhiko "Palla" Kawahara takes photographs of buildings, roads, parking garages and natural environments (parks, etc.), chops them up, and then reassembles them into sort of hyperreal images of what can be seen as futuristic metropolises. His constructions operate within the Photoshop cut and paste aesthetic, but are also rooted in the code of architecture photography. Read this interview about his process that's full of links to lectures and more pictures.

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"highway composition"


  • Chris Ofili, an English painter of Nigerian descent, draws on an array of disparate styles and materials for his works. He has become known for his application of cow dung and butterfly cutouts from pornographic magazines to depictions of religious icons. In his 2000 article from African Arts, Donald J. Cosentino draws quotes by Martin Maloney from the catalog for the "Sensation" show that featured a number of Ofili's works. Cosentino goes on to describe Ofili's process as "hip-hop assemblage."
"Decorating his surfaces with excessive patterns, using collage techniques borrowed from folk art, Ofili's multilayered approach challenged the rules of good taste by a skillful combination of eclectic elements ... Playful in realisation, brash in materials, they have a patched-together, homemade look that allows a gentle romantic spirit to animate the cultural mix of their making. Ofili found a way of shifting the art of identity to an apparently neutral form - decorative abstraction, which had not previously been used to discuss issues of racial difference.
What Maloney has described is an artist who uses the ancient African aesthetic of assemblage to reflect a new multicultural world. All of Ofili's pieces in "Sensation," ... reflect this new hybrid style, which I call Hip-Hop Assemblage" (50)

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"The Holy Virgin Mary" (1999)


  • Christian Marclay is a performance artist who works across media: video art, musique concrete, sculptures and installations. He takes a hybrid collage approach to his preoccupation with records as demonstrated in many of his earlier pieces such as "Record Without A Cover"[7], as well as his work with found record covers such as "Slide Easy In"[8] and "Who's Looking Back"[9]. In an interview from the Journal of Contemporary Art, Marclay stated:
"I've always used found objects, images and sounds, and collaged them together, and tried to create something new and different with what was available. To be totally original and start from scratch always seemed futile. I was more interested in taking something that existed and was part of my surroundings, to cut it up, twist it, turn it into something different; appropriating it and making it mine through manipulations and juxtapositions."

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"Video Quartet" (2003)

Writing Examples

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. . . . —John Donne from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
  • In his more recent writing about the creative process of writing, Jonathan Lethem posits that all writing draws on other writing for inspiration, style and source material. His easy in the February 2007 issue of Harper's Magazine, "The Ecstasy of Influence" is a categoric, referential essay on the crossover between music and text, semiotics, the thin line between reference and rip-off. The format is such that he footnotes where all of his ideas developed from , i.e. what other work he riffs on, to ultimately make an argument about copyright and advocating that creative material belongs in the creative commons.
  • William Burroughs was a prolific writer from the Beat Generation. In 1959, his third novel, Naked Lunch [10][11], was controversial (banned in some countries for its "obscene" language), but also noteworthy because of its construction. Burroughs used the Cut-up technique, of Dadaist origin, by taking a body of text, chopping it into bits (3-4 word phrases) and then reassembling it into a substantial work. Burroughs cut not just writing, but later on audio in an effort to get at what he deemed the true nature of the text.

References, Suggested Reading and Listening

Web resources (Bricolage)

  • Daniel Chandler's Semiotics for Beginners: Intertextuality (see the discussion of bricolage toward the bottom of the page)
  • Jacques Derrida "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences"[12] (on bricolage)


Web resources (Sampling and sound works)

  • Rap Sample FAQ[13] (Searchable database of samples)
  • The History of Sampling [14] (Graphic representation of sampling in hip-hop)
  • Ruminations on the Hip-Hop Blending Aesthetic [15]
  • Raiding the 20th Century[16]: DJ Food's mix cataloging the history of cut-up music.
  • Alvin Curran about composing with disparate elements and the "hey, whatever" approach in Western music [17]

Bibliography

  • Cosentino, Donald J. "Hip-Hop Assemblage: The Chris Ofili Affair." African Arts. Vol. 33 No. 1. pp. 40-51. Jstor on-line database [18]
  • Jameson, Fredric. "Postmodernism and Consumer Society." From E. Ann Kaplan, ed. Postmodernism and its Discontents. London and New York: Verso, 1988. pp. 13-29.
  • Kimmelman, Michael. "Art Out of Anything: Rauschenberg in Retropsect." The New York Times. 23 Dec. 2005. [19]
  • Levi-Strauss, Claude. The Savage Mind. Chicago: The Chicago University Press 1966.
  • Seliger, Jonathan. "Christian Marclay (interview)." Journal of Contemporary Art. [20]
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