Bricolage
Bricolage – from the French-language verb bricoler, meaning "to tinker" or "to fiddle" – is that language's equivalent of the English phrase "do-it-yourself".
Bricolage is also often contrasted to engineering: building by trial and error rather than based on theory.
A person who engages in bricolage is a bricoleur. A bricoleur is a person who creates things from existing materials, is creative and resourceful: a person who collects information and things and then puts them together in a way that they were not originally designed to do.
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Culture
General
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, for example, the punk 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 became a form of decoration in punk culture.
Art
In art, bricolage is a technique where works are constructed from various materials available or on hand, and is seen as a characteristic of postmodern works.
These materials may be mass-produced or "junk". See also: Merz, polystylism, collage.
Music
Bricolage is the name of a 1997 album by the drum and bass artist Amon Tobin.
"bRiCoLAge #1" is a Girl Talk album released in 2003.
Science
Biology
In biology the biologist François Jacob uses the term bricolage to describe the apparently cobbled-together character of much biological structure, and views it as a consequence of the evolutionary history of the organism. (Molino 2000, p.169). See also "Bicoid, nanos, and bricolage" by PZ Myers.
Education
In the discussion of constructionism Seymour Papert 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.
Information technology
Information systems
In information systems, bricolage is used by Claudio Ciborra to describe the way in which Strategic Information Systems (SIS) can be built in order to maintain successful competitive advantage 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.
Content management
In information technology, Bricolage [1] is an open-source content management system.
Organization and Management
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
References
- Molino, Jean (2000). "Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Music and Language", The Origins of Music. Cambridge, Mass: A Bradford Book, The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-23206-5.
- Ciborra, C (1992). "From Thinking to Tinkering: The Grassroots of Strategic Information Systems", The Information Society 8, 297-309
- Karl Weick, "Organizational Redesign as Improvisation", reprinted in Making Sense of the Organization
Categories
Artistic techniques | Postmodernism | Subcultures