Bricoleur and Bricolage - what Ai says

 

I was thinking about ideas and concepts and if there was something I could draw on to start some useful writing.  I decided that Bricolage was important as it holds all sorts of possibilities and it is another word like Assemblage that benefits from not having a direct equivalent in English.  I've been doing some reading and it feels like Makeshift and DiY don't really cut the mustard. The French word holds more mystique, suggesting a romantic notion of a valid yet alternative way to approach a problem.  On the other hand, Do-it-Yourself conjures images of the half finished or poorly done job. The light switch fixed upside down or the square peg in the round hole.  The Bricoleur in my mind's eye wears a beret and creates interesting ways to effectively fasten onions to his bike. Like most of the French men I have met he is a bit cool, owns part of the UK's energy distribution network and is very good at everything he does. I have only met two alpha male French men and they both make artisan handbags. I see this is as a coincidence rather than a stereotype unlike the onions beret and bike.   The AI produced definition suggests the bricoleur is a Jack-of-all-trades but this doesn't feel quite right either.  I'm sure the expert bricoleur can plumb in a dishwasher and pull out the bump in the side of his car with a slide hammer, yet this seems quite pedestrian for a word that deserves italics.   

My reading today has expanded my understanding a little.  The term was employed by Levi-Strauss in his book Savage Mind as a metaphor to expand his thinking on myth.  Levi-Strauss was a structural anthropologist so bricolage is offered as a structure, a framework to understand how myths are made.  The breaking down and rebuilding of ideas, thoughts and experiences that are present, to-hand, ready to be reformed.  In contrasting the bricoleur to the engineer, Strauss sets a modern society with its systems and extensions against a society, neither savage or primitive, which only has available what is to hand.  

I feel like the actual real life bricoleur may not exist, he is a myth constructed to offer a metaphor to explain myth, a metaphor with traction. For Proposition Cottage, my desire to  present myself as a bricoleur is problematic as it would mean not buying all my materials from Wickes.  Practically, I cannot build my new workshop with materials that are to hand. I can incorporate my prosthetic leg and the remains of my friend Wayne's greenhouse-on-a-trailer sculpture. I can include childhood memories and my own myth as a maker/sculptor/scholar.  However, my mind has become less savage and I want, as Ruskin suggests, to build for a 1000 years or at least the potential useful last 30 of mine. I will need to buy some materials that will last the test of time.  I could just buy a big pile of stuff; I'm already collecting odds and ends and then see this pile as a proposition and begin to tinker and improvise.  There is something about the scale of a building that needs more than tinkering, perhaps not a design or a cutting list but something Deleuze would speculate as a diagram.  It is the relationship between purpose and possibility, not function and form. 

I think that to be a true bricoleur it is necessary to not try to be one.  If you make too much effort you are missing the point, you are trying too hard and will produce artifice, the artificial pastiche of an impossible desire for authenticity.  

I decided that I would write something to help artists come to bricolage in an informed way rather than the usual  'We all know what this means don't we'  approach.  I wondered what Chat GbT would come up with to see if it was actually worth trying to do my own version.  I've copied this below,  I don't think I could do any better but it may be worth trying to write of the struggle that this concept brings to actually making something. 

Structuralism did not last very long; Derrida deconstructed it almost in the moment of its emergence.  He also didn't agree with Strauss on Bricolage.  If it's rainy tomorrow I may try and write something about this. If it's a bit nicer weather I will chop down the holly tree.

The terms bricoleur and bricolage originate from French, and they have interesting meanings both in their original context and in their broader, more abstract uses, particularly in cultural and intellectual discussions.

Bricoleur:

A bricoleur is someone who engages in bricolage. The word is often used to describe a person who is a "jack-of-all-trades," someone who uses whatever materials or tools they have at hand to solve problems or create things. In a more philosophical or cultural sense, a bricoleur might be someone who combines elements from different sources, disciplines, or traditions in a creative and often improvisational manner.

Bricolage:

Bricolage refers to the act of creating something new by using a diverse array of objects or materials, often repurposing existing things. It’s a term that goes beyond just the practical idea of constructing or assembling something. It is often used metaphorically in fields like anthropology, literary theory, and cultural studies to describe how people combine cultural, social, or intellectual elements in novel ways.

Cultural and Intellectual Usage:

The French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss famously used the term bricolage in his structuralist analysis of myths and cultures. He contrasted the bricoleur (the “handyman” or “maker”) with the engineer—the latter being someone who approaches problems in a more systematic, rational way, with a clear understanding of all the tools and materials needed. For Lévi-Strauss, the bricoleur uses available resources, creating meaning out of things that might seem disconnected or random, much like how myths are constructed from available cultural elements.

In the 20th century, thinkers like Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault also used the idea of bricolage in their work, referring to the process of reassembling fragments of knowledge, language, and power in new ways, without necessarily following formal rules or established systems. The bricoleur here is seen as someone who operates outside the strict boundaries of structured knowledge or rational design.

Modern Usage:

In contemporary culture, the idea of bricolage is often invoked in creative industries, DIY culture, and art, where individuals or groups take what they have at their disposal and make something unique and meaningful. The term is also used in digital and media studies to describe how people, especially in the internet age, remix and repurpose existing media, ideas, or technologies to create new forms of expression.

In AI Context:

AI and machine learning could be seen as a kind of bricolage in the sense that they often work by combining large datasets from various sources and "repurposing" them to generate new insights, predictions, or content. The "bricoleur" of the AI world would be those who develop and apply these systems, piecing together available technologies, algorithms, and data to create something new, even if they don't have a complete understanding of every underlying process.

So, AI might interpret bricolage not just as a creative, cultural process, but also as an analog to how data science, algorithms, and machine learning systems are assembled and employed in innovative ways.

Summary:

• Bricoleur = A person who uses whatever is available to create or solve problems.
• Bricolage = The process of constructing or creating something with available resources, often through creative or unconventional methods.
• In intellectual terms, both represent a non-linear, improvisational approach to creation and problem-solving, which contrasts with more systematic or scientific methods.

In short, bricolage and bricoleur speak to a certain art of making things in an opportunistic, inventive way, which can apply to everything from craft to intellectual work to AI systems.