Week 1 ITAP- Bricolage/ Originality

Bricolage and it’s Use in Contemporary Culture

I would define Bricolage as the practice of working with whatever materials are to hand, or “making do” as my parents would say.  In a cultural context, bricolage can be defined as the activity of taking commodities  and giving them a fresh identity.  Bricolage can be found across different media including artists, musicians and writers who all work with the idea of using materials “to hand” to create new, alternative expressions.

Some examples:

Hip-hop sampling is in effect creating a sound collage. Using a wide array of source material, the producer  takes extracts of drum beats, basslines etc to make a new song.  Who would have thought that Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is You” ultimately eminated from Kraftwerk’s “Trans-Europe Express”!

Possibly the best example of cinematic bricolage is Quentin Tarantino.  You can see in most of his films elements of Kung Fu films, comic book set ups and old western fight scenes. If you look at Tarantinos’ cinematic references for the production of “Kill Bill”, it is an amazing list of genres.

The Matrix, 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 and “Dr Who has been cited as an influence. The Wachowskis draw on genres, stories and visuals such as the fantasy world of Alice in Wonderland Japanese cyberpunk manga, action comic books, and kung-fu movies. Much of the dailogue within the film refers to and combines philosophies from many major religions. The soundtrack for the film also draws on a variety of musical sources and genres  and aggressive hip-hop and electronic style sampling (Such as the Prodigy)

The creation of subcultures in society can also involve bricolage.  This can be seen with the wearing of oversize trousers below the bottom (Get a belt guys!) or possibly the most famous example being the punk “badge” of wearing a safety pin.

Of course in talking about bricolage, we cannot forget “counter bricolage” which is a practice used by advertisers to sell commodities as items of value.  In the fashion world, ripped jeans became a massproduced product from being an individual response to an old pair of jeans.

Notions of Originality

To be honest, I’ve already come up against this obstacle during my graphics project last week.  Finding events for which to produce a flyer was no problem.  However, in finding out what is on in Birmingham, I found myself picking of flyers and brochures, in other words, someone else’s work.  To be honest it was a daunting prospect taking on an event for which posters etc are already plastered over town.  Would my work be compared to what’s already out there? At what point is taking inspiration crossing the line to plagiarism? Or would it be deemed “clever” to take an image which is so well known and add a “little twist” to make it my own? 

 In my husband’s record collection from his youth I found an album “The Gospel According to the Men in Black” by the Stranglers. In the gatefold of the album is a parody of the “Last Supper” with just a small man in black dropped into the background.  Is this an inspired take on an “untouchable” image or just a blatant rip off by an idle designer? 

 In deciding this we must also address the issue of context. In this particular case, the album is supposed to address the ideas of religious/ governmental conspiracies regarding alien visitations to Earth so I guess the image gets the benefit of the doubt.

Possibly in considering a project, inspiration from others is only one of many factors we should take into account in order to avoid comparisons with what has gone before. In my view, personal observation of our surroundings (people and places) and experimentation with different media (or combinations of media) can lead us to originality.

However, going back to my graphics project, I finally chose a Tango event which is to take place at the Town Hall in Birmingham in October.  The reason for this was because in the associated leaflet for events at the Town Hall, there were no graphics, just the plain listing in words only.  I thought by taking on this as my “event”, I would have full artistic latitude to produce my own work without comparison to anyone else’s style. It will be up in the Foyer soon. I hope you like it and I hope you think it is original.