拼装

In the arts, bricolage (French for "DIY" or "do-it-yourself projects"; French pronunciation: [bʁikɔlaʒ]) is the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work constructed using mixed media.

The term bricolage has also been used in many other fields, including anthropology, philosophy, critical theory, education, computer software, public health, and business.

Origin

Bricolage is a French loanword that means the process of improvisation in a human endeavor. The word is derived from the French verb bricoler ("to tinker"), with the English term DIY ("Do-it-yourself") being the closest equivalent of the contemporary French usage. In both languages, bricolage also denotes any works or products of DIY endeavors.

The arts

Visual art

In art, bricolage is a technique or creative mode, where works are constructed from various materials available or on hand, and is often seen as a characteristic of postmodern art practice. It has been likened to the concept of curating and has also been described as the remixture, reconstruction, and reuse of separate materials or artifacts to produce new meanings and insights.

Architecture

Bricolage is considered the jumbled effect produced by the close proximity of buildings from different periods and in different architectural styles.

Academics

Anthropology

In anthropology, bricolage refers to a process of improvisation using available materials and ideas. Claude Lévi-Strauss introduced the concept in The Savage Mind (1962), contrasting the bricoleur—who creatively recombines existing elements—with the engineer, who works from theoretical plans. While he linked the bricoleur to mythical thought, Lévi-Strauss emphasized that this way of thinking is not inferior; in fact, scientific thought often involves bricolage.

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.

Visual arts

The visual arts is a field in which individuals often integrate a variety of knowledge sets in order to produce inventive work. To reach this stage, artists read print materials across a wide array of disciplines, as well as information from their own social identities. For instance, the artist Shirin Neshat has integrated her identities as an Iranian exile and a woman in order to make complex, creative and critical bodies of work. This willingness to integrate diverse knowledge sets enables artists with multiple identities to fully leverage their knowledge sets.

Business

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

Glenn Gosnell, V & E Limited, defines the formal term "Bricoleurologist", as indicating expertise and experience in Bricoleurology, i.e. devising and implementing elegant solutions to immediate problems and issues.

In popular culture

Fashion

In his essay "Subculture: The Meaning of Style", Dick Hebdige discusses how an individual can be identified as a bricoleur when they "appropriated another range of commodities by placing them in a symbolic ensemble which served to erase or subvert their original straight meanings". The fashion industry uses bricolage-like styles by incorporating items typically utilized for other purposes.

Television

MacGyver is a television series in which the protagonist is the paragon of a bricoleur, creating solutions for the problem to be solved out of immediately available found objects.