hello, let me tell you a story about something called bricolage…
….mostly about how it’s related to rhetoric, and why we should care about it
“How time flies; another ten days and I have achieved nothing. It doesn’t come off. A page now and then is successful, but I can’t keep it up, the next day I am powerless.”
This quote stolen from Frank Kafka’s journal could possibly be classified in the modern day as ‘writer’s block’, or as some may call it ‘writing anxiety’. Writer’s block is described as a scenario wherein one develops apprehension or negative feelings towards writing. The reasons might range from painful perfectionism, the fear of rejection, pressure from past successes, no longer feeling connected to the text, or just mere exhaustion.
I perennially suffer from the symptoms mentioned above. Although there is rarely a lack of interesting ideas or even a determined sense of will, I often feel paralyzed and overwhelmed by the thought of successfully completing an entire piece of writing. When my word count is practically 0 and I know have a long long way ahead, I cannot fathom how I’ll be able to magically and successfully complete the writing task I have before me.
So what do I do? I start to build on something, block by block, slowly from the ground up like an unstable but slowly growing Jenga structure, with the naive conviction that something will hold up in the end.
If we focus on trying to enjoy the process of creating something and not get too hung up on trying to visualize and reach the final product, then I believe we might be able to get over some of this anxiety.
What about for those of us who don’t have a clue about what the end product ought to look like, but still need to keep moving ahead instead of just wasting precious deadline-approaching-time whilst trying to figure out where we’re going?
There is a growing interest in the area of writing anxiety, and some studies propose that writing anxiety often demonstrates a dysfunctional relationship with writing performance or rather relate it to teaching of composition. In this sense, writing anxiety can also be understood as composition anxiety. So how do we go about getting past these various forms of anxieties while we fight against the clock and struggle to get words on the page in a coherent and meaningful way?
As we study various facets of rhetoric and analyze different concepts and tools to make us understand and utilize it, we might find some answers to the questions posed above by taking a look at a little something called bricolage.
WHAT IS BRICOLAGE?
The most important feature of bricolage that you need to know is that it is an improvisatory activity, and a bricoleur is someone who engages in that improvisatory activity.
Bricolage is a term that is used in several fields, such as anthropology, philosophy, critical theory, education, business and of course, rhetoric studies. But to understand what it signifies, and how it could be useful in studying rhetoric, it will be most useful to see how the term is used in ART.
The easiest way to go about understanding what bricolage is to think about a collage, and more importantly the very act of making a collage.
What do you see in the images above? Different colors, washes of paint, overlapping textures, grainy glitches, shabby paint strokes, images that have been cut, pasted, printed, manipulated and rearranged. Some elements show up repeatedly in the different iterations of the series, things are layered on top of each other, juxtaposed in strange yet compelling ways, and the closer you look more the more details will emerge.
The overall effect of each painting is the outcome of all the different elements that have been arranged or manipulated by the artist in specific ways, the effect a mere combination of how all elements speak to each other and to us by virtue of that specific arrangement. This chaotic way of creating something complex yet harmonious is the function of bricolage.
Isn’t text the same in some sense? A book, a paper, a speech or an article, all have in common a writer who seeks to say a range of things, communicate a spectrum of facts, anecdotes and stories. But finds a way to treat them all as elements to be brought onto the page in order to manipulate, arrange, reorder, style, and stitch together in a particular fashion to make us as readers or listeners understand, resonate and be ticklishly provoked.
WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE TERM?
The term bricolage was first used by the French philosopher Claude Levis Strauss, who was inspired by the term bricoleur which refers to someone who works with his hands and uses devious means compared to those of a craftsman. The original verb ‘bricoler’, however, applied to ball games, billiards, to hunting, shooting and riding. Essentially, it was used to describe dynamic motions or extraneous movements like a ball rebounding, a dog straying or a horse swerving from its direct course to avoid an obstacle. (Strauss, 1962)
So it’s useful to think of one who practices bricolage, a bricoleur, as someone who is a dynamic and energetic practitioner. While the term bricoleur has no precise equivalent in English, it came to signify a person who undertakes odd jobs and is a Jack of all trades or a kind of professional do-it-yourself person.
“The ‘bricoleur’ is adept at performing a large number of diverse tasks….he does not subordinate each of them to the availability of raw materials and tools conceived and procured for the purpose of the project. His universe of instruments is closed and the rules of his game are always to make do with ‘whatever is at hand’, that is to say with a set of tools and materials which is always finite.”
Claude Levis Strauss, The Savage Mind
HOW IS BRICOLAGE RELEVANT TO RHETORIC?
In Jasinski’s Rhetorical Manual (Jargon Toolkit), a critical rhetorician’s job as a bricoleur is described as being involved in assembling, disassembling, deconstructing, reconstructing theories, ideas, and concepts.
If we had to break down ideas of what a bricoleur’s process involves, as suggested by Strauss, in a simple flowchart, it would look something like this :
retrospection →identify existing or remaining tools/materials/sources → engaging in dialogue with it → list or explore all possible answers and outcomes → interrogating →discover the (possible) meaning
Charland described bricolage in rhetoric studies as “the act of taking apart large-scale theories so as to salvage specific concepts for various practice and/or critical tasks”. (Charland, 1991) This function of bricolage, as described above, as a form of theorizing, as it allows you to work with different concepts, different ideas, and concepts of the past, and stitch them together in a way that helps you make sense of the present.
We can think of bricolage in terms of rhetorical invention as well, as by means of sifting through, gathering and reorganizing different bits of evidence, arguments, concepts, and definitions, we must attempt to an interpretation of our own. The rhetor then becomes an interpreter who attempts to make sense of his or her discursive surroundings like a bricoleur. (Gaonkar, 1993)
To further contextualize bricolage as a useful rhetorical strategy and a means of theorizing or rhetorical invention, it might be useful to look at another rhetorical concept — Arrangement.
ARRANGEMENT
According to theorist Frank D’Angelo, ‘Arrangement’ is that part of rhetoric concerned with the organization of discourse. Like every text has style, every text also has structure. He emphasized how uncovering or studying structures of discourse need to go beyond the basic “essay has roughly has a beginning, a middle, and an end”.
While classical models for arranging a speech still can provide useful information to speakers, writers, and critics, communicators in general, looking at ideas of bricolage within the task of arrangement offers us alternatives to the idea of composing or building something in a linear fashion.
In addition, Winterowd spoke of the natural interdependence of the process of invention and arrangement when he said, “Invention and arrangement are so nearly the same that they are almost indistinguishable; they are basically the same process”.
So the role of bricolage in regards to arrangement could then be to experiment with structure in inventive and improvisational ways so as to produce new meanings and outcomes. In other words, a tool for rhetorical invention. Arrangement could also then be useful in order to organize different theories and concepts within our text also, further strengthening bricolage as a form of theorizing.
One can consider rhetoric studies as a discourse that explores the duality of theory and practice. In this scenario, BRICOLAGE is a useful tool or concept to consider and utilize within the ambit of rhetoric as practice.
SO, WHO IS A BRICOLEUR?
As we have discussed, a bricoleur is one that could be considered as a jack of all trades. He/she needn’t have equipment or knowledge of all trades and professions but has the temperament to improvise and play with things to devise new ways of doing things that need to be done. A bricoleur is at once an author and an editor, a creator and a composer, s/he makes, s/he breaks and s/he arranges.
So, who amongst us in the real world can be considered to be a bricoleur? Can you think of anyone you know of who comes to mind who loosely (or completely) fits this definition?
The first person who comes to mind is my professor, namely my critical writing professor. He teaches us rhetoric studies, (and is going to grade this blog entry :)), and while doing so employs a range of not just pedagogic techniques, but shares with us a range of resources to become better thinkers, writers, and learners. For instance, when teaching us a new theoretical concept he prepares written handouts which are prepared after extensive research. These handouts draw from a range of different theoreticians and philosophers to neatly weave a comprehensive but accessible framework of a knowledge system that we can then dip our hands into. By virtue of giving us different kinds of creative assignments, he also teaching us different tools of writing, he helps us to exercise the ways in which we think which probe us to arrive at our own conclusions and interpretations. Our classes are a combination of reading, writing, discussing, watching YouTube videos, hands-on-workshops, peer-feedback reviews, and one-on-one sessions with him. Even in preparing his syllabus or teaching plan, he must wade through a wide pool of discourses and resources that are available to him, process and engage with these, and then build something that resonates with him and thinks might of value to others.
Another kind of bricoleur would be a researcher, as research essentially entails casting a wide net of curiosity and searching and collecting relevant information from a chosen set of sources, and then drawing appropriately from them in order to slowly stitch something by yourself. The creation of this very blog entry has been a process of bricolage, and it has made me a bricoleur!
The term “intellectual bricolage”, now commonly used, has been used for even the likes of rapper Kanye West. So, it’s worth exploring who can be considered a bricoleur beyond just someone who engages in “discourse” or “rhetoric” as we understand the terms.
Below are interviews with two friends of mine, one is a visual artist, and one is a DJ, and both their practices could be seen as a form of bricolage. I felt they were fitting examples as music and art are as important and valid means of communication as words are. As we see in the interviews below, these practitioners navigate between limited skills, materials, tools, rhetorical situations and resources, and as a result are perpetually improvising.
- Furqan Jawed, Graphic Designer and Visual Artist: Furqan first started out as a self-taught graphic designer when he dropped out of Engineering School, worked at a graphic design firm, and then joined art school. He is now a full-time Graphic designer and visual artist, whose work you can check out here and here. We chatted about his process, his obsession with collage as a medium, how even though he is not a traditional artist or illustrator he plays to his strengths by working digitally with text and image, and the difficulty of the art of composition. We also spoke in great detail about the poster set he created for a theatre group (see below).
2. Vijayant Singh aka Girls Night Out, DJ (and Lawyer) :
Vijayant, who is a lawyer by day, has recently started experimenting with music and has turned his love for dance music into his DJ project ‘Girls Night Out’. We chatted about how the organic way in which he started doing what he does, how much research and preparation is involved in his process and how in some ways he thinks creating a set is similar to writing a research paper. He believes being a DJ is 100% about improvisation, and we chatted in length about a DJ set he played recently in Delhi (see below).
(Girl’s Night Out’s recent set at Kona, Jor Bagh, as discussed in the interview)
TIME FOR SOME FUN ~ ~ ~
To recover from all the jargon about how bricolage relates to rhetoric, let’s try to it in a more tactile and hands-on way. Below are two activities that are meant to help you loosen up and be creative. So take some print outs of these activity sheets and get your scissors and glue sticks ready!
a) If you’re into words, this is my Bricolage-Rhetoric version of the classic magnet poetry game. Just cut up the words, jumble them up, and start forming sentences, paragraphs, haikus, whatever you want! You’re at the helm of this word boat.
b) If you’re more of a visual person, and as we’ve discussed visuals are as important and valid ways of communicating as words, let’s see what you can make of this collage kit! Choose from different backgrounds, textures, elements, and put your scissors and glue stick to work on a fresh sheet of paper.
Finally…WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT BRICOLAGE AND HOW CAN IT MAKE ME A BETTER WRITER?
As I mentioned right in the beginning, writer’s block and the anxiety to compose a piece of writing is a crippling and highly unproductive scenario which is best avoided or worked through. But what Donald M. Murray used refers to this as the “terror of the blank page”, can indeed be overcome. In his book, A Writer Teaches Writing: A Practical Method of Teaching Composition, Murray suggests that a lot of writers are highly anxious because of their unfamiliarity with the very craft of writing. This craft of writing could be less terrifying if one engages with it as a process made up of a series of stages, a series of drafts written without inhibition, which could then eventually lead to something worthwhile. (Murray, 1968)
Bricolage, as I suggest, could be the rhetorical tool that could enable us to break down the process of writing into stages to help us experience writing as an engaging activity rather than a chore to be completed. In addition, bricolage shows us that being a bricoleur is about the kind of attitude or temperament one must develop to successfully undertake a task. In this vein, here is a quick roundup of why I think Bricolage is a helpful tool :
- It’s a good way to analyze the sum of parts that make a whole: Thinking as a bricoleur is a good way to analyze the parts and elements that make up the whole and to focus on working on these elements with intent and purpose.
- It makes you appreciate the art of composition: As the Gestalt principle states, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Bricolage can make you appreciate the combination and arrangement of elements that contribute to the making of an effective whole. Composition is an art, and as a bricoleur you must have the guts to experiment with new and different kinds of composition, and put a finger on what works and why.
- It opens up possibilities for creative improvisation: The idea of being a bricoleur is meant to energize (!) you and make you feel like you have a dynamic (!!) role to play in any task. But most importantly, it teaches you to make the best out of any kind of situation, be it lack of time, resources etc. Your constraints are meant to be creative challenges. A bricoleur is the quintessential DIY man (or in Indian terms, a Jugaad person ).
- It encourages you to create layers: Whether it is by experimenting with style or structure that leads to a build-up of a story or argument, adding finesse to all elements of a larger picture, or even including a spectrum of viewpoints and perspectives to add dimension and depth to something, bricolage shows us that intricate layers are fascinating and worth building upon.
What are some concrete techniques we could possibly use as bricoleurs who are writers or rhetors? Here are a few suggestions :
- Think wide, think different. Be inventive: Try Mindmapping to get your creative and intellectual juices flowing.
- Make notes and gather your sources in creative iterative ways: Be it linear style notes, bullet point methods, or more pattern-oriented ones like flowcharts, tree-diagrams, or spidergrams.
- Focus on/Play with structure and arrangement : One way to do this could be to employ the Flowchart method — a visual paragraph by paragraph breakdown of how your text will start from the title, incorporate the CER principle (Claim, evidence, reasoning), and the ROC principle (Relevance, Order, Connectivity), and finally conclude.
- TIME MANAGEMENT: Bricolage, or being a bricoleur is about taking the time to experiment, devise new ways of doing something and being inventive. This does not happen last minute, so it’s best to give your self enough time in order to enjoy the process and be able to play around.
- Keep your eyes, ears, mind open at all times: Anything and everything can be useful at some point. It’s all based upon your alertness and ability to make relevant connections at the right time. This will help you add texture to whatever you create.
Finally, don’t be scared to experiment or fail, and don’t get stuck.
Happy Bricolag-ing!
References :
- Bianchi, N., & Bianchi, N. (2017, November 06). How Famous Writers Overcome Writer’s Block and Reawaken Their Creativity. Retrieved March 8, 2019, from https://medium.com/the-mission/how-famous-writers-overcome-writers-block-and-reawaken-their-creativity-7c604f73697c
- Brito, L. (2018, July 09). Writer’s block: The five main reasons why you’re experiencing it. Retrieved from https://writingcooperative.com/writers-block-the-five-main-reasons-why-you-re-experiencing-it-573318af7a13
- Jasinski, J. L. (2001). Sourcebook on Rhetoric. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.
- Lévi-Strauss, C. (2010). The savage mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
- Donald M. Murray, A Writer Teaches Writing: A Practical Method of Teaching Composition (Boston: Houghton Miffiin Co., 1968), p. 70.
- Reigstad, T. J. (n.d.). PERSPECTIVES ON ANXIETY AND THE BASIC WRITER: RESEARCH, EVALUATION, INSTRUCTION. Journal of Basic Writing,4. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/43443440.
