Challenges for improvising visualists
What could stop a visualist from improvising on any suggestion?
- lack of flexibility in the software/hardware tools
- specifically in the ability to search and organize source media on the fly
- programs that do one thing really well but don’t play well with others
- lack of imagination
- an inability to draw very well
- …
What would aid a visualist to improvise on any suggestion, using a variety of source and live media?
- a file browser that grabs images and videos by tags/categories/keywords from a library/the Internet when supplied with keyword(s)
- a partner seeking/creating/organizing/preparing media for her/him
- a way of intuitively, rapidly filing new media away so that they may be retrieved graphically or textually, quickly
- rudimentary-to-excellent drawing skills (with perspective)
- a profundity of imagination
- …
Let’s say our standard for success at “improvising on any suggestion” is that the audience walks away thinking, “she sure did engage and explore visually my suggestion of “‘lesbian casting couch.’”
Yesterday I wondered whether I had strayed from my original thesis idea pre-enrollment. I pondered what I had presented to my fellow students and Carl on Thursday in Structures. It feels like a good show, interesting and exciting to work on, but not quite the meeting of improvising visualists and actors on a level playing field I had in mind. The current conception of my thesis show has the following elements. Let’s score each element on a continuum from fully structured (0) to fully improvised (10):
- a narrative backbone — pre-written — for the speakers/actors - 2
- prepared and practiced visual source media for the visualists - 5
- prepared and practiced sources for the musicians - 8*
- potential audience participation - 2
* Musicians have more improvisational freedom than visualists for a number of reasons.
Which averages to 4.25, just west of halfway between structure and improv. For comparison, I’d say most longform improv comedy shows are an 8 — just enough structure to encourage coherence. But the value of this one-dimensional metric is shaky because we’re comparing apples and oranges: the improvisational elements and expectations in music, theater and visuals are quite different. Yet the way I see The Improv Gap in visuals is framed by my work in improv comedy and articulated in the language of musical improv. Hmm. Thoughts welcome. Time for bed.
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February 2nd, 2006 at 4:05 pm
Yow, I have lots to say (only read through quickly, too tired to do more).
Basic paradigm: You contextualize the issue by assuming improvising on a suggestion is based entirely on a literal response, i.e., use of literal images. If I got a suggestion, “improvise a lesbian casting couch”, I might take any image and imbue it with sultry reds and yellows as I get excited thinking about the abuse of feminine power over feminine weakness (which might be too much information about me).
Requiring literal images would be kind of like saying a musician can only express humor by making his instrument go “wah, waaahhh”.
As for the question, “What could stop a visualist from improvising on any suggestion?” — Because he doesn’t like the suggestion? Because it conflicts with anything he feels he can meaningfully say with his medium?
But I understand, you come from an improv comedy background, and one of the angles is to somehow improvise on any idea and keep it rapid and fluid.
So, it’s an interesting approach to defining improvisation. I define improvisation based on my music background — The development and exploration of abstract ideas, the exchanges between other performers (of any medium).
February 4th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
You’re absolutely right: I’m putting an improv comedy frame on visuals. Both paradigms (comedy and music) are valuable lens for our new artform, I think.
The suggestion isn’t always used literally, of course –I know you’ve seen some improv comedy shows but maybe the ones you saw all had fairly literal takes — it’s a matter of personal taste for the improvisers I know.
It doesn’t matter whether you run with it or against it so long as you react to it, acknowledge it in some way.