I think of this as my primary method of research and assembly, making use of whatever comes to hand, seeking and being amused at serendipities encountered, reveling in unexpected connections, privileging 'creativity'...bricolage is made up of brics... a realization that wants further exploration, and is part and parcel of 'collage'
my collection of links, 1999 and 2026
Bricolage Wikipedia
Intrapreneurial bricolage Wikipedia
1.1960 The process or technique of creating a new artwork, concept, etc., by appropriating a diverse miscellany of existing materials or sources.1960 Adolescence is the period par excellence of bricolage—fiddling and tinkering with devices. R. G. Cohn, Writer's Way in France ii. ii. 101
1966 The characteristic feature of mythical thought, as of 'bricolage' on the practical plane, is that it builds up structured sets..by using the remains and debris of events. translation of C. Lévi-Strauss, Savage Mind i. 21
1986 The storyteller, an artist in bricolage, has to make do with what his preconscious has given him in the way of character fragments. A. Greeley, God Game (1987) i. 15
2002 Punk's principal aesthetics were montage and bricolage: the attempt to break down the relics of a period of over-consumption and to render the pace of an accelerated age. NFT Programme Booklet (National Film Theatre) June 14/2
2.
1971 An object or concept created or constructed by appropriating a diverse miscellany of existing materials or sources, particularly (in Art) of found objects. Also in weakened sense: a miscellaneous collection of accumulated objects or detritus.1971 His photographs divide along definite lines of contrast. The most obvious is...a contrast between the bricolage of popular life and small trading, and the formal plan of the aristocratic parks. Times 21 December 8/6
1991 Unusually for a British painter, he periodically makes sculptures or objects, bricolages of painted junk in which his homunculi wander as though through ominous urban settings. Art in Amer. April 181/1
2011 Inevitably, the camera is drawn to the studio's telling romantic details—the eloquent detritus on the floor, the..scarified walls, the accumulated bricolage of the creative mind. Art Quarterly Spring 62/2
❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ How We Domesticate (not Adopt) Technologies Giles Crouch
...We domesticate a technology through bricolage (a process of repurposing, finding additional uses beyond what the technology was invented for), like we use spreadsheets for far more than just creating financial statements. Then we develop rituals, such as evening doomscrolling or reading the news