Bricolage

Because of its non-sequential nature, this corner of my website adopts, as its design philosophy, the general notion of the bricolage.

Bricolage is a term that can be found used in a number of different disciplines but it, and what it stands for, is not typically found in science. As used, the word has various nuances. However, at its heart there is always the notion of creating or constructing something using a range of things that happen to be available. A bricoleur – one engaged in bricolage – has to invent strategies and ways of using the materials to hand creatively. Perhaps this brings to mind the work of artists such as Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) who made use of 'readymades'. Some see this type of work as flippant, some see it as revolutionary. How ever this website is viewed, it is being constructed with serious intent.

The term 'bricolage' has been used in biology by the French biologist François Jacob (1920-2013) to refer to the apparent way in which biological structures are cobbled together. This is a theme that resonates with my interest in evolutionary (Darwinian) medicine. Bodies cobbled together as a result of events in evolutionary history develop certain medical conditions as opposed to others and experience different ailments to varying degrees as a result of what went into producing their present bauplan (bodyplan).

As such, adopting the bricolage approach as the design philosophy for a website that is biologically focused seems not inappropriate. This website is not a mere cobbling together or assembling of what just happens to be available though. It is more considered and thought-through than that. Many of the ideas that a researcher has do not get shared because they either do not make it into print or because they never find a forum within which they can be discussed. Ideas such as these need somewhere to be made accessible - whether now or at some stage in the future. Ideas such as these constitute just some of the elements that I am seeking to bring together meaningfully here. As a design concept, bricolage refers to building by experimentation or 'trial and error' as opposed to production according to some predetermined pattern. As such it allows the bottom-up emergence of content and structure rather than one being imposed top-down. This, in turn, should produce something that is more consonant with the ideas used.

Sherry Turkle (Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT) describes a bricoleur as one who 'resembles the painter who stands back between brushstrokes, looks at the canvas, and only after this contemplation, decides what to do next' [1]. Turkle also describes an alternative to the usual planned approach to computer programming using the 'bricoleur style' where programs are allowed to develop in a stepwise fashion [2].

Thus, through a stepwise and piecemeal fashion, structure can come out of content. However, there is an almost constant need for re-evaluation of what has been put down and of the structures that are emerging. This, in some respects, makes producing a website as the vehicle to convey academic ideas much harder than the traditional approach of publishing articles that avoid revision once printed. 'Active text' is always revisable but, at the same time, it is always growing. Here only the transcripts of talks and presentations that have been given that are unchangeable (but purely as a historical record). Potentially, the task becomes more onerous as the volume of text in need of regular re-evaluation grows. But, be that as it may.

There is an English extension of the word bricolage which gives it a further nuance: that of 'do-it-yourself'. Creating a website in order to convey academic ideas is very much a matter of doing it oneself. There is no web designer employed and the advent of Google Sites is a great help. In this way, the website becomes the place where ideas come to reside and get shaped. It also becomes the place where one can look to remind oneself of one's own thinking on a subject – and change one's mind if necessary.

Notes

1 – See: Turkle, S. & Papert, S. Epistemological Pluralism and the Revaluation of the Concrete. Versions of this article have appeared in the Journal of Mathematical Behavior, Vol. 11, No.1, in March, 1992, pp. 3-33; Constructionism, I. Harel & S. Papert, Eds. (Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1991), pp.161-191; and SIGNS: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Autumn 1990, Vol. 16 (1).

2 - See: Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon and Schuster.