Taylor Holdsworth

Liz Danzico – Frames: Notes on Improvisation in Design
Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/edanzico/notes-improv-design-ixd-10
Video: http://vimeo.com/9922899

I both hated and loved this presentation.

On this day, Liz also asked the how can we create meaning question. But to that she added the challenge of where to draw/design the line between creator and consumer.

“We create frames that allow people to improvise”

The definitions 1: “Frame: unstated rules implicitly set by the character of some entity where the interaction occurs”

The definitions 2: “Improvise: creating in the moment in response to environment; results in invention of new patterns, practice, structures, behaviors.”

(If these helped you out at all – god love you – I felt compelled to include them to get them out of the way Perhaps Liz did for the same reason?)

Liz uses jazz as the starting point to explore improvisation. Theater could have been a place to start as well with it’s rich and long history of improvisational street theater, but Liz’s family connection to jazz made it a nice choice.

She started a straightforward, intentionally simplistic comparison of the closed, scripted systems of classical music with the un- or at least often less scripted emergent systems of modal jazz a la Miles Davis.

Classical:

• Leaves no room for participation
• Requires prior knowledge
• Judged on “right way”
• Evaluated as fixed in time
• Viewed as sets of original works
• Stability

Jazz

• Based on participatory methods
• Requires little prior knowledge
• Judged on deviation from the original
• Evaluated as interactive
• Viewed as interpreted works
• Creative instability

I was glad to get past this part of the talk. As always, I’m troubled by the feeling that analogies like this are enticing and provocative in the telling and elusive and just plain muddy in their application.

In jazz, there is not just the relationship between the musicians to consider, but the relationship between the musicians and the composition (whether it is just a theme, chord progression or a fully scored piece), the musicians and the composer, and the musicians and the audience. Which part of this are we designing? Which ground is the site of co-creation?

Also…. the presentation allowed a very specific and convenient depiction of classical music as historical and static vs. jazz as contemporary, modern anything goes to persist that just seem plain wrong. I doubt that Philip Glass feels static and stable or that the brain waves of someone listening to John Adams “Shaker Loops” looks much like those of someone listening to Bach 2-part inventions. If you print a transcript of a google wave, it looks pretty scripted and linear; not at all the feeling that you get from participating in a wave that evolves over time.

In moving from music to interaction, Liz highlighted 4 attributes (patterns) and talked about some examples that come from building, kiosk, and service design:

Present – Involves the audience – Street Vendors – Schnitzelruck who you can follow on Twitter to find out where the van is located at the moment and get updates on the in-and outs of the business on the Scnhitzel & Things blog.

Responsive – Defines parameters – Hello Health

Detectable – Requires no pre-knowledge – JetBlue Story Booth – a branded version of the NPR Story Corp booth

Additive – Accepts all offers – Pop up Lunch and the Zero Energy Media Wall from the Beijing Olympics – a building sized LED display which powers itself from photovoltaic cells and displays an image that reflects the different light conditions of it’s environment.

Where traditional design is designing products – emerging design is designing for a purpose .. for interaction … for emotion. … In this place, designers are facilitators.

Cool science fact: During improvisation, the brain’s activity centers shift into patterns that are much like the dreaming brain’s, where monitoring shuts down and storytelling starts up.

And finally, back to the beginning – I loved the presentation and I hated it. But I’m still thinking about it. I leave you with some provocations for designing for improvisation – rules for improv process found in the most ubiquitous of internet references – Wikipedia.

From Wikipedia’s article on improvisation theater –

“In order for an improvised scene to be successful, the improvisers involved must work together responsively to define the parameters and action of the scene, in a process of co-creation. With each spoken word or action in the scene, an improviser makes an offer, meaning that he or she defines some element of the reality of the scene. This might include giving another character a name, identifying a relationship, location, or using mime to define the physical environment. These activities are also known as endowment. It is the responsibility of the other improvisers to accept the offers that their fellow performers make; to not do so is known as blocking, negation, or denial, which usually prevents the scene from developing. Some performers may deliberately block (or otherwise break out of character) for comedic effect — this is known as gagging — but this generally prevents the scene from advancing and is frowned upon by many improvisers. Accepting an offer is usually accompanied by adding a new offer, often building on the earlier one; this is a process improvisers refer to as “Yes, And…” and is considered the cornerstone of improvisational technique. Every new piece of information added helps the improvisers to refine their characters and progress the action of the scene.”

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