Aesthetics of Improvisation (Contemporary Perspectives in European Philosophy, 2) 3770567072, 9783770567072

Citation preview

Aesthetics of Improvisation

Contemporary Perspectives in European Philosophy / Zeitgenössische Perspektiven europäischer Philosophie Edited by / Herausgegeben von Emmanuel Alloa Advisory Board / Wissenschaftlicher Beirat Andrew Benjamin Catherine Malabou Juliane Rebentisch Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback Ludger Schwarte Dieter Thomä

Volume 2

Alessandro Bertinetto

Aesthetics of Improvisation Translated from Italian by

Robert T. Valgenti

Cover illustration: Germano Scurti: “Improvviso con jazz” (2016)

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.d-nb.de All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. © 2022 by Brill Fink, Wollmarktstraße 115, 33098 Paderborn, Germany, an imprint of the Brill-Group (Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands; Brill USA Inc., Boston MA, USA; Brill Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore; Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn, Germany; Brill Österreich GmbH, Vienna, Austria) Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. www.fink.de Cover design: Evelyn Ziegler, Munich Production: Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn ISSN 2700-5852 ISBN 978-3-7705-6707-2 (hardback) ISBN 978-3-8467-6707-8 (e-book)

Table of Contents Preface to the English Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii (Improvising an) Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Chapter 1: 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5

The Birth of Art from the Spirit of Improvisation  . . . . . . . 1 Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Action and Improvisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Reactive Improvisation and Deliberate Improvisation  . . . . 5 Improvisation in Action: Between Creativity and Habits . . 7 Improvising (according to) the Rule of Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Chapter 2: 2.1 2.2 2.3

The Grammar of Contingency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Sense of Improvisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Responding to Contingency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ad hoc Aesthetic Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Emergence  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2 Presence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.3 Curiosity  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.4 Authenticity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 The Aesthetic (In)comprehension of Improvisation . . . . . . 2.4.1 Empathy  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2 Witz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.3 An Unforeseen Paradox  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.4 Prejudices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

19 19 21 28 31 32 36 38 45 47 48 49 52

Chapter 3: The Arts of Improvisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 The Arts at Work: Between Performance and Product . . . . . 3.2 Practicing Spontaneity Together: Improvisation in the Performing Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 The Roles of Improvisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 The Dialectic of Authorship  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.3 The Time and Sense of the Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Music, Dance, Theater, and Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 The Installation, Intermediality, and the Digital Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Improvisation as Product: Painting, Sculpture, and Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57 58 59 60 64 67 69 83 91

vi

Table of Contents

3.6 Cinema, Photography … and the Readymade . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 3.7 Architecture, Design, Land Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Chapter 4: An Aesthetics of Success: Improvisation as a Philosophy of Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Imperfection? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 No Identification without Evaluation without Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Creativity ex improviso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Creativity at Work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Performative Normativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.1 The Performance of Aesthetic Judgment . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.2 The Work of Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.3 The ‘Enactment’ of Aesthetic Judgment  . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6 Waiting for an Agreement  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7 It Makes Sense. A Wonderful Eutopia  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

119 119 125 131 135 139 140 143 144 147 151

Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   159

Preface to the English Edition This text is the fruit of almost fifteen years of research on the philosophy and the aesthetics of improvisation. By discussing the specific aesthetic qualities of improvisation in the arts and by proposing some ideas about the contribution of artistic improvisation to aesthetics and to the philosophy of art as such, this work brings one philosophical exploration to its end by opening new theoretical perspectives—for example, on the question of artistic authenticity, on aesthetic normativity, and on the role of habits in the aesthetic realm—which will be the focus of my reflection in the immediate future. When the Italian edition of this volume was almost ready to be submitted to the publisher in February of 2020, we experienced the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic right here in Italy. I was and am absorbed in the theme of improvisation—which fascinates me both as an artistic practice and as a philosophical question—and perhaps for this reason the most philosophically interesting consequence of this decidedly extraordinary condition in which humanity had suddenly come to find itself at the beginning of 2020 was, it seemed to me, that all of us had to improvise. Two years later, we are still not free—and now another terrible unexpected event, the Russian military attack on Ukraine, dominates our attention. I am not a fan of philosophical interventionism. I think, as Hegel maintained, that philosophy is like the owl of Minerva: it takes flight at dusk. Thus, to say something meaningful about what happens takes time: one needs to wait in order to be able to view things with some distance. Therefore, I refrained from joining the throngs gathered in the public square of social media to express my “thoughts on COVID.” In fact, it would seem somewhat suspect for a philosopher who studies improvisation to bring up improvisation as a way to explain life in the time of COVID—other philosophers have taken the wind out of their own sails in this way, that is, rummaging through their conceptual arsenal to explain what was happening. Unfortunately, it is obvious that these contributions were on the whole rather shoddy. However, now that some time has passed, I believe one can rightly claim what I just suggested: in order to react to the emergency of COVID-19, we all had to improvise, we could only improvise, acting—as Walter Benjamin comments—“with our left hand” (or, with the right, for those who are lefthanded). And these improvisations have functioned, and continue to function, only partially. When the unexpected unforeseen happens, above all when it is somewhat disturbing, you do what you can, and make the best of the situation. It is not easy to improvise well, redesigning our practices and activities on the fly. And yet, some positive outcome—some—might come from this tragedy:

viii

Preface to the English Edition

much will depend—and in reality, now already depends—on if we will know how to take cues in a creatively effective way from the unexpected. The pandemic has exhibited the fact that the human being, in its interactions with the natural and social environment, improvises. Certainly, it organizes behavioral habits and builds social institutions in order to shape and engender these interactions. But habits and institutions are shaped by more than voluntary actions: they also take part in the—as in the case of the pandemic, the often rather serious—“game” of interactions that plays out between human beings and their environment. The human being, in short, improvises. It is always improvising. Sometimes it is limited to improvising in a reactive way to respond to unforeseen contingencies (which perhaps, as Emmanuel Alloa suggested in one of the more interesting philosophical contributions at the beginning of the lockdown,1 eliminate that very contingency, relegating us to our homes). And yet the organization of our relation to the unforeseen situations in which our (inter) actions are realized is the normal condition of our existence. One must certainly not forget that this condition is not the same for everyone. Some like me are paid to teach philosophy; and yet, others pay to risk drowning at sea in the desperate attempt to maintain a sliver of hope for a better life. Thus, there are those who possess better resources for improvising, and those who do not. Nonetheless, whether willingly or unwillingly, everyone improvises. However, when it comes to deliberate, and in particular, to artistic improvisation, i.e. to improvisation as a way intentionally chosen to produce art, things are different. Precisely, the practice and experience of artistic improvisation has suffered greatly from the restrictions imposed to counter the pandemic: the pandemic made live entertainment, including improvisational performances, impossible for a long time. Of course, the possibilities offered by digital technology and, in particular, by the Internet have constituted an Ersatz, a substitute for forms of improvisational musical performance, as well as for other improvisational artistic practices—at times with unexpectedly positive results in terms of expressive effectiveness. As in other areas of social life (academic webinars come to mind), the possibility of connecting with people located in different parts of the globe has favored forms of communication and interaction that were not very widespread before the pandemic.2 Also, within the artistic field, the state of emergency has prompted reactions capable of 1 E. Alloa, “Coronavirus: A Contingency that EliminatesContingency,” in Critical Inquiry, https:// critinq.wordpress.com/2020/04/20/coronavirus-a-contingency-that-eliminates-contingency/. 2 Cf. R.  Mills, Tele-Improvisation: Intercultural Interaction in the Online Global Music Jam Session, Cham, Springer, 2019.

Preface to the English Edition

ix

resolving some of the problems it has generated, thereby forcing us to be creative. However, despite these substitute forms and these new creative possibilities, which will surely evolve in the near future, the constraints imposed by anti-pandemic measures on artistic expressiveness, including that of the improvisational arts, have made it clear that the possibility of practicing and experiencing improvisation is vital to the artistic fields. Hence, the importance of elaborating an aesthetics of improvisation, which is precisely the theme of this book. Unlike the collected volume edited by me and Marcello Ruta (the Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts), whose preparation was literally overwhelmed by the consequences of the pandemic, the Italian version of this book was practically completed when the outbreak began. Perhaps also for this reason, this book is not specifically about improvisation as an ordinary condition of our existence.3 Of course, the first pages of the book briefly note that improvisation is both a particular type of action and the general condition of acting: I will leave it to the reader, while leafing through the following pages of this book, to understand how this double role of improvisation can be reasonably conceived. Instead, this book is specifically about artistic improvisation and analyzes its aesthetic sense. And, while improvising on the notes of one of Nietzsche’s famous books, this essay takes its cue from a Hegelian thesis: the sense of art, in general, is that of representing the human being to itself. Therefore, improvisation makes sense as exhibition of the improvisational character of human existence, which consists—basically—in a continual confrontation—creative, but exposed to the risk of failure—with the contingencies of life. Art—to echo (a sort of) Nietzsche—is born from the spirit of improvisation. 3 After the Italian edition of this book was published, two new and important books on the philosophy of improvisation were published. Georg Bertram’s and Michael Rüsenberg’s Improvisieren! Lob der Ungewissheit (Stuttgart, Reclam, 2021) and Philosophy of Improvisation. Interdisciplinary perspectives on theory and practice (ed. by Susanne Ravn, Simon Høffding, and James McGuirk, New York-Abingdon, Routledge, 2021) present enlightening philosophical perspectives on daily improvisation and artistic improvisation, including explorative forays into disparate fields of human practices. Anyway, many of their theoretical results— such as, for instance, the importance of relating the question of improvisation to that of habit—are already covered in this essay of mine that, nonetheless, is crucially oriented towards aesthetics and proposes to understand daily (or “inexpert”) improvisation and “expert” improvisation (paradigmatically, artistic improvisation) as intimately connected. Together with the Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts (ed. by A. Bertinetto and M. Ruta, London-New York, Routledge, 2021) and, I hope, the present book, the aforementioned recent publications testify to how urgent the philosophical question of improvisation has become.

x

Preface to the English Edition

But this book does not remain with Hegel (re-read, if you will, through a neo-pragmatic lens and placed into dialogue with the research on embodied cognition and the work of Michel de Certeau and Tim Ingold). To expose the “categories” of the grammar of contingency, which artistic improvisation articulates, in unforeseeable ways, in the different artistic practices and in which resides the sense of a practice from an unsure outcome, I creatively gather ideas and suggestions derived from a variety of philosophical sources: from Jankélévitch to Margolis, passing through Arendt, Sartre, Eco, Derrida, Davies, Goehr and many others (which inevitably includes some talented Italian colleagues). The main point of my thesis is this: the principle aesthetic specificity of improvisation consists in the capacity to (co)respond to the unforeseen in a formatively effective way. As a result, improvisation in the arts makes sense as a practice of sense-making. Certainly, this does not always happen and improvisation can present itself as the boring repetition of what is always the same (hence Adorno’s hatred of improvisation and jazz); on the other hand, even when the aesthetic outcome of improvisation is surprisingly felicitous, that does not mean that the improviser is a Genius in the Romantic sense. Rather, improvisation sets into motion and circulates a distributive creativity—among artists, artistic traditions, the materials and the adopted forms, the situation itself of the performance and thus also the audience. It is, moreover, crucial to clarify now that the so-called “aesthetics of imperfection” is inadequate for improvisation. Certainly, among the exponents of the aesthetics of imperfection—most notably, Andy Hamilton—some embrace positions that are very refined and respectful of the specificity of the arts of improvisation; it is a decidedly respectable position (and, I will add, very different than that of some contemporary ontologists—quite fond of a naive ideology of authenticity—who consider improvisation to be in itself inauthentic, since, as they erroneously maintain, it would consist in the deviation from the canon, from the norm, from the score or from the script). Recently, Hamilton himself elaborated the idea that the specific characteristic of improvisation is its relation with the contingency of the condition of the artistic performance. That points precisely in the direction that I propose to follow in this book. Nevertheless, the point that I believe is crucial to appreciate is above all this: the relation with contingency can be appropriately articulated solely by an “aesthetics of success”—an expression that I have retrieved from the Turinese philosopher, Luigi Pareyson, author of the book Estetica: Teoria della formatività and teacher of Gianni Vattimo and Umberto Eco (Pareyson’s aesthetic theory has for decades in Italy provided an alternative to the aesthetics of Benedetto Croce).

Preface to the English Edition

xi

In such a way, improvisation, as such, does not however present a “strange case” for aesthetics, some exception to the rule (precisely the notion of exception was evoked with annoying insistence, and not quite appropriately, by one of the most bombastic of the philosophers who intervened during the time and on the subject of COVID). Instead, improvisation is the rule of art: it offers the paradigm for aesthetics and for art—or, at least, this is my thesis. Thanks to the adoption of a neo-Wittgensteinian, neo-hermeneutic, and to some extent, neo-Kantian perspective, I ultimately argue that the transformative, and situated, normativity belonging to improvisation presents—in a nutshell—what happens on a broader scale in the realm of aesthetic normativity. Improvisation is the performative practice of Kantian aesthetic judgment (as Gary Peters also claims in one of his relatively recent books) that exhibits the conditions of aesthetic experience and the aesthetic conditions of experience. And, if it succeeds, it realizes a “common sense”, as that also involves the opening of the (e)utopian dimension of a felicitous sociality. For this reason, allow me to add: in this time of the pandemic, when we have been forced to improvise existence in at times radical ways and often without satisfactory outcomes, deprived—some more than others—of the possibility of a creative and expressive experience of the relation with contingency, the need to live the liberating pleasure of artistic improvisation is perhaps more intense. Understanding its aesthetic dimension can prepare us to appreciate, even more, its specific artistic features and the contribution it can offer to the arts, to creativity, and, ultimately, to life. Or at least, it is with this hope that I entrust these pages to your reading. Alessandro Bertinetto Turin, Italy, March 17, 2022

(Improvising an) Introduction As I write this brief text, I am improvising. For some time I have been mulling over how to introduce this text. Now that I have to do it (since it is, I believe, nearly done), I think that these lines should serve only as a starting point, coaxing the reader to continue reading. I do not know, however, if I will achieve that goal: success is not guaranteed. And this is the beauty of improvisation. (But I wrote this after the fact: I have retraced my steps through writing, thematizing it recursively, as happens, precisely, in an improvisation.) The thought comes to mind, unexpectedly, that improvisation is a beginning, even if it is difficult to grasp where, when, and how it begins (and ends, if it ever does begin). Here and now, in the introduction, I invite readers to prepare themselves to follow a philosophical reflection on the aesthetic modality of the beginning that is artistic improvisation. In the pages that follow, this reflection will be articulated over four chapters. In the first chapter I present the notion of improvisation, how artistic improvisation hinges on everyday improvisation, and the birth of art through the spirit of improvisation. In chapter two I articulate the grammar of contingency by attempting to respond to questions about the how and why of improvisation (the when is now, the where is here). In chapter three I discuss the arts of improvisation, namely, the specific and aesthetically relevant aspects of improvisation in the various arts. In chapter four I argue that improvisation provides the philosophy of art with the paradigmatic case of an aesthetics of success by putting into practice the unexpected sense of aesthetic experience. I want to thank all of those with whom I have had the pleasure of discussing the ideas presented in this book (whose errors are attributable only to the author): among the many, María José Alcaraz León, Adam Andrzejewski, Nicola Angerame, Alessandro Arbo, Carla Bagnoli, Marco Bazzan, Marta Benenti, Bruno Besana, Guido Brivio, Elisa Caldarola, Paolo Calvino, Vincenzo Caporaletti, Matilde Carrasco, Giorgia Cecchinato, Simona Chiodo, Nino Chiurazzi, Gianluca Cuozzo, Paolo D’Angelo, David Davies, Mario De Caro, Stefan Deines, Roberta Dreon, Rodrigo Duarte, Augustin Dumont, Daniel  M.  Feige, Serena Feloj, Federico Ferraguto, Maurizio Ferraris, Simone Furlani, Reinhard Gagel, Gianluca Garelli, Lydia Goehr, Daniele Goldoni, Tonino Griffero, Patrick Grüneberg, Nicola Hain, Ajay Heble, Robert Hopkins, Kim Hyun Kang, Luca Illetterati, Marco Ivaldo, Salvatore Lavecchia, Jerrold Levinson, Brunello Lotti, Stefano Marino, Giovanni Matteucci, Dominic McIver Lopes,

xiv

(Improvising an) Introduction

Cristina Meini, Walter Menon, Vitor Moura, Stefano Oliva, Markus Ophälders, Alfredo Paternoster, Nicola Perullo, Francisca Pérez Carreño, Antonio Rostagno, Salvador Rubio, Michael Rüsenberg, Mattheus Saiwa, Marina Santi, Alessandro Sbordoni, Carlo Serra, Richard Shusterman, Kenji Suzuki, Elena Tavani, Enrico Terrone, Robert Valgenti, Gerard Vilar, Alberto Voltolini, and my friends from the European Society of Aesthetics, from the Exploratorium of Berlin and from Tempi di Reazione (Roberto Castello & C.), as well as students in particular from the Universities of Torino, Murcia, Pavia, Roma La Sapienza, Roma Tor Vergata, Roma Tre, Federal di Belo Horizonte, Kanazawa, Tsukuba, FU Berlin, Varsavia, Pollenzo, Udine and Venezia (IUAV). The meetings of the ART (Aesthetics Research Torino) seminar have constantly nourished my thinking, while my musician friends have allowed me to look at improvisation from the perspective of those who practice it. It is a privilege, thanks also to the generous funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung and from the FU Berlin, to have for some time a friendly, intense, and fertile philosophical engagement with Georg Bertram: it is the basis for many of the ideas that I present here. I am very grateful not only to my first teacher, Gianni Vattimo, whose thesis of aesthetic experience as the exercise of sociality I propose in the final pages of the book, but also to Emanuale Arielli, Mirio Cosottini, Paolo Furia, Lisa Giombini, Marcello Ruta, and last but not least, Federico Vercellone, for patiently reading the book before its publication and offering me valuable suggestions that have in a very substantial way contributed to its improvement. To Biagio Forino goes my gratitude for faithfully accepting this book for the Italian edition. I thank Emmanuel Alloa for having accepted the English edition of this text in the philosophical series he directs and Robert Valgenti for his commendable work of translation. And finally, thanks to Ilaria. Especially for taking notes for this project which, for the umpteenth time, I was improvising on the road: thus I not only began, finally, but also continued.

Chapter 1

The Birth of Art from the Spirit of Improvisation 1.1

Historical Background

Derived from the Latin improvisus (mentioned by Cicero),1 which literally means “unforeseen” (imprevisto), “not seen before,” the substantive improvisation becomes widespread in the sixteenth century, first in Italian, and subsequently in other romance languages. Originally, as part of the semantic field defined in classical rhetoric as “ex tempore dicendi facultas,”2 it referred to the art of inventing verses in the course of their declamation before the public: the Italian and Spanish dictionary of Lorenzo Franciosini (1707) defines improvisation as the practice of “composing verses without thinking about them.” Subsequently, the term comes to indicate composition in the moment of dialogue, so that in 1750 Goldoni adopts the concept in his Teatro comico, calling the Commedia dell’Arte “improvised comedy” (commedia all’improviso). Since the improvised recitation of verses was usually accompanied by music, the term thus came to signify, even in other languages (such as English), the composing of music while playing.3 The concept and its practice have an even longer history. While Plato offers a first ontological exploration of the idea of the “sudden” (exáiphnes, a word also translated as “instant”)4 as a present that can neither be deduced nor programmed, Aristotle argues in his Poetics5 that poetry owes its origin to improvisations (ek tòn autoschediasmáton).6 In music, improvisation is everywhere as

1 Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes, III, XXX, 15 and IV, XXVI, 57. 2 Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 10.7.1. 3 Cf. D.  Pietropaolo, Semiotics and Pragmatics of Stage Improvisation, London, Bloomsbury, 2016, pp. 1-10. 4 Plato, Parmenides, 156c8-157b3; cf. also Symposium, 210e4. Cf. S.  Lavecchia, “Alla ricerca dell’indeducibile. Esperienza dell’improvviso e limiti della norma nella filosofia di Platone,” in Itinera, 10, 2015, pp. 1-12; Id. (ed.), Istante. L’esperienza dell’Illocalizzabile nella filosofia di Platone, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2012. 5 Aristotle, Poetics, 1448b24. 6 Andrew Haas (“On Aristotle’s Concept of Improvisation,” in Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology, 2, 2015, n. 1, pp. 113-121) holds that in Aristotle improvisation, as the origin of creative making (ποιείν), constitutes the ontological root (the beginning) not only of all of the arts, but of the human being’s self. It is an appealing idea, but incoherent with Aristotle’s thesis according to which the contribution of thought to the activity of production (which

© Brill Fink, 2022 | doi:10.30965/9783846767078_002

2

Chapter 1

old as the art of sounds itself.7 In the West it is common practice in the Middle Ages, but, as is shown by Tinctoris’ Liber de arte contrapuncti (1471), it would acquire contours defined conceptually only in opposition to written counterpoint.8 As Vincenzo Caporaletti writes, in the sixteenth century the terminology relative to musical practice was systematized, by negation, in relation to the type under question: informes in respect to the form, ex tempore in reference to the temporal modality of the composition, sine meditatione in relation to the creative elaboration, and ex improviso (in Italian, alla sprovveduta or alla sprovvista) in contrast to the predictive capacity of the visual medium of the score. In the modern era, the terminology in the musical realm is polarized according to two central aspects of instrumental and vocal execution, as is evident in the German Fantasieren and Capriciren and the French Rechercher. In Heinrich Christoph Koch’s Musikalisches Lexikon (1802), Improvisieren is defined as the faculty of playing a text in the act of its performance.9 Today in the realm of aesthetics the most common meaning of “improvisation” is “artistic production that is not premeditated.” Moreover, the term is used in a broader sense, indicating the act of doing something, and by extension its result, without foreseeing it (im-pro-video = not seeing it beforehand), that is, “in the moment.” The first question that we ought to concern ourselves with in this book about the aesthetics of artistic improvisation is the relation between improvisation and action. 1.2

Action and Improvisation

According to Beth Preston, contrary to what is maintained by the “model of centralized control” that dominates contemporary theories of action, the creative intelligence which characterizes human action is not exhausted by

has its end outside of itself, in its product) is exhausted in the planning phase, while the realization is a non-creative execution. 7 This thesis was already explored historically by E.  Ferand in his Improvisation in Nine Centuries of Western Music (1938), Köln, Volk, 1961. 8 Cf. L.  Treitler, “Medieval Improvisation,” in The World of Music, 33, 1991, n. 3, pp.  66-91; M.  Guido (ed.), Studies in Historical Improvisation, London-New York, Routledge, 2017; A.  Mariani, Improvisation and Inventio in the Performance of Medieval Music, Oxford-New York, Oxford University Press, 2017. 9 V. Caporaletti, I processi improvvisativi nella musica, Lucca, LIM, 2005, pp. 116-121; cf. S. Blum, “Recognizing Improvisation,” in B. Nettl and M. Russell (eds.), In the Course of Performance, Chicago-London, Chicago University Press, 1998, pp. 27-45.

The Birth of Art from the Spirit of Improvisation

3

pre-existing plans.10 It is instead distributed through all of the phases of action, across the responses to problems and opportunities that we encounter when interacting with the environment in concrete circumstances. Action is understood as a collaborative or competitive inter-action between individuals that involves not only planning but also reciprocal adaptation and responses that cannot be anticipated by the initiatives of the agents. The plan of action is not a routine set into motion, as with the execution of an algorithm, but rather a proposal and a stimulus for acting. In fact, during the transition from design phase to performance phase, the environment can change in unforeseen ways, such that it renders the plan ineffective or offers unexpected possibilities for action. The situation of action is a part of the action itself, not an element that is external to it. Human agency is molded by the means, the materials, the tools, and the technologies that characterize the particular situations in which the action is involved.11 The action is thus responsive, in more or less effective ways, towards the concrete situation in which it is realized. This situative responsivity requires an interaction with the environment in which the participation of the imagination is often decisive.12 Action is a continual (trans)formation13 of plan/ning based on the specific situations of its development. Both the goal and what is required to achieve it are defined in the course of action. Therefore, in this ecological perspective every plan is structured through a dynamic web of interactions and is determined through its realization, which requires an adaptation to the concrete circumstances, possible revisions, and the contribution of (sequences of) unplanned actions. For all of these reasons, improvisational flexibility is essential for facing problematic contingencies or for exploiting unforeseen opportunities.14 10

11 12 13

14

B. Preston, A Philosophy of Material Culture, London-New York, Routledge, 2013. Preston refers in particular to the philosophies of action by Alfred Mele (Springs of Action: Understanding Intentional Behavior, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992) and Michael Bratman (Faces of Intention: Selected Essays on Intention and Agency, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999). Cf. L. Malafouris, How Things Shape the Mind. A Theory of Material Engagement, Cambridge (MA)-London, The MIT Press, 2013. Cf. S.  Asma, The Evolution of Imagination, Chicago-London, The University of Chicago Press, 2017. In this essay some lexical forms constructed ad hoc such as “(trans)formation,” “(co)respond,” and the like have been adopted as technical terms to indicate, for example, that the “formation” is “transformative” (and, vice versa, that the “transformation” is “formative”) or that “responding” is also a “corresponding.” Preston, Philosophy of Material Culture, op. cit., p. 43. Cf. also R. Sennett, The Craftsman, New Haven (CT), Yale University Press, 2008, pp. 19-52.

4

Chapter 1

Improvisation is not merely a sudden, spontaneous, extemporaneous action that deviates from or disregards plans of action: it is not just a “quasi-action,”15 a sort of middle term between habit and automatic reflex on the one hand, and planned action on the other. Moreover, it is not detached from the fabric of practices and interactions in which we are normally involved, but is usually required for the realization of our projects. If things are this way, the execution of every action, even when planned and regulated, involves some degree of improvisation. In fact, every intention or plan of action must reckon hic et nunc with the concrete, unforeseeable, and unique situation of its effective realization. Thus, as Aaron Berkowitz claims, “Broadly speaking, improvisation is a central component of all human action.”16 Every human practice not only accepts, but requires a variable degree of improvisation; moreover, one improvises even in realms that are rather quite regulated (such as in the game of chess, piloting an airplane, or in the practice of medicine) where high quality results are required.17 This ubiquity of improvisation can be explained by arguing that in human practices, in any individual case, the relevance of the norm (or of a plan) of action is not governed by the norm but is discovered or invented in each individual occurrence. In acting, in thinking, and in speaking, the rule (or the plan of action) is applied “to just this present, once-only situation.”18 But how can the thesis of improvisation as the ubiquitous characteristic of acting be reconciled with the idea that improvisation is a specific type of action? My response is twofold. On the one hand, it is appropriate to consider improvisation as a specific modality of action: as regards the modes in which we generally speak of improvisation, one can thus distinguish between reactive improvisation and deliberate improvisation. On the other hand, the characteristics of improvisation can be considered to be paradigmatic of action and of human practices tout court. As we will see in the course of this book, this holds even in the artistic realm. Improvisation in the various arts creatively exhibits the dynamic confrontation with the contingency that characterizes 15

16 17 18

Cf. M. Rousselot, Étude sur l’improvisation musicale, le témoin de l’instant, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2012, pp. 34-44. For a critique of this idea and more generally on the relation between intentionality and improvised action, cf. A. Bertinetto, “Mind the Gap L’improvvisazione come agire intenzionale,” in Itinera, 10, 2015, pp. 175-188 and Id., Eseguire l’inatteso. Ontologia della musica e improvvisazione, Roma, il Glifo, 2016, pp. 74-91. A. Berkowitz, The Improvising Mind, New York, Oxford University Press, 2010, p. xix. Cf. J.E. Anderson, Constraint-Directed Improvisation for Everyday Activities, Doctoral Thesis, University of Manitoba, 1995, p. 94. G. Ryle, “Improvisation,” in Mind, New Series, 85, 1976, pp. 69-83, here p. 77. Cf. H.-G. Gadamer, Truth and Method (1960), New York, Crossroad, 1989, pp.  307-341; L.  Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (1953), Oxford, Blackwell Publisher, 2000, §§ 201-202, p. 81a.

The Birth of Art from the Spirit of Improvisation

5

human action. As such, it has specific aesthetic characteristics that are in turn paradigmatic for the experience of art in general. 1.3

Reactive Improvisation and Deliberate Improvisation

As a specific modality of action, improvisation can be reactive or deliberate.19 In the first case, we improvise when we have to manage unusual and unexpected events that catch us unawares, pushing us to react quickly with limited resources, to adapt to the unforeseen, or to manage it. An emergency provokes the urgency of our reaction, despite the unavailability of knowledge or the means that would otherwise be required.20 In such cases we act without preparation, without accurately weighing the best course of action given the circumstances, sifting through the means at our disposal, carefully considering the possible consequences of our actions and projecting a plan of action to be put into practice.21 The reaction to the emergency forces us to act without knowing exactly what we should do and how we should do it, and to adopt tools and materials in ways that vary from their typical use. It is like doing things “with our left hand” as Walter Benjamin notes:22 something that is done without knowing how to apply a rule for action.23 The success of our action depends on the ability to find order in the chaos (that is, in the disorder provoked by the 19 20

21

22 23

Cf. D. Sparti, “Il potere di sorprendere. Sui presupposti dell’agire generativo nel jazz e nel surrealismo,” in G. Ferreccio and D. Racca (eds.), L’improvvisazione in musica e in letteratura, Torino, L’Harmattan Italia, 2007, pp. 77-91; Bertinetto, Eseguire l’inattteso, op. cit., pp. 50 ff. Think of the sudden emergency that involved and shocked the world in 2020, during the period in which I wrote these very pages. COVID-19 forced everyone to improvise. This was done in different situations in different ways and with different outcomes: sometimes effective and creative, sometimes disastrous. Yet one could not but improvise. Faced with an unforeseen event, we intuitively focus on the situation in which we find ourselves and quickly imagine and execute a way to resolve the emergency situation, without having the means and time to analyze the facts and data at our disposal, reflecting on the validity of the imagined solution. Often we cannot even explicitly conceptualize the problem we need to solve. We act by applying what psychologists call the “adaptive unconscious”: in this way one can claim that it is the solution to the problem that allows us to understand ex post what was the specific problem we had to face. Cf. M. Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Little, Brown, 2007. W. Benjamin, One-Way Street (1928), Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, 2016, p. 27: “These are days when no one should rely unduly on his ‘competence.’ Strength lies in improvisation. All the decisive blows are struck left- handed.” Cf. G. Brandstetter, “Improvisation im Tanz. Lecture-Performance mit Friedrike Lampert,” in M. Gröne et al. (eds.), Improvisation. Kultur- und lebens-wissenschaftliche Perspektiven, Freiburg i.B.-Berlin-Wien, Rombach, 2009, pp. 133-157, here p. 133.

6

Chapter 1

unforeseen event), discovering or inventing a way to proceed while carrying it out, hoping that it functions but without any guarantee of its success. Everyday improvisation can therefore signify getting by, the art of making do, using minimal or makeshift resources: knowing how to adjust and make adjustments, inventing solutions that are effective enough.24 That can include the adaptation of a tool for functions that differ from those for which it was designed, or the construction of an object through atypical components and materials, in particular when a broken tool or device needs to be repaired or simply made to function: for example, by using a stack of books in place of a table leg. Reactive improvisation is thus often marked by imperfection: its outcomes are only partially satisfying and are (or ought to be) understood as temporary. Thus there is also the negative use of the term, according to which what is improvised is poorly made, hastily done, and inadequate. This does not mean, however, that the result of improvisation is necessarily negative; indeed it can be decisive for the success of acting, since it is able to realize precisely what is required for the specific circumstance. The Clint Eastwood film Sully (2016) offers an example of this type of improvisation, recounting the real-life events of January 16, 2009. An airplane suffers a mechanical breakdown soon after takeoff from LaGuardia airport in New York. The situation is extremely serious. The established protocol would require an emergency landing at a nearby airport. But the expert pilot, Commander Chelsey “Sully” Sullenberger (portrayed by Tom Hanks), intuits that the information provided by the plane’s instruments (concerning the flight altitude, the available fuel, and the distance to the nearest airport) do not allow for the execution of the established emergency plan. The only solution is to attempt a landing on the Hudson River. This is truly a case of improvisation: the feat has never worked before and the decisions about what to do are made by the commander in the hic et nunc. The maneuver works: landing close to New York city, and not in the middle of the ocean, numerous boats arrive immediately to rescue everyone before the plane sinks. Following an investigation conducted through the use of computer simulations, it is demonstrated that the emergency protocol would not have worked: the only way to save the passengers would effectively have been the improvised maneuver of the pilot, who was able to react to the accident by inventing an effective plan of action as the events were unfolding. Reactive improvisation, exemplified in a striking way by Sully’s feat, is distinguished from artistic improvisation, which is the principle theme of this book. 24

Cf. A.  Sohn-Rethel, “Das Ideal des Kaputten (The Ideal of the broken),” in Frankfurter Zeitung vom Sonntag, den 21. März 1926 – Erstes Morgenblatt.

The Birth of Art from the Spirit of Improvisation

7

In fact, this latter type is a deliberately chosen activity. While improvisation in the artistic realm can also be a resource for resolving an emergency in a nonimprovisational context,25 artists practice improvisation not because they are bound by the unforeseen, but in order to confront it artistically. It is improvised deliberately for the pleasure of producing art thanks to improvisation through the creative confrontation with contingency. I wrote “thanks to improvisation” instead of “in an improvised way” for a very precise reason. As we have seen, in fact, to do something “in an improvised way” has a negative connotation in daily life: improvised can signify imperfect, less rigorous, simple, provisional, slipshod. This connotation, which grasps one aspect of improvisation in human practices, is responsible for the widespread misunderstanding of the aesthetics of imperfection that misapprehends the characteristic aspect of artistic improvisation: in chapter 4, I will critically engage this conception; yet, I already wish to distance myself from it unequivocally. 1.4

Improvisation in Action: Between Creativity and Habits

Sully’s feat is an example of what Hannah Arendt calls authentic human action:26 not the execution of pre-established rules, but rather a creative action which, by ignoring or exceeding the rules established to realize a plan, gives rise to new and unforeseen results. Action in the highest sense is an initiative, a new beginning, a creative generation of the unexpected. It is freedom—unburdened by standardized guidelines for action, such as those common in mechanized industrial production, which impede the authentic exercise of creativity that seems to be exemplified precisely by improvisation: at least if, as the French philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch argues, improvisation is understood as the beginning that surprises the expectations derived from established conventions and rules and instead produces the unforeseen.27 25 26

27

Cf. infra, chap. 2.2 and chap. 3.2. Cf. H. Arendt, The Human Condition (1958), 2nd ed., Chicago (IL), University of Chicago Press, 2019, pp. 175-180 and 230 ff. For an Arendtian perspective on (musical) improvisation, cf. P.A. Kanellopoulos, “Musical Improvisation as Action: An Arendtian Perspective,” in Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, 6, 2007, n. 3, pp. 107-110. Cf. V. Jankélévitch, La Rhapsodie: verve et improvisation musicales, Paris, Flammarion, 1955, p. x and pp. 207-208. On improvisation as beginning, cf. also J.-L. Nancy, “Improvvisazione sull’improvvisazione,” in I. Pelgreffi (ed.), Improvvisazione. Annuario Kaiak, 3, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2018, pp. 21-29. The nature of improvisation as a “beginning” can also be understood in the sense of regret, namely, the capacity (and not only the possibility) o recognizing the incompleteness (and also the failure) of one’s own acting, in order to re-make that which

8

Chapter 1

It is necessary, however, to dispel a possible misunderstanding. The thesis about the creativity of improvisation seems to embrace the Romantic ideology of creatio ex nihilo, of absolute spontaneity, of the unrepeatable and revolutionary Event: an ideology based on a concept of improvisation that is impossible to practice and apprehend. This thesis is not only the product of an aesthetic prejudice (which we will criticize in the next chapter), but also seems to contradict the idea that planned action, to the extent that it requires an interaction with its environment, has a constitutive, improvised dimension. If improvisation is understood as beginning, it then needs to specify that the dimension of improvisation as a new beginning—its transformative potentiality in comparison to planning models, action plans, cultural conventions and material constraints—has various degrees and, in fact, is never absolute. On the one hand, improvisation embodies freedom, novelty, creativity; on the other hand, its exercise depends on constraints—the context in which it occurs, the available resources, the time it takes to develop, the required abilities, the established conventions—that not only condition it, but also make it possible. Like freedom, which “arises out of the spontaneity of beginning something new,”28 improvisation exists solely as it is attained in praxis. In fact, the condition for free action is to have resources available in terms of habits, norms, abilities, techniques and means, even so far as action claims to be free by rejecting its own preconditions; in the same way, every artist must have resources to feed their creativity and base their own acting on a tradition of practices, even if only to transform, violate, and reject it. The reference to contexts of material, technical, and cultural resources suggests that improvised actions or gestures cannot be entirely unforeseeable; in the same way, every artistic creation, as innovative and shocking, must be at least in some way comprehensible and recognizable in order to be valued as art in a given situation. Therefore, Richard Sennett rightly contends that Arendt’s thesis—which through the Romantic idea of genius aims to posit an aesthetic ideal of political action (a theme that will be addressed briefly at the end of this book)—does not account for the concrete reality of human production, which instead has an artisanal dimension.29 This aspect requires the elaboration of the capacity of improvisation in terms of the modification of objects and of the use that is made of them, in terms of the abilities and habits generated thanks to the

28 29

was done in an unsatisfactory way. On this theme, in relation to an ecological interpretation of improvised action, cf. G. Cuozzo, “La debole forza messianica dell’improvvisazione. Per un nuovo paradigma dell’agire,” in Itinera, 10, 2015, pp. 436-452. H. Arendt, The Life of the Mind, Boston (MA), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1978, p. 203. Sennett, The Craftsman, op. cit, 2008.

The Birth of Art from the Spirit of Improvisation

9

assiduousness of a practice, and in terms of the suitability of a project to its realization in a specific situation. And it is for this reason that improvisation is paradigmatic of human action: the freedom of improvisation is achieved by the organism that improvises within the constraints of explorative activities performed in (inter)action with the environment.30 The capacity to improvise, to act spontaneously and without premeditation, can be trained and cultivated. It is acquired through repeated exercise and allows the incorporation of physical and cognitive abilities that, becoming habitual actions, are executed without any need for conscious control. Thanks to this training, which leads to the expertise of a know how31 concerning a practice or field of practices, the spontaneity of creative acting and “ingenious” invention that arise in an apparently unreflective manner (“straightaway,” “without thinking about it”) are possible. The abilities, habitualized thanks to repeated training, play a crucial role in artistic improvisation: a dancer must train the body, acquiring the capacity to execute complex movements in a routine way; a musician learns phrases and combinations of sound which can be repeated in an automatic way when required.32 And habit also constitutes a central aspect of everyday practices. In fact, it is one of the strongest connections between everyday improvisation and artistic improvisation. Improvisation is characterized by its capacity to perform the extraordinary in order to face the unforeseen; this requires that behavioral patterns are made routine, that is, the monotony of the ordinary. Let us consider the activities that we practice in our daily lives such as walking, reading, writing, swimming, driving a car, or riding a bicycle. Once learned, they can occur without explicitly paying attention to them: in fact, thanks to 30

31 32

As I tried to argue in “When Diving Into Uncertainty Makes Sense. The Enactive Aesthetic Experience of Artistic Improvisation” (in Reti, saperi, linguaggi, 19, 2021, pp. 73-102) one can therefore contend that the enactive conception of human experience favors the argument for its improvisational nature. Cf. C.D.  Drinko, Theatrical Improvisation, Consciousness, and Cognition, New York, Palgrave-McMillan, 2013; V.  Santarcangelo, “Enacting New Consonances. From Within the Activity of Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza,” in A.  Sbordoni and A.  Rostagno (eds.), Free Improvisation: History and Perspectives, Roma, La Sapienza-LIM, 2018, pp. 107-117; D. van der Schyff, “Improvisation, Enaction, and Self-Assessment,” in D.J.  Elliott et  al. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical and Qualitative Perspectives on Assessment in Music Education, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 319-345. Cf. G. Ryle, The Concept of Mind (1949), London (UK), Routledge, 2009, chap. 2, pp. 14-48. Moreover, the preparatory exercises also regard the acquisition of an aesthetic sensibility favorable to collective improvisation. This is highlighted, for example, by Franco Evangelisti, founder of the Gruppo d’Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, in his Dal silenzio a un nuovo mondo sonoro, Roma, Semar, 1991. Thanks to Mirio Cosottini for bringing this to my attention.

10

Chapter 1

imitation and to repeated practice we have assimilated the techniques for executing such activities in an automatic (but not mechanical) way, namely, without having to reflect on what we are doing while we act.33 On this point, W. Benjamin notes that we cannot go back to learn those skills that, now possessed as behavioral habits, we actualize in an unreflective way.34 We improvise swimming, walking, driving, etc. without doing anything special, to the degree that we do not consciously plan what to do and how to do it when we act. Once we learn and incorporate a skill, we know how to do it: we act without consciously reflecting on how to perform an action or on which sequence of movements will bring it to its end. This also applies to social practices:35 in daily life our behavior is ordered by conventional and habitualized routines of action. In various situations we know how to act because we are guided by social habits. When we enter a restaurant, we follow behavioral patterns ritualized and incorporated as habits (the “pattern” of “dinner at a restaurant,” with its variations) and in a conversation we rely on linguistic and social conventions that direct our acting a bit like a dramatic script guides an actor. The crucial point, however, is that the script—namely, the routine, habitual, conventional, repetitive, and automatic nature of our practices (their ordinary nature)—is not incompatible with inventive or creative acting, with extraordinary acting (or even, to take up Arendt’s thesis again, with acting in the proper sense). Indeed, it requires it. On the one hand, the automation of habit forms and structures individuals, society, and their practices; on the other hand, the structuring of automations can allow for novelty. The script is rewritten, in a potentially creative way, through concrete actions in specific circumstances. The skills that become habits make possible not only the actions in which they are realized, but are themselves formed, transformed, and reformed through

33

34 35

Cf. R.  Shusterman, Body Consciousness: A Philosophy of Mindfulness and Somaesthetics (Cambridge (UK), Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 62. As Shusterman points out, in this way we also acquire bad habits, which are correctable through the conscious exercise of new and better ones. W. Benjamin, “The Reading Box” (1932-34), Berlin Childhood around 1900, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, 2006, pp. 140-2: “I now know how to walk; there is no more learning to walk.” Cf. R.K. Sawyer, Creating Conversation. Improvisation in Everyday Discourse, Cresskill (NJ), Hampton Press, 2003, pp. 7-16, 29-41; E. Goffman. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959), New York, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2021.

The Birth of Art from the Spirit of Improvisation

11

that very realization.36 Habits are plastic: they allow and require change. They have the capacity to modify their own form. The automations of the patterns and the techniques of human practices are de-automated in their very own application, since the realization of a project requires a creative adaptation, an unforeseen variation of the plan in its own execution. Analogously, in the social realm every concrete situation (every dinner at a restaurant, every conversation) is specific and requires inventiveness in order to be effectively handled. This is not only a case of learning to learn,37 but also of learning to unlearn, exactly as happens in an improvised performance, when artists must modulate their abilities in order to respond successfully to what is happening. Ultimately, it is a matter of learning how not to know what to do.38 Thus, there is no rigid separation between habitual practices and inventive behavior; in fact, the expertise that makes improvisation possible is itself also the result of improvisation. The incorporated know how of habit makes the fluid acting of improvisation possible—both in everyday practices (individual and social) and also in artistic practices—while the improvisational practice of inventive adaptation to the concrete situation through an action’s exercise forms, transforms, and reforms habits. The practice of skills and techniques that have become habits of action can produce unexpected and, albeit moderately, surprising and new results (even for those who produce them) that, thanks to their exercise, transform and reform habits in a plastic manner. Whether in the artistic realm or in daily practices, what happens in an improvised 36

37

38

On the relation between automation, habit, and improvisation, cf. I.  Pelgreffi, Filosofia dell’automatismo. Verso un’etica della corporeità, Napoli-Salerno, Orthotes, 2018. On the role of habit in improvisation, cf. G. Peters, Improvising Improvisation. From out of Philosophy, Music, Dance, and Literature, Chicago-London, The University of Chicago Press, 2017, pp. 89-168. The philosophical literature on the concept of habit is vast. The more important works include: F. Ravaisson, Of Habit (1838), New York, Bloomsboory, 2008; P. Bourdieu, Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action (1980), Redwood (CA), Stanford University Press, 1998; C. Piazzesi, Abitudine e potere. Da Pascal a Bourdieu, Pisa, ETS, 2003; T. Sparrow and A. Hutchinson (eds.), A History of Habit. From Aristotle to Bourdieu, Lexington, Lanham, 2013; A.  Massecar, Ethical Habits: A Peircean Perspective, Lexington, Lanham, 2016. On habits in aesthetics cf. M.G. Portera, La bellezza è un’abitudine, Roma, Carocci, 2020. On this issue cf. G. Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2000; Pelgreffi, Filosofia dell’automatismo, op. cit., pp. 203 ff. Cf. also N. Perullo, Estetica ecologica. Percepire saggio, vivere corrispondente, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2020, pp. 139-158. Cf. A. Bertinetto and G. Bertram, “‘We make up the rules as we go along’—Improvisation as an Essential Aspect of Human Practices?,” in Open Philosophy, 3, 2020, n. 1, pp. 202-221, here p. 206.

12

Chapter 1

performance feeds back onto incorporated skills and on to the behavioral habits that make them possible. Every performance contributes to the (trans) formation of the competencies required by it: the factual conditions of the possibility of improvisation are put into play during improvisation. Therefore, the creativity of improvisation is required precisely in order to form, transform, and reform the rules, habits, styles, and techniques that constitute their condition of possibility. This condition of possibility is not external to praxis: it forms part of the process that, in order to succeed as such, must put into play its own presuppositions—according to that Hegelian logic of the position of the presupposition, which Luca Illetterati showed matters in improvised practices.39 The inventive behavior that characterizes improvisation—made possible by habits and automations which, in their turn, have been transformed through improvisation—nourishes human practices. 1.5

Improvising (according to) the Rule of Art

One can explain and develop the connection between habits and improvisa(c)­ tion by referring to Michel de Certeau,40 according to whom there is no break in continuity between the routine of human practices and the inventive nature of the arts: the latter are specializations of the arts understood in terms of practices, namely, “arts of making” (and “arts of speaking”).41 The practices, as “arts of making,” take on institutionalized norms and conventions, as well as behavioral habits, adapting them to particular situations in unscripted ways: in the application of rules and in the exercise of habits they invent spaces of freedom (“tactics” in de Certeau’s words) that transform those rules and those habits (“strategies”) by producing something new in an appropriate manner.42 Far from mechanically following procedures, rules, and conventions, human beings in the most disparate situations open up spaces of freedom and invention. By relying on the cunning intelligence that the ancient Greeks called métis, 39 40 41

42

L.  Illetterati, “Il sistema come forma della libertà nella filosofia di Hegel (razionalità e improvvisazione),” in Itinera, 10, 2015, pp. 41-63. M. de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (1980), Berkeley (CA), University of California Press, 2011. Cf. in particular loc. cit., pp. 66 ff. De Certeau makes frequent reference to the Freudian investigation of der Witz (the wit) and its creative tricks. Cf. S. Freud, Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious (1905), North Cheimsford (MA), Courier Corporation, 2012. In chapter 2.4.2 I will focus on the proximity between the wit, a paradigmatic model of creative and unexpected deviation from the rule, and improvisation. de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, op. cit., pp. 29-42.

The Birth of Art from the Spirit of Improvisation

13

they apply rules and conventions in ways that transform them through invention.43 Improvisation, as the capacity to alter one’s own plans in the course of their application,44 is thus paradigmatic of human action. Both social and cultural life is improvisational: culture is constructed such that human beings “respond,” by improvising, “to life’s contingencies.”45 Thus, “improvisation and creativity […] are intrinsic to the very processes of social and cultural life.”46 The inventive behavior that characterizes human acting—as capable of adapting the norms it follows and the projects that guide it through concrete situations, achieving unforeseen goals—is understood by the notion of “art” as “know how.” I thus recommend adopting the distinction proposed by Giovanni Matteucci47 between a “pragmatic know how”—which is responsible for the learning of a practice (playing an instrument, driving a car, swimming, public speaking, proper dinner manners …)—and an “operative know how” that, with touch, smell, and taste, configure an aesthetic environment: this not only pertains to artistic practices, but also to those that can be traced back to an aesthetics of the everyday48 such as craft, fashion, cooking, design, sports, mental and bodily wellness—ultimately any practice that acquires an aesthetic connotation by virtue of the experience of a playful interaction between the individual and the environment, one that requires and produces the learning of a (not) knowing how to do something.49 The two forms of “know how,” which culminate in the production of behaviors and objects (in conformity with the semantic space of the Greek term téchne),50 are co-constitutive of improvisational acting. This emerges in a particular way when the “(not) knowing how to do” operates in the concrete situation of an interaction in the realm of an artistic improvisation, in which case a musician must not only demonstrate knowing how to play an instrument, 43

44 45 46 47 48 49 50

Or perhaps opportunistically, as E.  Arielli critically observes in an investigation of the manipulation of personal taste in terms of habits and strategies that can nevertheless lead to self-deception (Farsi piacere. La costruzione del gusto, Cortina, Milano, 2016, here in particular pp. 152 ff.). On the concept of métis cf. M. Detienne and J.P. Vernant (1974), Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society, Hassocks (Sussex), Harvester Press, 1978. Cf. Pelgreffi, Filosofia dell’automatismo, op. cit., pp. 129, 146. Cf. infra, chap. 4.4. E. Hallam and T. Ingold (eds.), Creativity and Cultural Improvisation, Oxford-New York, Berg, 2007, p. 2. Loc. cit., p. 19. G. Matteucci, Estetica e natura umana, Roma, Carocci, 2019, p. 9 See G.L. Iannilli, L’estetico e il quotidiano, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2019. Cf. Matteucci, Estetica e natura umana, op. cit. p. 46. On the improvisational nature of the playful practices at the origin of art and culture, cf. J. Huizinga. Homo Ludens (1939), London-New York, Taylor & Francis, 1998, pp. 123-126. See de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, op. cit., pp. 91-130.

14

Chapter 1

but also how to play it in a way that successfully responds to the demands of that specific moment, playfully interacting with the environment. The “(not) knowing how to do” of improvisation is the expression both of the artisanal creativity of acting, which is distinct from the execution of an algorithm in that it realizes a plan by adopting it to a specific context, and also of artistic creativity, which in every successful work of art transforms and reforms its own conditions of possibility. The rule of this “(not) knowing how to do,” which is an “artful doing,” is the “rule of art” generated through the very praxis that it follows: it is not simply the external imposition of instructions or rules blind to the situation.51 The “(not) knowing how to do,” which contends with various materials and forms, is thus self-regulated. Thus, the passage from art understood as a tactical, improvisational practice concerning the “(not) knowing how to do” to art understood in Luigi Pareyson’s words as the “formative doing that invents the way of doing in the course of doing it”52 is not as long as it might at first seem. As I will argue later (chap. 4), the successful work of art, while depending on the constraints and rules posed by traditions, genres, or practices, qualitatively exceeds them, thus contributing to the life and the development of such practices, genres, and traditions. That means that artistic creativity, which invents the rule for its own doing, is improvisational. Indeed, improvisation plays a genetic role in the constitution of art as a human practice: it is the trait d’union between human practice and the arts; it is the mode by which human practices become arts not only in the sense of a forms of “knowing how to do,” but also in the aesthetic sense of the “fine arts.” First of all, the term “art” has over time acquired an evaluative sense. Art, as “(not) knowing how to do,” is not solely the technical use of habits and procedures in the realm of everyday practices, but a practical knowledge that, thanks to its excellence, becomes mastery, an “artistry.” In such a way we understand this term in expressions that begin with the phrase “the art of …” There are innumerable examples. Here is a brief selection of them (in various languages): the art of having fun, the art of design, the art of the brick 51 52

Cf. Sennett, The Craftsman, op. cit. L. Pareyson, Estetica. Teoria della formatività (1954), Milano, Bompiani, 2010, p. 59: Art is “a type of doing that invents its way of doing while it is doing it”: “in the very course of the operation it invents the modus operandi, and defines the rule of the work while making it, and conceives by following, and designs in the same act that realizes it.” Cf. A. Bertinetto, “Improvvisazione e formatività,” in Annuario filosofico, 25, 2009, pp. 145-174. On the richness of Pareyson’s aesthetics for artistic creativity today, cf. F. Vercellone, “Arte e interattività nell’estetica di Luigi Pareyson,” in C. Ciancio and M. Pagano (eds.), Il pensiero della libertà. Luigi Pareyson a cent’anni dalla nascita, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2020, pp. 223-226.

The Birth of Art from the Spirit of Improvisation

15

(the title of an exhibition about toy building blocks), the art of leadership, die Kunst, Recht zu behalten (to cite Schopenhauer),53 the art of loving,54 el arte de volar,55 l’arte del mobile (“the art of the furniture”: a furniture factory ad) and even l’arte dell’ultimo saluto (“the art of the last farewell”—an ad from a funeral home). The art of living would deserve a separate discussion, an idea (indeed more appealing and less serious than the preceding) animated by a noble philosophical tradition—from Socrates to Foucault, passing through Montaigne and Nietzsche—which in recent times has been considered, among others, by the philosopher Alexander Nehemas and the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman.56 In that way, “art” is ([not] knowing how) to do well, ([not] knowing how) to master: a formative doing, able to give itself its own rule in every circumstance of its operation in order to achieve valued results. This evaluative sense of “art,” operative even in the notion of improvisation as the art of making do, connects human practices and art in an aesthetic sense by allowing it to grasp the connection between the practical nature of art and the aesthetic-formative nature of human practices. Yet this is still not enough for comprehending the aesthetic notion of art contained in the expression “fine art” (belle arti, beaux arts, schöne Künste, bellas artes). The modern notion of the “fine arts” involves the idea of the excellence of a knowing how to do, which is capable, in various realms, of “abusively” bending rules, techniques, and habits to the specificities of the circumstance (the available materials, the specific purpose, the context, 53 54 55 56

A. Schopenhauer, The Art of Always Being Right: Thirty Eight Ways to Win When You Are Defeated (1830), London, Gibson Square Books, 2004. E. Fromm, The Art of Loving (1956), New York, Open Road Media, 2013. This is the title of a graphic novel by A. Altarriba (Alicante, Ediciones de Ponent, 2009) which won the Premio Nacional de Cómic 2010 in Spain. A.  Nehamas, The Art of Living, Berkeley (CA), University of California Press, 2000; Z. Bauman, The Art of Life (2008), Cambridge (UK), Polity Press, 2013. On p. 81 Bauman observes that the art of living involves “the labour of self-creation,” of continual selfcreation: an incessant process of self-determination and self-affirmation. This is an autopoietic process, “the art of ‘being yourself’, arguably the most demanding of all the arts, consists in resolutely rejecting and repelling definitions and ‘identities’ imposed or insinuated by others; in resisting the current, escaping the incapacitating grip of Heidegger’s impersonal das Man, born of the crowd and powerful through the crowd, or Sartre’s l’on; in short—in ‘being someone else’ and not what external pressures coerce everyone to be.” But “identity is perpetually in statu nascendi” (pp. 81-82) being in a state of constant uncertainty, we are continually groping (p. 124). Ultimately, since we cannot but continually review our projects in light of the unforeseen situations that appear before us, we are artists-improvisers of ourselves, and we are such precisely in the sense of Pareyson’s conception of formativity: our self-making is a doing that invents its own way of doing while doing it, which gropes forward and has no guarantee given that the very criteria for the judgment of its success transform as we go along. Cf. infra, chap. 2.3.4.

16

Chapter 1

etc.) with the institutionalizing57 of these practices as diverse manifestations of art as a modality of an aesthetic self-knowledge. The “fine arts” require that the “(not) knowing how to do” exemplified by the improvisation of rules and techniques typical of craftsmanship eventually becomes an institution, with its own habits, its own rules, and its own codified articulations (which end up hiding the connections between daily human practices and art, and thus lead to the ideology of art’s autonomy),58 but above all with the specific purpose of representing the human being to itself through the manipulation of materials and the configuration of forms. That not only carries with it the improvisational (ab)use of technical and social rules, but also self-reflection: art is a “critical praxis,”59 a practical reflection on the way the human being represents itself to itself, even through the critical confrontation with the art of the past or with other works of art in the present.60 That means, among other things, that art is a practical reflection on art that is already institutionalized, or even on the institution of art itself: on the techniques and on the styles, as well as on the social conventions that govern them. This practical reflection on the institution or on the institutions of art, which configure art as art, appears as such in contemporary art at least since Duchamp’s readymade—a gesture that is a reflexive and performative play as art and also on art as an institution. In the readymade—whose radical nonchalance [sprezzatura] conceals art, as a “knowing (how) to do,” to the point that it loses even the productive material dimension of creativity61—the cultural and social institution of art is itself creatively (ab)used as an ingredient for generating a new art (by now already belonging to the past) that exhibits itself as an improvisational collage, using, abusing, and transfiguring non-artistic, ordinary, and commonplace forms and materials.62 The gesture of the avant-garde, the gesture of a revolt (playful or ironic, serious or even exalted or violent) against institutional art, is obviously destined to

57 58 59 60 61 62

On the birth of art as an institution, cf. L. Shiner, The Invention of Art: A Cultural History, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2003. The critique of the paradigm of the autonomy of art is the guiding thread for G. Bertram’s reflection in Art as Human Practice: An Aesthetics, London, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019. A. Noë, Strange Tools. Art and Human Nature, New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015, p. 109. Cf. Bertram, Art as Human Practice, op. cit., pp. 145-153 and 225-234. On this theme cf. P. D’Angelo, Sprezzatura. Concealing the Effort of Art from Aristotle to Duchamp, New York, Columbia University Press, 2018. Cf. infra, chap. 3. Cf. A.  Danto, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: A Philosophy of Art, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, 1981.

The Birth of Art from the Spirit of Improvisation

17

be institutionalized itself.63 Artists must therefore still improvise against and on this ulterior institutionalization, each time inventing their specific way of doing through the critical encounter with forms, materials, and cultural traditions. In the creative interaction it practices with contingency, artistic improvisation, in its diverse and manifold manifestations, exemplifies this process: in human practices, as well as in art—precisely, as human practice—, codified forms, procedures, and materials (including those materials, forms, and procedures that constitute art as a cultural and social institution) are used and abused inventively; these (ab)uses are in their turn normalized and re-used as ingredients of improvisations that give life to new works, thus contributing to the continual (trans)formation of the arts. If one accepts the idea, of Hegelian origin, according to which art is a practice that allows the human being to represent itself to itself, or is a form of a reduplication of human life which allows the human being to represent itself and know its own human being sensibly,64 artistic improvisation can thus be understood as the specific artistic practice that exhibits this same formative doing as the expression of humanity acting in the face of contingency:65 an acting that is not guaranteed, is fragile and exposed to the risk of failure, but also capable of creatively realizing its freedom. Ultimately, if by improvising on Nietzsche one can argue that art is born from the spirit of improvisation66 as the expression of a playful and creative acting that is, at the same time, constrained and without a guarantee of success, and if art is, in a Hegelian sense, a practice through which the human being represents itself to itself, then the 63

64

65

66

As Peter Bürger has already noted in his Theory of the Avant-Garde (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1984), here one finds the difference between Duchamp and Warhol. The former plays a joke on institutionalized art; the latter exploits the institutionalization of the joke as art. Cf. G.W.F.  Hegel, Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art (1835), vol. 1., Oxford (UK), Clarendon Press, 1988, p. 31: “the universal need for art, that is to say, is man’s rational need to lift the inner and outer world into his spiritual consciousness as an object in which he recognizes again his own self. The need for this spiritual freedom he satisfies, on the one hand, within by making what is within him explicit to himself, but correspondingly by giving outward reality to this his explicit self, and thus in this duplication of himself by bringing what is in him into sight and knowledge for himself and others.” Cf. P. D’Angelo, Estetica, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2011, pp. 78-83; G. Bertram, Kunst. Eine philosophische Einführung, Stuttgart, Reclam, 2005. This is the role that Hegel seems to assign to improvisation in the chapter of the Lectures on Aesthetics dedicated to music. Cf. Hegel, Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, vol 2. op. cit., p. 952. Cf. A. Bertinetto, “Musica assoluta e musica dell’assoluto,” in Verifiche, XLV, n. 1-2, 2016, pp. 221-246. The reference is obviously to F. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings (1872), Cambridge (UK), Cambridge University Press, 1999. Cf. infra, chap. 4.7.

18

Chapter 1

sense of artistic improvisation is to exhibit, by means of performative reduplication, the existential adventure of human acting in its confrontation with the contingency of living. The artistic character of this confrontation with contingency that improvisation produces is the theme of this book. In the next chapter I will focus on the specifics of the aesthetics of improvisation, searching for some answers to the questions regarding how and why we value an improvisation in the artistic realm. In chapter 3 I will discuss the peculiar characteristics of improvisation in various artistic practices. In the final chapter I will argue what I have here only suggested: improvisation, such as it discloses a rich theoretical horizon for the philosophy of action, offers an even more felicitous philosophical perspective for art. Therefore, if my intuition is correct that art is born from the spirit of improvisation, the aesthetics of improvisation results in a philosophy of art. Or at least this is what I intend to propose in this essay.

Chapter 2

The Grammar of Contingency 2.1

The Sense of Improvisation

What are the notable features and the peculiar qualities that justify artistic improvisation? The question arises from a legitimate doubt. While the realization of a work may involve laborious preparation and allow for corrections and reconsiderations to achieve completely satisfactory results, thus reducing (at least according to the author’s intentions) the possibility of a failure— regardless of how unavoidable it is in human practices—the improviser, who cannot retrace her steps and wait for the availability of resources better than those currently at her disposal, seems to be more directly exposed to the risk of failure and must therefore be content with results that are only partially satisfactory. So why would an artist improvise if not forced to do so? The most common response is that the activity of improvising is particularly fulfilling for the one who practices it. The interactions with partners and with the audience and the happiness that comes from being and making together; the joy of seizing an opportunity on the fly by turning an accident into an aesthetic resource; the skillful virtuosity of overcoming technical difficulties; the pleasure of surprising and being surprised: these are just some of the reasons that an artist might have for participating in the “free play” of improvisation.1 Nevertheless, the answer remains unsatisfying because it is, at best, partial. Even if we ignore that improvising can be very frustrating, especially when the venture fails, an adequate response in the aesthetic realm must also take into account the audience. Many everyday activities that involve improvisation— conversations, physical exercise, manual and intellectual labor, etc.—can provide the user with the joy of a pleasurable interaction with the natural and social environment, and usually such activities do not require an audience. But the issue is different for art. Although artists dedicate themselves to improvisation, at times without having to present their work2 directly to an audience, artistic improvisation requires an audience, even if it is only implicit or potential: not only because the audience can be directly involved in the improvised interaction of a concert, a dance performance, or a theatrical production 1 S. Nachmanovitch, Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, New York, Putnam, 1990. 2 I use this term not only in the sense of a final result of a practice, but also in terms of a process still underway.

© Brill Fink, 2022 | doi:10.30965/9783846767078_003

20

Chapter 2

by becoming even themselves performers, but also because its enjoyment is required by the artistic nature of the improvised activity. As art, improvisation makes sense when it exercises its conditions of communicability. It thus demands acceptance and a response, which could also be understood as the refusal to respond, a rejection, or a negative response. It appeals to collusive3 and affective involvement, to appreciation, to evaluation, to interpretation, which for the most part does not need to take on the form of an explicit judgment: one can respond interpretatively to a musical improvisation by dancing, or expressively evaluate a match of theatrical improvisation by laughing or looking surprised. Moreover, the enjoyment of the work cannot be tied solely to the final product, as so often occurs in improvisation in the visual arts where the exhibition of the work requires the end of productive activity; instead, as happens with all works of art, the enjoyment is wrapped up with the question of sense that motivates these activities.4 In the end, when an artist improvises alone, without an audience, the artist becomes her own appreciator5 by feeling or seeing improvisation. My thesis is that artistic improvisation, being neither a mere occurrence nor even an action whose concreteness relies on a correspondence to prefixed intentions and rules, makes sense thanks to the possibility of enjoyment that actively participates in the dynamic constitution of the work, as occurs generally in the experience of art.6 The aspects that characterize the aesthetics of improvisation must therefore be categorized in such a way as to demonstrate the reasons why an audience might be motivated to choose improvised art. It goes without saying that the reflection on improvisation should obviously be considered alongside the aesthetics of production. If improvisation has a particular characteristic, it can certainly be found in its specific modality of

3 Cf. Matteucci, Estetica e natura umana, op. cit., 2019. 4 Even “free” improvisation, which has as its ideal the liberation from pre-established goals and criteria of evaluation, carries with it a dimension of affective and evaluative assessment in respect to the result of a practice that requires its participants to expend time, resources, and energy. 5 Translator’s note: Throughout the book I have translated fruitore as “appreciator.” While typically translated as “user,” the sense of the word in the realm of aesthetics speaks more to the engagement and encounter with the work of art by someone other than the artist. More than simply an audience [pubblico] or a spectator [spettatore], the appreciator experiences and judges—values and evaluates—the aesthetic encounter and at times even participates in it. 6 As G. Bertram argues (Art as Human Practice, op. cit., pp. 97-157), the diverse activities of enjoyment (appreciation, evaluation, and interpretation) are constitutive elements of the dynamic through which the work of art constitutes and reveals itself in a self-referential way.

The Grammar of Contingency

21

production: the coincidence of invention and performance.7 Nevertheless, the issue is if and how this particular modality of artistic production entails relevant and specific aesthetic effects, that is, how the aesthetics of production influences the aesthetics of reception. In short: improvising can undoubtedly be considered a compelling activity due to its difficulty and the satisfaction that it brings to its performers, along with the particular ontological dimension of interest it provides for the philosopher. But the question remains: why is improvisation appreciated aesthetically? 2.2

Responding to Contingency

An initial response to the doubt expressed at the beginning of this chapter might go as follows: improvisation can be used for artistic practices and its appreciation follows from this usefulness. During a liturgical event, improvisation is useful within the context of the accompanying music, because it allows the musician—usually an organist—to match the pace of the religious ceremony, which cannot be known in advance.8 The appeal of improvisation to touring theater companies (such as those dedicated to the Commedia dell’Arte) can be explained by its flexibility and ability to adapt to diverse stages, as well as to varying cultural and linguistic contexts, thereby relaxing political and economic control and bypassing censors.9 Moreover, improvisation helps the artist avoid the failure of the artistic enterprise: just as we appeal to improvisation in extra-artistic and even extra-aesthetic realms in order to react to the unforeseen by finding a solution (if an unexpected train strike occurs, I must improvise an alternative means of transportation), so too the artist, by reacting to the unforeseen—a musical instrument breaking or encountering technical difficulties, an actor forgetting his lines, a shortage of material, and even an unforeseen strike  …—can trust that improvisation will remedy the inconvenience and find a solution, thus making the work’s success possible by encouraging the onset of the aesthetic experience in the appreciator and

7 On this issue cf. Bertinetto, Eseguire l’inatteso. Ontologia della musica e improvvisazione, op. cit., 2016, chap. 2. 8 A.  Petard, L’improvisation musicale. Enjeux et contrainte sociale, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2010, pp. 25 ff. 9 N. Crohn Schmitt, “Improvisation in the Commedia dell’Arte in its Golden Age: Why, What, How,” in Renaissance Drama, 38, 2010, pp.  225-239;  Pietropaolo, Semiotics and Pragmatics of Stage Improvisation, op. cit., pp. 19-26; H. Smith and R. Dean, Improvisation Hypermedia and the Arts Since 1945, London-New York, Routledge, 2016, p. 20.

22

Chapter 2

perhaps even by improving an otherwise expected result.10 Even an out of control, improvised reaction can contribute to the success of the work. One famous example is that of Protogenes who, frustrated by his inability to depict a dog’s drool, literally threw his sponge (used for color cleaning) at the painting, unintentionally producing the desired result.11 This is a typical case of serendipity—the luck of an unforeseen solution or discovery—which Picasso expressed by icastically synthesizing his artistic methodology: “Je ne cherche pas, je trouve.”12 The artist’s contribution will therefore consist in knowing how to choose, and give value to, what is discovered.13 The situations described here show that improvisation is a resource that, due to its capacity to adapt itself to contingency (a particular problem, something unforeseen, an accident) by giving it value, can help the work succeed by encouraging its aesthetic appreciation. A typology of improvisation not limited to the artistic realm (reacting in an inventive and effective manner to the unforeseen, to something that has gone wrong) constitutes a primary category of the added value of improvisation within the realm of art: it still regards, above all, the agent who improvises. There exists, however, a second typology of improvisation, which regards, more strictly, its appreciation: it consists in the voluntary exposure of both the agent (the artist) and the appreciator (who experiences what the artist creates) to contingency as the practice and the exploration of a sense of adventure that characterizes the co-involvement of human beings through their interactions with the environment. The two types of improvisation are connected by a notion of contingency that one “suffers” in reactive improvisation and “seeks out” in the deliberate type.14 In this second case, whoever practices artistic improvisation intentionally, even independently of functional economic, cultural, or social reasons,15 takes on 10

11 12 13 14 15

This reactive improvisation is the “improvisation impromptu” that Lydia Goehr distinguishes from the intentional character of “improvisation ex tempore.” Cf. L.  Goehr, “Improvising Impromptu, Or, What to Do with a Broken String,” in G.E.  Lewis and B.  Piekut (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, vol. 1, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 458-480. Pliny (the Elder), Natural History, Vol. IX, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, 1938, Book XXXV, §§10-103, p. 337. P. Picasso, Propos sur l’art, Paris, Gallimard, 1998, p. 21. However, the value and the significance of a work of art can also occur post hoc independent of the artist. Cf. A. Andrzejewski and A. Bertinetto, “What is Wrong with Failed Art?,” in Studi di Estetica, XLIX, IV, n. 1, 2021, pp. 1-23. Cf. above, chap. 1.3. Reasons such as scarcity of resources or social opportunity can nonetheless provide the motivation for an improvisational practice of the artistic type. Whoever is forced to improvise because of a lack of other means can also become a virtuoso of improvisation,

The Grammar of Contingency

23

a creative encounter with contingency, that is, exposes their own work to the unforeseen in a manner that is neither passive nor the imposition of totalizing control, since both stances would undermine its aesthetic success. Intentional artistic improvisation does not inhibit the emergence of the unforeseen events that force unexpected reactions and thus become constitutive elements of the improvisational process. Improvisation can therefore be understood as the elaboration of a grammar of contingency.16 The concept of grammar is here understood in the Wittgensteinian sense, namely, as a web of norms that give sense to our practices from within the practices themselves.17 Explaining the notion of contingency is, however, a bit more complicated. Contingency is first of all understood as the opposite of what necessarily exists, or as “what could have been otherwise,” either in the sense of an arbitrary contingency or in that of a destinal contingency:18 in the first case, what happens could have occurred differently if we had chosen differently (we could have eaten a ham sandwich, but we instead chose a cheese sandwich); in the second case, what happens could have been different, but we were not able to change it because these situations and occurrences (illnesses, wars, epidemics, accidents, mishaps, or unexpected lucky breaks) happen independently of our choices and our control, and are thus attributed to fate or to (mis)fortune.19 When applied to art, the first notion concerns both the non-necessary qualities of a work of art which cannot be derived from or justified by the constitutive conditions of a given artistic genre (usually artistically irrelevant properties, such as the odor of paint in a painting) as well as the choices made by the artist. The second notion concerns the factual conditions independent of the will of the artist that she must nonetheless confront: in primis finding oneself living and working in a certain natural and cultural environment.

16 17 18 19

making a virtue out of necessity. It is plausible that this is one of the historical reasons behind the birth of jazz. Cf. C. Béthune, Le Jazz et l’Occident. Culture afro-americaine et philosophie, Paris, Klincksieck, 2008. I have taken this wonderful expression from Bruno Besana (personal communication). Cf. Wittgenstein. Philosophical Investigations, op. cit. O. Marquard et al. (eds.), “Poetik und Hermeneutik XVII,” Kontingenz, München, Fink, 1998, pp. xi ff. The factical conditions into which the human being is thrown can be included in this realm, that is, in the sense of Geworfenheit (“thrownness”) that Martin Heidegger ties to the notion of “projection” (Entwurf ) in his definition of the human being as “thrown projection.” Where the “thrown projection” is understood as (trans)formed in the interactive encounter with the situation, this conception could serve also as a theoretical prompt for accepting improvisation as one of the specific qualities of being human. M. Heidegger, Being and Time (1927), San Francisco, Harper, 1962, pp. 174 ff., 185 ff., 265 ff.

24

Chapter 2

In this second sense, what is contingent is an event outside of any forecast, of any norms or action plans, and is therefore unforeseen [imprevisto]. Contingency is thus also opposed to the intentions of the author, to the norms of a genre, and to form as the organization of a work of art: it concerns failure due to the incompetence of the artist or to unforeseen factors that upset its formative process.20 Nevertheless, as Adorno teaches, the artistic form, as the organization of a work of art, does not, for example, exclude happenstance and contingency relative to the specific characteristics of a determinate material. The authentic work of art does not suppress contingency (what would entail an aseptic formalism); rather, it is “the nonviolent synthesis of the diffuse that nevertheless preserves it as what it is in its divergences and contradictions […]. A posited unity, it constantly suspends itself as such; essential to it is that it interrupts itself through its other just as the essence of its coherence is that it does not cohere.”21 In other terms, contingency is preserved as a contingency in the authentic work of art. Now, more than the aleatory art of Cage and Dada—which, programmatically, leaves the initiative to chance22—, improvisation seems to embody the model of this formative encounter with contingency (and its condemnation by Adorno, to which we will return later, sounds a bit out of tune). At play in improvisation is a formative working that is capable of encountering contingency (what occurs in an artistic performance) in an aesthetically sensible way, that is, by generating a (fallible) possibility of sense for this encounter. Through diverse materials, improvisation in the arts (when it succeeds) generates sense for contingency, from contingency, and thanks to contingency—at once realizing the joy of sense and of the senses and precisely by exhibiting their accidentality and precariousness. This is neither an issue solely of accepting23 nor solely of dominating the contingency of the encountered situation.

20 21 22 23

Cf. S.  Majetschak, “Aesthetic Contingency and Artistic Form: Reflections on their Relationship in Works of Art,” in International Yearbook of Aesthetics, 16, 2012, pp. 196-210. T. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory (1970), London, Continuum, 2002, p. 143. Cf. C. Janecke, Kunst und Zufall, Nürnberg, Verlag für Moderne Kunst, 1995; C. Hilmes and D. Mathy (eds.), Spielzüge des Zufalls, Bielefeld, Aisthesis Verlag, 1994. Cf. A. Bertinetto, “On Artistic Luck,” in Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics, 5, 2013, pp. 120-140. As Dan DiPiero observes (“Improvisation as Contingent Encounter, or: the Song of My Toothbrush,” in Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 12, 2018, n. 2, p. 7), the passive encounter with contingency offers above all “an empty ontological foundation for improvisation.” Cf. also G.  Peters, “Certainty, Contingency, and Improvisation,” in Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 8, 2012, n. 2.

The Grammar of Contingency

25

It is one of welcoming it by (co)responding to it in a responsible way:24 on the one hand, by adapting to the unforeseen circumstance, and on the other, by making it aesthetically opportune, one could say, by treating it as artistic material or even as the condition of artistic production.25 In other terms, it is a matter of expressing the resonance that characterizes the corresponding or co-responsive interaction between an organism and the environment.26 In this sense, one can speak of an artistic grammar of contingency. This is obvious in so-called free improvisation, whose execution is not bound to prefixed plans such as harmonic grids, strophic structures, choreographies, action plans, and predetermined roles. Here the focus of apprecia­ tion,27 that is, the core of the artistic message articulated in an artistic medium, is the grammar of contingency elaborated hic et nunc through improvised action. In constrained improvisation, however, it is not only the result of the corresponding interaction with contingency that guarantees success, but also the way that the performance realizes the prefixed plan, interpreting it in its own way. The improvisational contribution can be more or less respectful of what is expected, but the evaluation of the performance can never ignore its interpretative dimension: the way that a jazz standard is performed, a particular portrayal of Pulcinella or Harlequin, or how well a choreography is realized. The discontinuity between free and constrained improvisation guides the expectations of the audience: whoever goes to listen to a (announced as) free improvisation ought neither to expect particular references to works, styles, and themes, nor for her emotional and evaluative aesthetic experience to be governed primarily by those points of reference. Yet, the very category of “free improvisation” constitutes a point of reference for the audience’s experience and evaluation and in some situations can coalesce into a style bound to the repetitions, far from unpredictable, of clichés. As a result, the categorial opposition between free and constrained improvisation is indeed rather rigid. In fact, the freedom of an improvisation is always a matter of degree and relative. It presupposes technical and aesthetic expertise as its condition of possibility and

24 25 26

27

On the nature of the “correspondence” of aesthetic experience, cf. Perullo, Estetica ecologica, op. cit. Cf. also Matteucci, Estetica e natura umana, op. cit., p. 231. On the concept of “artistic material” in Adorno, cf. M. Farina, La dissoluzione dell’estetico, Macerata, Quodlibet, 2018. Cf. G. Matteucci, “Improvisation as Resonance,” in A. Bertinetto and M. Ruta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts, London-New York, Routledge, 2021, pp. 33-46. The theoretical importance of the notion of “resonance” is explored by H. Rosa, Resonanz, Berlin, Suhrkamp, 2016. On this idea cf. D. Davies, Art as Performance, Oxford, Blackwell, 2004, pp. 26 and 50 ff.

26

Chapter 2

depends on plans of action and thought that are learned, embodied,28 and subject to the constraints (in terms of time, space, and material, cultural, and economic resources) imposed by the specific situation. Free improvisation can also be regulated by ad hoc norms for the various arts (sometimes known by the audience). In music the performers can be given constraints of duration (“play for five minutes”), planned signals for particular musical events (crescendo, diminuendo, unison …), or prohibitions limiting them to perform familiar melodies or use traditional tones; moreover, they can develop strategies of interaction through practices that guide the performance in an unintentional way. The different practices of theatrical improvisation are usually governed, even in the absence of a script, by specific norms for an appropriate development of the performance. The most common is to accept a partner’s prompt: in fact, to reject the range of possibilities opened by the proposed fictional situation would risk provoking an immediate shutdown of the improvisational interaction and the failure of the performance (this does not occur, however, in music, where the rejection of the musical invitation can generate a creatively effective contrast).29 Similar limitations are present in improvised dance. The point is that even in “free” improvisation the success of the encounter with contingency can depend on respect for and towards limitations that are intentional or unintentional, conscious or unconscious, explicit or implicit. The grammar of contingency articulated by the performance considers the way which norms are not only followed, but also realized, in the specific situation of the performance itself. This holds for every improvisation. On the one hand, the norm must be adapted in a plastic manner to the specific, concrete situation, which cannot be predicted, and this adaptation carries a (potential) transformation of the norm.30 On the other hand, this freedom cannot be presupposed, but is always achieved through the limitations that are part of the concrete reality to which the improvisational acting must (co)respond by expressing its resonance in and with it. One could note that some of the criteria for the appreciation of an artistic improvisation are valid whether or not they are applied to an improvisation.31 The dynamic or delicate nature of a film, the expressive force of an improvised painting or a photographic snapshot, the formal coherence of an improvised 28 29 30 31

Cf. supra, chap. 1. 4. R.K. Sawyer, Creating Conversations. Improvisation in Everyday Discourse, Cresskill (NJ), Hampton Press, 2003, pp. 16 ff.; G. Lösel, Das Spiel mit dem Chaos. Zur Performativität des Improvisationstheater, Bielefeld, Transcript, 2013, pp. 98 ff., 103 ff. Cf., infra, chap. 4. Cf. P. Alperson, “On Musical Improvisation,” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 43, 1984, pp. 17-29, here 22 ff.

The Grammar of Contingency

27

piece of music or poem, the dramatic intensity of a dialogue between actors, or the graceful movements of a ballerina can all be reasons for aesthetically appreciating an artistic phenomenon independent of its improvisational aspect. Formal structures (photographic, cinematographic, literary  …) and expressive gestures (musical, theatrical, pictorial  …) can be appreciated outside of their being improvised. Therefore, once again: why improvise? The response is twofold. On the one hand, the aesthetic criteria for artistic success are never parameters external to the work being appraised. Whoever judges a work does not apply an abstract criterion to a particular case regardless of the specific concreteness of the work. The aesthetic concept used to judge a work is (trans)formed by virtue of the specific uses that are made of it when it is applied to different works: if the plausibility of the pragmatic idea of meaning can be confirmed, this comes from aesthetics. To judge a head painted by Raphael or a sculpture by Donatello as graceful,32 or one of Beethoven’s symphonies as powerful, I do not only apply the general concepts of “grace” and “power” to those particular cases, but creatively contribute to the (trans) formation of the aesthetic concepts of “grace” and “power.” Certainly, one can argue, in the footsteps of Baldesar Castiglione, that the “most universal rule” for acting with grace is to steer away from affectation at all costs, as if it were a rough and dangerous reef, and (to use perhaps a novel word for it) to practise in all things a certain nonchalance which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless.33 Yet, the positive significance of acting without affectation and concealing all artistry and effort, and moreover what the contribution of all of this is to the aesthetic value of the work, depends on the concrete case. Abstractly, grace is not a guarantee of aesthetic success. Works that express a great deal of effort can also be aesthetically valid. In short, the aesthetic concept exercises normative force only through the encounter with the contingency of the individual case. At least for this aspect, the operative logic of aesthetic judgment is the same as improvisation; artistic improvisation also merits philosophical attention because it produces an aesthetic experience that exhibits the modality of 32

33

Cf. G. Vasari, The Lives of the Artist (1550), Oxford, Oxford University Press, Oxford World Classics, 1998, pp. 317, 320, 332 and 159. Vasari characterizes Raphael many times as “gracious,” “graceful” or “very graceful” (for example on pp. 305, 308, 312, 324, 334, 452…) and uses singular, and meaningful, expressions such as “utmost grace” [graziosissima grazia] (p. 279) or the “a more complete grace” [grazia più interamente graziosa] (p. 283). B. Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier (1528), London, Penguin UK, 2004, pp. 67-68.

28

Chapter 2

the operation of aesthetic judgment: one’s attention is drawn to how the sense of an aesthetic appearance emerges by resonating through the corresponding confrontation with contingency. On the other hand, the grammar of contingency that characterizes improvisation draws particular attention to the taking form of materials (such as gestures, actions, words, sounds, colors, shapes …) in the glimmer of aesthetic appearance, or to the genesis of a work. Particularly in the performing arts, this implies that appreciation focuses on the interaction of the artists—among them, with the situation, with a material, with the audience—as constitutive of the aesthetic appearance of the unforeseen. From a semiotic point of view, improvisation is the index of the contingent performative situation in the performance itself, or the mark of artistic production through the product34 where—to take up Peirce35—the index is distinguished from the symbol and the icon because of the causal link that ties the sign (the smoke) to the information that it communicates (the fire). The artistic process of production is thematized by the product; the producer is present in the work and resonates in it as a constitutive element of its aesthetic sense: therefore, the clear distinction between art and reality (or life) falls into crisis, given that the real process of artistic production forms part of the aesthetic content of the work or of the performance. This grants a specific artistic significance to the product of an improvisation, by inviting the appreciator to focus their attention on the articulation of the artistic grammar of contingency when materials come into form, that is, on the process through which the aesthetic sense of the work or the performance emerges. I will wait until chapter 4 to explore the logic of improvisation in reference to the normativity of aesthetic judgment; for now, I will discuss the specific characteristics of this grammar. 2.3

Ad hoc Aesthetic Categories

Articulating an artistic grammar of contingency means constructively facing accidents, disorder, and chaos36—relative to a system of expectations—by

34 35 36

Cf. E. Tarasti, Signs of Music: A Guide to Musical Semiotics, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 2012, p. 194. Cf. C.S. Peirce, Philosophical Writings, New York, Dover Publications, 2011, p. 102: “An Index is a sign which refers to the Object it denotes by virtue of being really affected by that Object.” C.  Dell, “Möglicherweise Improvisation,” in W.  Knauer (ed.), Improvisieren, Hofheim, Wolke, 2004, pp. 119-121, here p. 119.

The Grammar of Contingency

29

inducing (in) an unforeseen (way an) aesthetic sense37 through this felicitous encounter. This involves learning how to do things such that the subject does not completely control her action by intentionally adjusting it in preparation for a specific set of objectives, but (co)responds to what happens in the specific situation. Improvisation questions the idea that the artist is the sole origin of the work’s meaning: rather, the work is the place where diverse systems and sources of meaning intersect.38 Authorship is thus in question at the very moment when it is exercised; and given that, as we will see in the upcoming chapters, artistic creativity is a sort of oxymoronic passive activity in which the artist is involved in the interaction with forms and materials that restrict her doing and on which she cannot exert total control, and to whose invitations she must respond, the (experience of) improvisation is paradigmatic (of the experience) of art as such. Here I would be tempted to invoke the thesis of Christoph Menke—which refers to a noble tradition that includes among its representatives the Plato of Ion, Herder, and Nietzsche—according to which artists possess “the ability to be not able.”39 Art is not only the realization and expression of a knowingbeing able on the part of the subject-artist who possesses techniques, abilities, and resources, but also the liberation of unavailable unbridled forces that, by exceeding the prescient control of the artist, occur and operate behind the artist’s back. Nevertheless, Georg Bertram40 rightly argues that, if the consequences are made explicit, this thesis reveals a somewhat extreme version of the ideology of the autonomy of art, one that breaks the genetic connection between art and human practices in which the aesthetics of improvisation is rooted. Instead, it is then a matter of understanding art in terms of a situated practice exposed to the unforeseen of each specific case. Although artistic production requires the control of specific techniques and procedures to manage the artist’s own body, to manipulate materials, to utilize tools, and to operate equipment, the apprehension of the grammar of contingency does not come before its concrete exercise, cannot be organized in systems of universally and abstractly valid precepts, and above all does not consist in the imposition of prefixed intentions to a concrete situation, but

37 38 39 40

Translator’s note: in the original Italian the author conveys a double sense of the “unforeseen,” applying it not only to the aesthetic sense itself, but also the way that it emerges: “lasciando emergere … un senso estetico (in modo) imprevisto.” Cf. Smith and Dean, Improvisation, Hypermedia and the Arts Since 1945, op. cit., p. 36. C. Menke, Force: A Fundamental Concept of Aesthetic Anthropology, New York, Fordham University Press, 2013, p. 92. Cf. Id., Die Kraft der Kunst, Berlin, Suhrkamp, 2013. Bertram, Art as Human Practice, op. cit., pp. 15-30.

30

Chapter 2

rather in the emergence of a sense through the interaction with it.41 The work emerges through the interaction with contingency, and the specific criteria of the “felicitousness” of this interaction are negotiated in the course of its production and reception. Thus the notion of operative know-how42 accurately describes the type of practice under consideration here. Improvisation is the exemplary case of this practice—in the Goodmanian sense of “exemplification” by which an example of something (object, quality, property, concept or practice) possesses this something and at the same time refers to it.43 The manuals for improvisation are collections of technical precepts concerning a practice, or methods for learning a pragmatic knowhow—such as the technical ability to play an instrument, an ability that can become automatic—or the expression of particular artistic poetics, or all of these things lumped together. In each case they represent a past or prefigure a future, but in themselves they do not configure the present and their study does not guarantee the aesthetic success of the work. They contribute to the grammar of contingency articulated by each improvisation not by governing the operation of the practice from the outside, but instead by becoming elements internal to the aesthetically operative know-how through which improvisation responds to the concrete situation of its exercise. Thus, akin to the idiosyncrasies that form the specific character of artistic styles as well as of individual artists, their contributions are measured aesthetically as ingredients of the production of (the aesthetic appearance of) the unexpected.44 41

42 43 44

On this idea, in chap. 4.4-5, in reference to Kant, Wittgenstein, Pareyson, Chomsky, and Luhmann I will argue that the normativity of artistic practice, as creative normativity, is self-programming: it creates itself through its exercise and its results enter back into the context as new conditions for its development. Matteucci, Estetica e natura umana, op. cit. p. 94. Cf. supra, chap. 1.5. N. Goodman. Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols, Indianapolis (IN), Hackett Publishing, 1976, p. 53. The manuals for artistic improvisation have a deep tradition in the performing arts. More than anywhere else, the proposed “rules” and exercises emerge ecologically from the author’s practice-room activities, which express the expressive poetics that are embodied and in play in their own artistic practice. Paradigmatic examples of this in contemporary dance and theater include: K. Johnstone, Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre, London, Faber and Faber, 1979; V. Spolin, Improvisation for the Theatre, Evanston (IL), Northwestern University Press, 1963; L.A.  Blom and L.T.  Chaplin, The Moment of Movement. Dance Improvisation, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988; D.  Nagrin, Dance and the Specific Image: Improvisation, Pittsburgh-London, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994. In music, just in the Western realm, there is an embarrassing wealth of theoretical-practical treatises. Rather than insisting on a classic like Carl Czerny’s Systematische Anleitung zum Fantasieren auf dem Pianoforte, op. 200 (Wien, Diabelli und Comp., 1829) or on the innumerable manuals dedicated to jazz improvisation, I will point out two Italian works dedicated to the didactics

The Grammar of Contingency

31

The aesthetic categories of improvisation are thus ad hoc: they signal and emphasize its situated concreteness in the configuration of the aesthetic appearance of the unforeseen. These are not, however, preceptive criteria that can guarantee the aesthetic success of artistic improvisations; in fact, their concrete significance must be renegotiated every time in response to the specific situation. They are aesthetic guiding-ideas that orient the cultural discourse about the practices of artistic improvisation. 2.3.1 Emergence A first category that captures a specific aspect of the aesthetic character of artistic improvisation is the emergence of sense from a material taking form. The specific aesthetic dimension of improvisation is relative to the taking form of a material, not to the formed material (even though it makes use of already formed materials, which it then transforms). In other terms, improvisation is characterized aesthetically by an always new commencement of sense, by the sense of a continual commencing that is constitutive of the aesthetic appearance of the un-fore-seen. Therefore, the aesthetic sense of the performance or of the work that arises from improvisation cannot be intentionally anticipated. Rather, it is a function of what happens in the contingency of the artistic task and in particular through the interaction between performers (in the case of a group performance), between artists (or the artist) and the situation of the artistic production, as well as between the appreciators and the work. The terms of these relations—the performers of a group improvisation, such as dancers in a performance of contact improvisation or actors in a performance of improv theater; the artists and the situation of production, or the materials and the specific tools that are available, including the body of the artist, the specific social context, a particular location …; the appreciators and the work— generate feedback loops through which every output also becomes an input: the results of the process become the new conditions against which the work can position itself. The aesthetic sense of a dancer’s gesture A is the function of the response of dancer B, to whose sense the subsequent movement of A contributes, and so on. The configurations of these movements and their dynamics also depend on the particular distribution of the spaces in the dance hall, which itself will acquire a specific aesthetic value thanks to what happens in it. The response of a particular audience—of passionate experts or profane skeptics, of distant observers or ones ready to be participants, of the distracted of “free” improvisation: M. Vitali, Alla ricerca di un suono condiviso. L’improvvisazione musicale tra educazione e formazione, Milano, Franco Angeli, 2004; M. Cosottini, Metodologia dell’improvvisazione musicale. Tra Linearità e Nonlinearità, Pisa, ETS, 2017.

32

Chapter 2

and bored or the attentive and entertained—also contributes to it. The sense of a work is thus redetermined through the affectively connoted, evaluative, and interpretative enjoyment of every spectator and listener. The specific aesthetic relevance of improvisation does not depend on an intentional governing of the process that configures the work of art. No particular subject (neither the artist nor the audience) is a priori capable of imposing total control over what happens. The artistic grammar of a sense (of the) unforeseen as formative of improvisation’s specific aesthetic appearance emerges in and through the interaction between the individual elements that contribute to the work.45 If it emerges. In fact, the sense of the unforeseen as aesthetic appearance emerges only if the work succeeds; but, the success of the work is not a quality that can be verified through the application of abstract criteria: it is not independent of the aesthetic appreciations and evaluations that can be (and often are) at odds with each other because they depend on the relation or correspondence and resonance that happens between the work and those who experience it, and on the transformative impact of this experience on the one who makes it.46 Therefore, the success of the work can be (and often is) gradual and partial. As long as the individual appreciators (as well as the possible aesthetic reasons adopted to support it) require concrete and direct experience, that is, interaction between a specific appreciator and a specific work in order to appreciate the work, aesthetic disagreement over the success of improvisation, as well as the criteria for judging it, remains a constant possibility. And yet, it is a creative possibility, an impulse that feeds the artistic practice of improvisation from the inside. This practice, consciously dedicated to the negotiation of an unforeseen aesthetic sense of what is happening, includes the risk of failure as the condition of (im)possibility of the grammar of contingency exhibited in its making. The possibility of the failure of improvisation is the condition of its success as improvisation. Indeed, as we will see shortly, an improvisation can succeed, even though it appears to fail as an improvisation. 2.3.2 Presence The aesthetic success of improvisation depends on its specific situation as a non-determinable aspect of the emerging of the aesthetic appearance of the unforeseen. The situatedness of improvisation is not only an ontological 45 46

On the role of emergence for improvisation, cf. R.K. Sawyer, Group Creativity, Mahwah (NJ), Lawrence Erlbaum, 2003, pp. 74 ff. I am referring to a well-known idea from Hans-Georg Gadamer presented in Truth and Method, op. cit., pp. 99-100.

The Grammar of Contingency

33

property (as an event whose spatio-temporal circumstances are elements of its identity), but also an aesthetic condition. Improvisation takes place here and now (also in a past here and now with respect to the time of its appreciation) and that is aesthetically significant: improvisation thematizes its taking place in the here and now. This is more obvious in some practices than in others. Particularly in the arts whose principle artistic material is language—literature, theater, poetry—the pragmatic self-reference to the present situation of the performance feeds the performative configuration of the unforeseen, thereby contributing to its aesthetic significance: the historical situation in which the performance takes place is its constitutive element. For example, an actor who improvises constructs his improvisation in reference to circumstances and events known to the present audience and relevant to the moment of the performance. Ultimately, the improvisation not only takes place in the present: rather, the present—the present spatio-temporal situation as well as the presence of those who take part—is constitutive of its aesthetic sense. On the one hand, the artist is present in a weak sense: the artist finds herself there, in the presence of the work and the audience. This is especially the case with the performing arts; nevertheless, the presence of the artist in the work is a specific aesthetic trait of improvisation also found in the other arts. On the other hand, the artist is present in an eminent sense: the affirmation of presence, the intensive and radical experience of the present,47 whether as a punctual hic et nunc, unrepeatable and singular, incalculable and surprising, or as the extended and fluid presence of a situation.48 The artist is installed in the present and is conscious of it; her perception is focused on it; she turns her attention towards what occurs; she responds to the present situation; she dedicates herself to confronting the moment and the others present (performers and audience). Not only is the artist present, but she affirms and exhibits her own temporal and corporeal presence, as well as that of what happens: indeed, she affirms her own presence as part of the presence of what happens, directing the attention of the appreciator to it. 47 48

E.  Fischer-Lichte, The Transformative Power of Performance. A New Aesthetics (2004), London-New York, Routledge, 2008, p. 99. A precise analysis of the theme of the present in a neo-phenomenological perspective is given by T. Griffero, “Come Rain or Come Shine … The (Neo)Phenomenological Will-to-Presentness,” in Id., Places, Affordances, Atmospheres. A Pathic Aesthetics, Abingdon, Routledge, 2020, pp. 84-93. On the role of presence and of the present in musical improvisation, cf. D. Goldoni, “Presence and Immanence, Improvisation between Liberation and the ‘New’,” in Sbordoni and Rostagno (eds.), Free Improvisation. History and Perspectives, op. cit., pp.  119-132; Id., “Sorprendente,” in I.  Pelgreffi (ed.), Improvvisazione, op. cit., pp. 119-139.

34

Chapter 2

In general, presence is understood as a process that occurs between the subject and the object of aesthetic perception, which is directed at the momentary and concurrent appearing of the givenness of the aesthetic phenomenon in the repleteness of its aspects:49 in improvisation the focus on the aesthetic presence of the work thus also involves the corporeal co-presence (real or deferred) of the artist and appreciator. In the performing arts, both are present at the same time during the performance and participate in the articulation of the grammar of contingency that characterizes the work’s autopoietic process of organization:50 their affective, emotive, expressive, and behavioral reactions to what is happening can be integrated into the performance, feeding back into it thanks to the responses of the performer (the process is a feedback loop). In other arts the artist also performs the function of the appreciator for her own work, with the relation between the spectator and the artist mediated by the work that deictically marks the situation and the process of its production as constitutive of its aesthetic appearance. Both for the artist and for the appreciator, the insistence on the presence that characterizes improvisation—as the promotion of the (affective) awareness of the present, that is, of being and of feeling in presence, and the expression of the corresponding and synchronous attunement with the world—sharpens the perception of one’s own vitality: that constitutes a crucial aspect of the aesthetic success of an improvisation.51 Moreover, the aesthetic pregnancy of presence—as the epiphany of the aesthetic qualities in the encounter with the work, the presentification of the artist and of the spectator in and through the work, and the deictic indication of the situation of production through the work itself52—intensifies a central aspect of aesthetic experience as such. This seems to require the direct encounter between the appreciator and the object of experience. Given that it is an intrinsically and hedonically affective and 49 50

51 52

Cf. M.  Seel., Aesthetics of Appearing, Stanford(CA), Stanford University Press, 2005, pp. 21-23, 35-36, 45-47. The notion of autopoiesis was introduced to explain the organization of the living organisms through processes of energetic exchanges with the environment: the system produces the components that in their turn produce the system, which in this way feeds back on itself (H.R. Maturana and F.J. Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition, Dordrecht, Reidel Publishing, 1980). In subsequent years it was applied to other fields, such as social systems (N. Luhmann, Social Systems (1984), Stanford (CA), Stanford University Press, 1995), conversations (Sawyer, Creating Conversations, op. cit.) and performance art (Fischer-Lichte, The Transformative Power of Performance, op. cit.). Cf. G.  Böhme, Bewusstseinsformen, München, Fink, 2014, p.  151, cit. in Griffero, Places, Affordances, Atmospheres, op. cit., p. 84. Cf. H.U. Gumbrecht, Production of Presence. What Meaning Cannot Convey, Stanford (CA), Stanford University Press, 2003.

The Grammar of Contingency

35

evaluative experience, the testimony of others, which would normally suffice for the acquisition of information and knowledge, is not sufficient to transmit the aesthetic qualities of the object (for example, a work of art). In aesthetic experience the subjective modalities of experience contribute substantially to its significance. The way that we experience the object—independently of the causes of experience and the testimony of others—is part of the cognitive and affective significance conveyed by the experience of the object53 and thus aesthetic judgment “is bound up with the experience of the one who makes it.”54 In short, the aesthetic experience involves the co-presence of the appreciator and work. In improvisation, the direct experience (acquaintance) is intensified by the constructive role of presence: the appreciator is explicitly and implicitly co-involved in the situation that is the ontologically and aesthetically relevant element of the artistic production of the unforeseen; the producer, for his part, is not only present, but makes presence (the artist’s, the situation’s, and the appreciator’s) an artistic resource. Nevertheless, a question arises in this regard. Generally one states that improvisation, as the coincidence of plan and action, as well as of process and product, consists in the concretization of invention in the situation or in “real time.” But it is not clear what we should consider real time. Usually one supposes that it is the time in which the performance takes place, the hic et nunc in which the coincidence of invention and realization occurs. Between the definition of “real time” (as well as of “situation” and “present”) and the definition of improvisation there seems to be a circularity. The real time of the present situation is defined as the time when the performance takes place, and likewise improvisation is defined as a performance that creates in the real time of the present situation. This is not a vicious circle, but instead an unavoidable hermeneutic circle, constitutive of the very being there [Dasein] of improvisation. In fact, what is concretely the present or real-time situation of the improvised performance is negotiated and decided in the unfolding itself of improvisation. If presence, as the attitude and stance of those participating in improvisation with respect to the present of the improvisational event, is a meaningful ingredient for the success of the artistic production of the unforeseen and a structuring aesthetic quality of its aesthetic enjoyment, the spatiotemporal extension of the present situation and its concrete determination as 53 54

K. Lehrer, Art, Self, and Knowledge, Oxford-New York, Oxford University Press, 2012. R. Scruton, Beauty, Oxford(UK), Oxford University Press, 2009, p 140. A conception of the aesthetic experience that focuses on the affective and hedonic experience of the appreciator in an even more decisive way is proposed by Jerrold Levinson in his “Toward an Adequate Conception of Aesthetic Experience,” in Id., Aesthetic Pursuits, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 28-47.

36

Chapter 2

a constitutive element of improvisation are also negotiated through its practice. What matters for improvisation as an artistic phenomenon, however, is not the mere temporal simultaneity of invention, realization, and enjoyment, but its aesthetic quality that contributes to the emerging of the aesthetic appearance of the unforeseen. Usually the real time of the aesthetic appearance of improvisation coincides with the duration of the performance: the concert, the theatrical presentation, a night of dance. In other cases (as with improvised architecture) the notion is more vague and involves a temporality of greater duration. Certainly, the spatio-temporal terms of improvisation are tied to demands—due to time limits, economic reasons, and social conventions—that restrict creative freedom; but, at the same time they offer material possibilities.55 By accepting such restrictions, artists and their audience implicitly or explicitly take up a stance towards them so that they can be made aesthetic elements of the performance: it is an aspect of the fact that conscious improvisation can pragmatically thematize the relation with the context by making it a part of the performance. A noted musical example is the Köln Concert (1975, ECM) in which Keith Jarrett begins his performance by referencing the melody of the bells that rang to alert the audience that the concert was about to begin. 2.3.3 Curiosity Linked to the intensive attention to the present is another category that orients the aesthetic appreciation of improvisation in all of its forms. I am referring to curiosity. The attention to the present, emerging due to an expertise constructed from accumulated past experiences, creates an opening for emerging and unexpected outcomes, in terms of meanings and values. It is thus guided by the desire to experience the new (Neugier, the German word for “curiosity,” literally means “desire for the new”). This is not the expression of a will to dominate or control what happens by means of predisposed and available structures,56 but rather an attitude of creative (de)construction directed at the presuppositions of the artistic grammar of contingency that characterizes the encounter with the unforeseen of an aesthetic appearance.57 Curiosity animates the capacity to imagine possibilities other than the status quo by paying intensive attention to what happens here and now and by caring for the 55 56 57

Cf. H.S. Becker, Art Worlds, Berkeley (CA), University of California Press, 1982. This is how Heidegger understands it, for example, in Being and Time, op. cit., pp. 396-397. I discussed the Foucauldian references of this conception in A.  Bertinetto, “Why Is Improvisation Philosophically So Appealing?,” in Sbordoni and Rostagno (eds.), Free Improvisation, op. cit., pp. 73-100.

The Grammar of Contingency

37

unforeseen which, as not-fore-seen, surprises us.58 For this reason it is strictly connected to the search for tension, suspense, and the unusual that animates the aesthetic experience aroused by many artistic practices, where the pleasure derives from the way in which the predictive mechanisms of the mind are betrayed by unexpected situations. In this regard, improvisation possesses two particularities. In the first place, the atmosphere of suspense potentially involves the artists, the performers exposed to the tension and the pleasure of the unexpected which they curiously seek out: and in this atmosphere of uncertainty, which becomes material for creativity, the appreciators are involved. In the second place, the so-called “paradox of suspense” relative to the experience of art usually consists in the difficulty of understanding how the effect of tension can be elicited a second time in the listeners, readers, or spectators who are already familiar with the work. In improvisation, however, such a paradox seems to regard the fact that the appreciators are expecting suspense, thereby re-entering the framework of predictable experience such that it dampens, rather than sharpens, the tension.59 The unforeseen, ultimately, is indeed expected and thus a “surprising boredom,” as a somewhat serious and facetious Gary Peters observes.60 Moreover, the unbridled search for the unexpected, the surprising, and the freedom from norms not only risks developing into a rigidly binding dogma, but also transforming itself into a common cliché. Nevertheless, just as knowing one is about to watch a thriller already predisposes the viewer to suspense without necessarily lessening the resulting tension from its viewing, the fact of waiting for the unforeseen does not necessarily seem to preclude the effects of surprise that the experience of improvisation will be able to elicit, nor to prevent the viewer from approaching that experience with a participatory curiosity and ready to grasp the aesthetic appearance of the unforeseen that can emerge from it. 58 59

60

Cf. C. McCall, “Some Philosophical Ambiguities of Curiosity in the Work of Heidegger, Foucault, and Gadamer,” in Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 42, 2011, 2, pp. 176-193. Cf. also infra, chap. 4.7. On the psychological and cognitive mechanisms of suspense in reference to the aesthetic experience of music and of other “temporal” arts (cinema and literature) cf. M. Lehne and S. Koelsch, “Toward a General Psychological Model of Tension and Suspense,” in Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 2015, 79, pp. 1-11; for music cf. also D. Huron, Sweet Anticipation. Music and the Psychology of Expectation, Cambridge (MA), The MIT Press, 2006. Thanks to Emanuele Arielli for suggesting to me the connection between curiosity and suspense in relation to improvisation. G.  Peters, “Improvisation and Habit,” in V.L.  Midgelow (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Dance, Oxford-New York, Oxford University Press, 2019, pp. 215-226, here p. 221.

38

Chapter 2

Artistic improvisation is curious—both in the sense that its protagonists are curious, and in the sense that it expresses and arouses curiosity—as the aesthetic experimentation, exploration, and initialization of unforeseen and unpredictable meanings and values that emerge in response to a situation that is specific and without precedent. It is experimentation in two interconnected ways: a doing that tests hypotheses, ideas, meanings, and values, as well as an experiencing that—while based on the application and transformative repetition of the already known (abilities, techniques, styles, etc.)—allows for the emergence of the new. Improvisation is a process that tests conditions in order to confirm or invalidate hypotheses of aesthetic success (admitting, modifying, or rejecting them) and also a practice of experimentation. Improvisation is thus an experiment and experimental. As an experiment it is an attempt:61 it operates (or plays) by testing solutions, re-proposing good results and by repeating, under different conditions, tests that previously failed. As experimental, it is an opening to the unforeseen, to what emerges from the specific situation of its practice: it is an adventurous and potentially creative practice. If it succeeds, it is experience in the eminent sense: experience that modifies the one who makes it. As an exercise of creativity, put to the test of contingency, improvisation is a laboratory of practical and playful experimentation with the conditions of aesthetic experience and with the aesthetic conditions of experience. The experimental adventure accomplished in the practice of improvisation as the performance of the unexpected impacts on the initial presuppositions of the practice itself: the response to the unforeseen meanings and values that emerge when a specific situation is approached creatively feeds back onto the practice, (trans)forming its conditions and producing the aesthetic appearance of the unforeseen. 2.3.4 Authenticity There is another significant aesthetic category of artistic improvisation connected to curiosity as an aesthetically formative exercise that is open to the new: authenticity. Authenticity is first of all an ontological property constitutive of improvisation. While an inauthentic painting is still a painting, even when the history of its production is not what it should be (it is not an authentic Rembrandt, but a forgery), an inauthentic improvisation—a copy of an improvisation or an execution of a composition that passes itself off as improvisation—is not an improvisation at all.62 One may argue whether the falsity of the inauthentic 61 62

Cf. Pareyson, Estetica. Teoria della formatività, op. cit., pp. 60 ff., 70 ff., 92. A. Bertinetto, “Immagine artistica e improvvisazione,” in Tropos, 7, 2014, 1, pp. 125-155, here pp. 132 ff.

The Grammar of Contingency

39

Rembrandt also diminishes its aesthetic value;63 but the ontological falsity of an improvisation seems certain to diminish its aesthetic value, because here the process and the product coincide, or the work is the indication or the imprint of the condition of its production—depending on whether one considers improvisation in the performing arts or in other arts. Where the modality of production is not what it ought to be, artistic failure would seem to be inevitable.64 Only when the very nature of improvisation’s aesthetic experience is thematized by a copy which does not conceal what it is, can the copy acquire an artistic value as a reflection on the specific aesthetic dimension of improvisation. This is the case with Blue (2014), a record by the group Mostly Other People Do The Killings that reproduces Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue (1959) with extreme accuracy.65 Even though they are (almost) perceptibly indiscernible, Kind of Blue is the product of improvisation, while Blue is not. And while the reasons given for the artistic value of this masterwork from the Miles Davis Quintet certainly include the fact that it was an improvisation, the artistic qualities of the remake (a true clone) Blue are certainly different. Not simply the exhibition of virtuosity—which distinguishes an exceptional forgery—but instead the invitation à la Borges or à la Danto66 to consider how the context helps to determine to the identity of a work of art and how the performance reflects on the aesthetic relevance of improvisation: if it is possible to remake, in a thoughtful way, what was created through improvisation—such that the listener cannot tell them apart—why then would one run the risk of improvisation? One might respond to this provocation by pointing to the parasitical nature of the copy, which makes sense primarily as a contribution to the history of effects produced by the work it copies. Moreover, one can 63

64

65 66

For many this is the case. The attribution of a work, initially considered to be a fake, to a famous artist is often taken as the rediscovery of a “lost materpiece” (cf. C. Gatti, “E dalla cantina salta fuori un Rembrandt,” in la Repubblica, 13 September 2020). For an introduction to this question see A.  Lessing, “What Is Wrong with a Forgery,” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 23, 1965, pp. 461-471; D. Dutton, “Artistic Crimes,” in The British Journal of Aesthetics, 19, 1979, pp. 302-341; M. Thériault, “Faux tableaux, vrais problèmes: la question de la contrefaçon,” in Canadian Aesthetics Journal / Revue canadienne d’esthétique, 1, 2005; L. Giombini, “Originalism and Anti-Originalism: Style and Authenticity in Aesthetic Appreciation,” in Debates in Aesthetics, 15, 2020, 1, pp. 52-73 This case (the copy as a remaking or reproduction of an improvisation) differs from those (authentic) works of art (which I will discuss above all in chap. 3 in reference to particular artistic forms) that, by pretending to be or simulating the work of improvisation, perform the aesthetic appearance of the unforeseen. Cf. Bertinetto, Eseguire l’inatteso, op. cit., pp. 239 f. J.L.  Borges, Ficciones (1944), New York, Grove Press, 1962, pp.  45-56; Danto, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, op. cit.

40

Chapter 2

certainly demonstrate the ability to (re)make what was already made (perhaps by others), but making it (the first time) was a performance of improvisation. Furthermore, as the supporters of contextualism argue, the modes and circumstances in which a work is realized are relevant for the work’s artistic merits and can be also relevant for the perception of the work as an aesthetic engagement with the unforeseen.67 Nevertheless, improvisation does not exclude the remake, and is in fact itself a constant remaking. There is no absolute improvisation and the authenticity of improvisation—even in the ontological sense just described—is always an achievement of making rather than an acquired given. However, the appropriate re-use of readymade elements can also be a resource for any artistic improvisation. The improvisational practice destabilizes the dogmatic opposition between the original and the copy, between innovation and tradition. Such a relation is often understood in terms of an opposition: at times improvisation is identified with tradition, continuity, and repetition, while at other times with novelty, invention, and interruption. Nevertheless, improvisation must be understood neither solely as the repetition of a tradition, nor as absolute innovation. Instead, the thematization of improvisation helps to clarify tradition as a continual (trans)formation and invention as the specific (ab)use of handeddown habits, rules, styles, and techniques:68 original work emerges thanks also to imitation and the copy.69 In such a way, practices and cultural objects such as the variation, the version, the arrangement, the cover, the mashup, the citation, and the remix offer yet more forms of improvisation.70 They are expressions and applications of that “distributed creativity” thanks to which 67 68

69 70

I will return to this theme in reference to improvisation in the non-performative arts in chap. 3.6. One of the merits of the volume edited by E. Hallam and T. Ingold, Creativity and Cultural Improvisation (op. cit.) is precisely that of concentrating on this oscillation of improvisation between tradition and innovation, or between imitation and invention, by articulating the reciprocal connection between the two concepts. Cf. G. Peters, The Philosophy of Improvisation, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2009. On these themes, cf. G. Brown and D. Hesmondhalgh (eds.), Western Music and Its Others. Difference, Representation and Appropriation in Music, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000; F. Döhl, Mashup in der Musik. Fremdreferenzielles Komponieren, Sound Sampling und Urheberrecht, Bielefeld, Transcript, 2016; A. Bertinetto, E. Gamba and D. Sisto (eds.), “Ladri di musica,” special issue of Estetica. Studi e ricerche, 2014, 1; L. Lessig, Remix. Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, London, Bloombsury, 2008. Cf. also J.O.  Young, Cultural Appropriation and the Arts, Malden (MA), Wiley/Blackwell, 2008; J.O.  Young and C.G.  Brunk (eds.), The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation, Malden (MA), Wiley/Blackwell, 2009; F. Döhl and A. Riethmüller (eds.), Musik aus II. Hand. Beiträge zur kompositorischen Autorschaft, Laaber, Laaber Verlag, 2018. Cf. infra, chap. 4.2.

The Grammar of Contingency

41

a cultural artifact (perhaps in disuse, no longer current, worn out, or out of style) is reappropriated, re-signified, and transformed in aesthetically meaningful and unexpected ways.71 The transformation of Broadway songs into jazz standards nicely illustrates these processes that concretely demonstrate how the way of doing is invented in the course of doing, or how creativity is at work in the arts: the creative novelty derives from the appropriation and readjustment of old materials, including cultural “scrap” inherited more or less passively. In other terms, the invention of the new derives from the appropriation of the old. This is demonstrated when artists create in varying ways by reacting reflexively to the works of the past: adaptation, distortion, recombination, disarticulation, citation, and rejection. That practice does not contradict the fact that authenticity, in a different meaning of the term, is a decisive quality of improvisation as the performance of the aesthetic appearance of the unforeseen. The work of improvisation is the expressive fingerprint of its author who, by making it, configures and demonstrates its stylistic character—even though, as was already suggested and will be argued in the next chapter (sec. 2.2), the authorship of improvisation is brought into question by the loss of control that leads to the emergence of contingency. Some hold that improvisation, particularly in the realm of music, is transparent with respect to the emotions of the artist who expresses them through the music in a direct and immediate way.72 The one who improvises does not express emotions artistically articulated by some other, but instead shows her emotions, which contributes to the specific quality of its aesthetic configuration: therefore, a successful improvisation is expressively authentic. Nevertheless, nothing guarantees that a “natural” expression of emotions is also artistically valid: in fact, as occurs in other artistic practices, the expressivity in improvisation is not (only) a passive, passionate, and immediate outlet of feelings, but also an active and formative configuration of an aesthetic appearance articulated through artistic means. Expressively authentic improvisation does not necessarily reveal the (presumed) true interior life of the artist; rather, it exhibits the formation of artistic personalities, in interaction with other

71

72

On the notion of distributed creativity, in relation to music, cf. G.  Born, “On Musical Mediation: Ontology, Technology, and Creativity,” in Twentieth-Century Music, 2, 2005, 1, pp.  7-36; E.F.  Clarke and M.  Doffman (eds.), Distributed Creativity: Collaboration and Improvisation in Contemporary Music, New York, Oxford University Press, 2017. For example, C. Canonne, “L’appréciation esthétique de l’improvisation,” in Aisthesis, 6, 2013, pp. 331-356.

42

Chapter 2

personalities, with the concrete situation of the artistic performance, and with the cultural tradition of the practice in question.73 An authentic personality is a work always in fieri: the authenticity does not consist here in the transparent revelation of a natural self, but in an expression of the creative task of shaping a self through the performance of actions for which one claims responsibility. Artistic creativity is thus the paradigm of the expressive formation of a personality: one significant part of the task performed by artists consists in taking responsibility for their works by fashioning coherent artistic personalities (styles). Improvisation, for its part, is authentic when it expresses the personalities of the artists in construction or, still better, in the moment of their construction and as a construction underway, in the creative interaction with other artists and with a given situation. In fact, improvisational expressivity is the formation of the self of the artist through her (co)responding to contingency (and in this way “personality is a central product of all improvisation”).74 Improvisation can then be understood as an exemplar of the expressive formation of artistic personalities. In this sense improvisation is and shows, in aesthetic terms, the practice of authenticity, not only because the improvisers are formally responsible for their decisions and actions, but also because ontologically they become what they are through what they make and “say” artistically, discovering/inventing their own “voice” while putting it into play and risking it in the interaction;75 they “psychopoetically”76 create what they are: what they do decides what they become, in the sense that their self is liberated from itself (by surprising its own memories, habits, and conventions) in the very process that, recursively, feeds the self (in terms of memories, habits, and conventions). The rule that guides one’s own existence is generated through the very process in which the self is performed. In line with the Nietzschean idea of authenticity,77 one “is” to the extent that one “becomes.” This “being one self as becoming one self” is expressed and 73

74 75 76 77

For a healthy injection of skepticism regarding the role of emotional authenticity in the expressiveness of artists, and in particular of actors, as part of an overall critical examination of emotions in the field of aesthetics, cf. P. D’Angelo, La tirannia delle emozioni, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2020, pp. 170-204. T. Hampton, “Michel de Montaigne, or Philosophy as Improvisation,” in Lewis and Piekut (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, vol. 1, op. cit., pp. 227-238, here p. 235. Cf. Goldoni, “Sorprendente,” op. cit.; Id., “Liberazione della vita,” in Itinera, 10, 2015, pp. 331-350; D. Sparti, L’identità incompiuta, Bologna, il Mulino, 2010. O. Flanagan, “Performing Oneself,” in E.S. Paul and S.B. Kaufman (eds.), The Philosophy of Creativity: New Essays, Oxford-New York, Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 105-124. Cf. F.  Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001,  §270 and §335, pp. 152 f. and 187 ff.

The Grammar of Contingency

43

exhibited in improvisational making. This must not be misunderstood as a mere expression of individualism. The self is an ideal exemplified by the artistic performance that embodies it in an individual who, in the case of a collective performance, is “criss-crossed” by the intersubjective relations shared among members of a group (that as such can claim its own expressive authenticity) and by the relation that this individual has to the traditions of an artistic practice. Therefore, as Charles Taylor argues, faithfulness to oneself does not exclude, but on the contrary requires, a responsibility towards the extrasubjective demands of communities and traditions.78 In the field of art, the dedication to authenticity leads to the confrontation with traditions, practices, genres, and works that exercise their normative force by becoming elements of an artist’s personality. Nevertheless, what relevance does expressive authenticity have for the performance of the aesthetic appearance of the unforeseen? My thesis is that the aesthetic relevance of the expressive authenticity of improvisation depends on its auratic character. Not in the sense of aura as an expositive-commercial value (as is the case with a great deal of contemporary art),79 but in the sense of the expressive atmosphere of uncertainty, trepidation, curiosity, and adventure shaped by the aesthetically formative effect of the bond it has with the unique situation in which it occurs:80 it can be understood as responsibility and faithfulness towards the moment and as respect to contingency, since it involves a response creatively appropriate to, that is, correspondingly resonant with, what is happening in the hic et nunc. Coping with the challenges carried by the specific moment of improvisation is an artistic merit, if it can be appreciated not only in terms of solving technical problems (such as the coordination among actors), but also as a type of artistic authenticity: the faithfulness to the moment, to the happening, to contingency as an aesthetic phenomenon. Thus, expressive authenticity in improvisation is kairological, in which kairos is the right and opportune moment, “the good according to the category of time” (as François Julien notes),81 or the moment in which either the opportune 78 79 80

81

C. Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, Cambridge (MA)-London, Harvard University Press, 1991, p. 91. Cf. A. Dal Lago and S. Giordano, Mercanti d’aura. Logiche dell’arte contemporanea, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2006. Cf. A. Bertinetto, “Aura e improvvisazione,” in H.C. Günther (ed.), Kunst im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert zwischen Klassizismus und Moderne, Nordhausen, Traugott Bautz, 2018, pp.  179-218; D.  Mersch, “Ereignis und Aura. Radikale Transformation der Kunst vom Werkhaften zum performativen,” in Kunstforum, n. 152, 2000, pp.  94-103. On the relation between aura and atmosphere, cf. T. Griffero, Atmospheres: Aesthetics of Emotional Spaces, London-New York, Routledge, 2014, in particular pp. 75-78. F. Julien, Treatise of Efficacy (1996), Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2004, p. 62.

44

Chapter 2

(good) choice is made or the opportune action is executed: the action whose ends are matched to the specific situation.82 However, this is not only a matter of doing the right thing when the occasion presents itself. Rather, it is about finding and inventing suitable opportunities for the artistically right thing to do. Naturally, the improvisers cannot predict exactly if their action is correct or opportune or “faithful to the moment.” Their work is correct or opportune or faithful to the moment only if it works, that is, if it manages to realize the (or an) aesthetic sense (of the) yet unforeseen; moreover, it can be valued as such solely a posteriori, when the moment has passed, thanks to its own reactions and those of others (the input of other artists and, in a live performance, the reaction of the audience) and, as we will see better in the final chapter, thanks to the aesthetic normativity (trans)formed by improvisation itself. The art of the improviser consists in exhibiting a refined sensibility for the moment, for the present-presence, both in the sense of the precise moment in which a performance takes place, and also in the sense of the concrete situation and the specific conditions of the performance (the type of audience, the type of location, the members of the group, the artistic genre, the type of artistic event, etc.) without being able to grasp, so to say, the moment before it happens or to control the situation in which it participates from the outside. This idea of artistic authenticity conforms to the existentialist notion of authenticity as the assumption of responsibility towards oneself and towards one’s own contingent situation. At the root of the etymology of Heidegger’s notion of Eigentlichkeit (eigen = one’s own) and in contrast with the deictic and inauthentic character of the “they” [das Man]—letting oneself conform to the general “they say” and “they do” without making decisions83—, authenticity consists in making existence and the world one’s own existence and one’s own world, by corresponding to it and taking on responsibilities towards it. In this framework, the authenticity of a work of art consists in the responsibility towards one’s own contingent situation.84 Therefore, improvisation embodies artistic authenticity, as its success requires one to assume responsibility when faced with the specific situation of the performance and thus to turn the

82

83 84

W. Ax, “Improvisation in der antiken Rhetorik,” in M. Gröne et al. (eds.), Improvisation. Kultur- und Lebenswissenschaftliche Perspektiven, op. cit., pp. 63-79, here p. 67; G.P. Norton, “Improvisation, Time, and Opportunity in the Rhetorical Tradition,” in Piekut and Lewis (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, vol. 1, op. cit., pp. 262-288, here pp. 267-273. Heidegger, Being and Time, op. cit., p. 149. Cf. B. Baugh, “Authenticity Revisited,” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 46, 1988, pp. 477-487.

The Grammar of Contingency

45

contingency of the moment into a creative resource: the performance of the aesthetic unexpected. 2.4

The Aesthetic (In)comprehension of Improvisation

Emergence, presence, curiosity, and authenticity are the categories of the artistic grammar of contingency that characterize the aesthetics of improvisation. Nevertheless, we still have to understand how this grammar influences the experience of enjoyment. Does the fact that the art being experienced is an improvisation have any aesthetic relevance for the appreciator? And, if it does, what is it? First of all one needs to consider that improvisation is a resource for artistic creativity that is not dependent on its being performed in the direct presence of an audience. Musical works can be composed through improvisation (I am thinking for example of the compositions of Giacinto Scelsi, but also of songs written through the improvised collaboration among members of a musical group)85 and the techniques of theatrical recitation and of dance can be generated through improvisation as “dramaturgical tools”86 in rehearsal: perhaps, as in the theater of Jewgeni Wachtangow, Jerzy Grotowski, and Eugenio Barba, to free oneself from stereotypical automatisms by learning how to exhibit spontaneity while acting;87 or perhaps, as in the dance-theater of Pina Bausch, to become a method for composing movements to be repeated in a planned performance.88 Furthermore, in the majority of cases of improvisation in arts like literature and poetry, painting, cinema, and photography, the appreciator perceives the result only after the work is completed.89 In such instances the appreciator does not literally perceive the process of improvisation, but instead its product. Nevertheless, on the one hand, this does not deny the aesthetic relevance of improvisation as a modality of artistic production: in fact, knowing that the production of the work is improvised can influence 85 86 87

88 89

Preston, A Philosophy of Material Culture, op. cit., 2013, pp. 90-130. A.  Attisani, “Declinazioni dell’improvvisazione teatrale,” in Ferreccio and Racca (eds.), L’improvvisazione in musica e in letteratura, op. cit., pp. 138-153, here p. 138. A.  Matzke, “Der unmögliche Schauspieler: Theater-Improvisieren,” in H.-F.  Bormann, G.  Brandstetter and A.  Matzke (eds.), Improvisieren. Paradoxien des Unvorhersehbaren. Kunst − Medien − Praxis, Bielefeld, Transcript, 2010, pp. 161-182; Lösel, Das Spiel mit dem Chaos, op. cit., p. 54; Pietropaolo, Semiotics and Pragmatics, op. cit., p. 132. Brandstetter, “Selbst-Überraschung: Improvisation im Tanz,” in Knauer (ed.), Improvisieren, cit., pp. 183-200, here p. 188. Cf., infra, chap. 3.5-7.

46

Chapter 2

its perception, guiding the audience’s attention and aesthetic appreciation; moreover, the improvised production can effectively leave perceptible traces in the work. On the other hand, and above all, the aesthetic appearance of the unforeseen can be exhibited as the artistic sense of the work even if the real improvisational nature of the process of production is absent. In other words, as we will see in chapter 3 in reference to diverse artistic forms, improvisation can be simulated for aesthetic purposes. Therefore, to me it does not seem justified to contend that only the performer cares if and to what extent a performance—for example dance—is or is not improvised,90 nor to hold the more radical thesis that what matters is the result and not how that result is achieved.91 In fact, to the appreciators of an improvisation what matters is not only the narrated or recited fiction, the choreography or the music performed, or the visual qualities of the image, but also the improvised nature of the fiction, of the image, of the music, of the dance, etc. The focus of aesthetic appreciation includes the event of the artist (or the artists) who, by risking failure, construct a work.92 The appreciators are wrapped up in this event. They follow the artists’ moves and their perception of the work feeds on the imagination of how the artists will continue. On the basis of cognitive and aesthetic information they form a provisional sense of what will happen in an abductive way, that is, by generating a hypothetical rule that explains the individual case.93 Similar to what happens to the artists themselves (whose imagination nonetheless influences, in a more direct way, the articulation of the performance), their expectations may be confirmed or denied. Or—for object-works like photographs, paintings, and films, that the artist exposes after producing them and not in the course of their production—the appreciators will be surprised by the unpredictability of the work and will pay attention to the traces of the artistic production in the product itself: a thicker and rougher brush stroke, a surprising effect or the snapshot of an unfinished character, a floating subjective point of view of the moving image. 90 91 92 93

This is suggested by Friederike Lampert (Tanzimprovisation, Bielefeld, Transcript, 2007, p. 41) and Domenico Pietropaolo (Semiotics and Pragmatics, op. cit., p. 17). This is argued by K. Johnstone, Impro for Storytellers, London, Faber & Faber, 1998, p. 77. In reference to theater, cf. Lösel, Das Spiel mit dem Chaos, cit., p. 33. Abduction is the rule generated in order to interpret a sign, when beginning with a single case we anticipate hypothetically the criterion that will be used to judge it. Cf. Peirce, Philosophical Writings, op. cit., pp. 304 ff.; U. Eco, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (1983), Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1986 pp.  39-43. On improvisation and abduction cf. A. Bertinetto, “Performing Imagination. The Aesthetics of Improvisation,” in Klesis – Revue philosophique, 28, 2013, pp. 62-96. Cf. infra, chap. 4.5.3.

The Grammar of Contingency

47

In general they will perceive the effort and the prowess of the artist, suffering with them in their moments of difficulty, celebrating with them when they achieve a positive result. The appreciator, in the end, is coinvolved in the articulation of the artistic grammar of contingency from which the aesthetic unforeseen emerges. Their presence is a constitutive element of it. The audience not only finds themselves in the same space-time as the performer, as occurs in every live performance (whether or not it is improvised); rather, the aesthetic enjoyment of the work—the result of the artist’s practice—re-enters into the formative process, corresponding to it and resonating in the production as a conditioning element. In the case of a live improvisation, the audience does not know what will happen, not only because they do not know in advance what will be offered to them (while whoever listens to a symphony or a sonata can know it), but more fundamentally because their very presence forms (part of) what happens and contributes to the emerging of the aesthetic unforeseen. 2.4.1 Empathy Hence the particular relevance of the notion of empathy (feeling the feelings of others) for grasping the specific aesthetic quality of the perception of an improvisation.94 If in every art an identification with the work and/or the emotional response to what the work represents or expresses can contribute to its aesthetic appreciation, here the emotive response of the audience— empathetic to the events of the artists who produce the work in the adventurous encounter with contingency—contributes to the formation of this very encounter. The appreciator follows the development of the work by focusing her attention on the present and by imagining possibilities that will give an artistic sense to what happens. Ideally, her experience is experimental and adventurous like that of the performer and she possesses a similar curiosity for what she perceives. If the artist fails, her experience will also fail; if the artist succeeds, it will be a shared success.95 But perhaps this is an exaggeration? Ultimately, the task of the artist who produces the work is rather distinct from the one who perceives it. The 94

95

Cf. A. Coplan and P. Goldie (eds.), Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, Oxford-New York, Oxford University Press, 2011; A. Pinotti, Empatia. Storia di un’idea da Platone al postumano, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2011. On musical improvisation and empathy cf. n. 80, 2017, of the journal improfil. Theorie und Praxis improvisierter Musik. Thus improvisation tends to grant a qualitatively greater formative importance to elements such as presence and empathy which characterize any live performance. These elements, due to the co-presence of the artist and appreciator, are constitutive of the grammar of contingency that is in play during improvisation. Thanks to Marcello Ruta for an important comment on this theme.

48

Chapter 2

responsibilities and the roles of each are also distinct. Nonetheless, the sense of artistic improvisation also rests on the sharing of failure and success. In fact, improvisation tends to destroy the so-called “fourth wall,” the separation between the stage and the audience (this destruction is fairly obvious in cases of radical and experimental improvisation). The artists directly consult the audience by pragmatically making reference to the performative situation of which they are a part, involving them not only cognitively, but also affectively and physically. This involvement is not external to the work: it contributes feedback to the working of the artists. The affectively connoted, evaluative, and interpretative perception of the work is part of the contingency whose artistic grammar is articulated by the improvisation. That carries with it the structural possibility of misunderstanding—which can be productive and consists in the divergence between the sense formed by the audience on the basis of their expectations and those prospected by the artists. But it can also realize a complicit attunement when the grammar of contingency functions to the point of becoming a shared free play with the unforeseen in which, to put it into Gadamerian terms, the players play as if played by the game itself: in moments of flow96 by which the performers and appreciators are absorbed in their activity, the context of expectations are (trans)formed happily, and the aesthetic sense emerges unexpectedly.97 2.4.2 Witz More specifically, aesthetic appreciation—as an element of the play with the unforeseen shared between performer and appreciators—functions in a manner similar to understanding a joke [Witz]. The encounter with the unforeseen and its artistic elaboration trigger a device analogous to the creative cunning of the Witz: the surprising reversal of a destabilizing event that, through the creative negation of a violated norm,98 becomes a resource of sense and has its 96 97

98

On flow cf. M. Csíkszentmihályi, Flow, New York, Harper & Row, 1990. Gadamer, Truth and Method, op. cit., pp. 101 ff. Although Gadamer refers to the interpretation and reception of works and attributes the character of the repeatability of the work to the game of improvisation, as I have already shown in my book Eseguire l’inatteso (op. cit., chap. 7), his hermeneutics can be adopted as a theoretical framework to understand the transformative character of the relationship between the interpretations of a work and the work itself precisely in the sense of the transformative and recursive logic of improvisational normativity. On “absorption” in relation to music, cf. S.  Høffding, A Phenomenology of Musical Absorption, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Cf. P. Virno, “Jokes and Innovative Action. For a Logic of Change,” (2005) in P. Virno, Multitude. Between Innovation and Negation, Cambridge (MA), MIT Press, 2008, pp. 67-166. On the relation between improvisation and wit cf. T. Cohen, “Humor,” in B. Gaut and D. McIver

The Grammar of Contingency

49

efficacy confirmed only ex post. The Witz is the product of a “metic” cunning,99 which circumvents the rule by producing an unpredictable anomaly, an alteration of sense whose psychological consequence is an affective discharge that results in laughter. The emotive reaction (both of the artists, as appreciators of what they are creating, and also of the audience involved in the experience they are having) to the creative response to the unforeseen is similar: it marks the perception of the move that, by deviating from norms and expectations (however in a sort of state—or better: process—of exception),100 is allowed to (co)respond felicitously by generating a possibility of sense—a sense as aesthetic possibility: triggered by an unforeseen interruption of expected sense, an unforeseen sense emerges. And just as the comprehension and effect of a Witz are not guaranteed, neither are the success and aesthetic appreciation of improvisation. 2.4.3 An Unforeseen Paradox Therefore, one must not commit the error of objectifying the aesthetic sense of improvisation that emerges in enjoyment as the result of a practice external to it: the aesthetic sense, or the aesthetic senses, of the work of improvisation is/are (trans)formed by virtue of the interaction among experiences, evaluations, and interpretations of those who participate in the practice, the audience included. It is one of the reasons why the performance of an actor, a musician, or a dancer varies depending on the audience. This factor, which is the unavoidable element of every performative situation, in improvisation forms part of the conditions of the work’s production exhibited in the work itself: it is an artistic resource. The aesthetic success of improvisation emerges as a function of the pragmatic and hermeneutic negotiations affectively connoted within the artistic practice and is a matter of taste—a taste that is educated and formed in the course of an experience that is done and undone as we go along, as happens in every experience of art. As I will develop in chapter 4 (secs. 5 and 6), taste (even the one relative to improvisational practice) is, on the one hand, an expertise based on experiences and criteria of aesthetic value that are pervasive and available in a cultural environment; on the other hand, every exercise of taste—both in aesthetic enjoyment (in terms of experience and judgment) and also in artistic production (but also in its promotion and Lopes (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, London-New York, Routledge, 2005, pp. 469-476. 99 Cf. supra, chap. 1.5. 100 Cf. D. Cecchi, “Stato d’eccezione e creatività. Riflessioni a partire da Carl Schmitt e Emilio Garroni,” in Tropos, V, 2012, 1, pp. 75-90.

50

Chapter 2

marketing)—reenters into the conditions of the “rule of taste” by altering the criteria of evaluation and (trans)forming expertise. Taste—and in this the metaphorical concept of taste as the whole of characteristics that configure the aesthetic preferences of individuals and social groups is analogous to taste understood as sense—is also modified in an improvisational way: not only by becoming refined or deteriorated according to prefixed criteria, but by generating its own criteria in the situation.101 Improvisation therefore possesses a particularity. Success, or turning the confrontation with contingency into art, generates a paradox in the form of an aesthetic unforeseen on a second level:102 the unforeseen is expected and what is unforeseen is precisely the withholding of the unforeseen. The more nimbly the artist masters the chaos and the work realizes its form, the more the appreciator will doubt that they are really attending an improvisation and not the execution of a predetermined plan. Knowing that improvisation leads the exhibition to contingency and the risk of failure, the audience will tend to perceive a performance that does not work as improvised, appreciating even the moments of hesitation and disorientation as the very evidence (of an idea) of improvisation (an idea of improvisation in which the prejudice of the aesthetics of imperfection, which I will discuss later, is rooted). Conversely, in so far as they do not perceive the uncertainties of the process but instead its success (above all in terms of the formal balance and organization), the appreciator will reflexively question the improvisational nature of a successful artistic production: “how is it possible that it could go so well? How could they have not practiced this move? Am I being deceived?” This doubt about the reality, that is, the authenticity of improvisation stems from the unsuccessful aesthetic appearance of the unforeseen, and in it resonates the question about the sense of improvisation discussed at the beginning of the chapter. Being the expression of an aesthetic unforeseen on the second level, this doubt often accompanies the aesthetic experience of a successful improvisation; indeed, it can be the empirical confirmation, however paradoxical, of its very success. It is an effect of the self-reflective and systematic structure of improvisation. Improvisation is self-reflective, for while it takes place and is performed as invention in the moment, or as what is opposed to preparation, to imitation, to repetition, and to planning, it also exposes its normative and factual restrictions, reintegrating its other into itself, as its own condition of possibility, while excluding it. By aiming for the unforeseen as its target, it expects it and 101 On this theme Nicola Perullo has written well and often. See Epistenology, part II: “Taste as a Task,” New York, Columbia University Press, 2020. Cf. infra, chap. 4.5.1. 102 Lösel, Das Spiel mit dem Chaos, op. cit., p. 234.

The Grammar of Contingency

51

rejects it precisely as unforeseen; instead, by repeating what is already known and by planning possibilities of action, it renders the unforeseen possible as effectively not-foreseen: the rule functions through its alteration, the unforeseen emerges as other than what was expected.103 The structure of improvisation is systematic,104 since the recursive nourishment of the process that self-regulates, by reintegrating the unforeseen outcomes into the conditions of its functioning, also includes within it the point of view of the observer: thus the appreciator’s doubts about the improvisational nature of the process— doubts that reject the success of improvisation as improvisation and in which the question about the sense of improvisation is rooted, where the philosophical reflection on the aesthetics of this artistic practice begins—are precisely the result of improvisation’s success. The aesthetic misunderstanding is the marker of artistic success. It thus seems possible that improvisation does not manage to communicate its genuine authenticity directly as an unprepared and unintentional activity. By showing its lack of preparation, it declares its failure; by exhibiting its success, it is rejected as improvisation. This effect depends on the fact that in improvisation the process of production, as the elaboration of a grammar of contingency, is part of the aesthetic content of the artistic work(ing): the aesthetic appearance of the unforeseen. Since that involves the (trans)formation of artistic normativity in the very process of the production of the work, the (trans)formation of normativity—or normativity as (trans)formation—is part of the aesthetic theme of improvisation: improvisation makes sense as a sensemaking process.105 The reason for the aesthetic paradox of improvisation is therefore the following: when improvisation functions well, it does not seem improvised (and thus appears unsuccessful as an improvisation), because its sense does not appear in the course of its making, but rather as complete, or as good and done, even readymade—what appears is not the forming of the material, but the already formed material. Ultimately, since the formation of sense fails to appear, improvisation fails to appear as such. 103 In Improvisation as Art (London, Continuum, 2011) Edgar Landgraf expands on this dialectical reasoning through the discussion of the performative contradiction in early German Romanticism’s reflection on art. 104 In the sense of Niklas Luhman: cf. his Social Systems, op. cit. 105 I will return to this point at the end of the book. Here I will only note that, precisely because it is comprehensible in terms of autopoietic sense-making, the cognitive-affective interaction between organism and environment is understood in the neo-phenomenological and neo-pragmatist sectors of the cognitive sciences in terms of improvisation. Cf. E. Thompson and M. Stapleton, “Making Sense of Sense-Making,” in Topoi, 28, 2009, pp. 23-30; S. Torrance and F.  Shumann, “The Spur of the Moment: What Jazz Improvisation Tells Cognitive Science,” in AI & Society, 34, 2019, pp. 251-268.

52

Chapter 2

For improvisation to appear as such and as successful, the appreciator must change her perspective, assuming the position of participant (which she already is): by thus overcoming her aesthetic doubt, she can interact aesthetically with the work in formation, reversing the reversal of aesthetic appearance and thereby experiencing the unforeseen. This requires the exercise of an experiential praxis, the training of perception and imagination in the realms of the different arts. 2.4.4 Prejudices Victims of the aesthetic paradox are two specular prejudices with respect to improvisation: the “naïve” or “romantic” prejudice of absolute immediacy and spontaneity, and the “Adornian” prejudice of the falsity of improvisation—actually a trite and mechanical repetition of what is always the same. The first prejudice—embodied by the inspired creator and above all by the improvisational poets and poetesses (such as Corinne retold by Madame de Stäel in the 1807 novel Corinne, or Italy)106 I will discuss in the next chapter (par. 3)—considers improvisation to be creatio ex nihilo, the pure invention of genius, unbridled creativity, exchanging a tendency (an effort or Streben, in German) and an ideal for an empirical fact. Absolute improvisation does not exist: as with freedom, it is real only insofar as it is achieved through its exercise. The absolutely unforeseeable is not possible, in the same way that the absolutely originary and original is impossible. In other terms: unpredictability and originality are relative—even with respect to the expectations of a given cultural environment. Like the pure “beginning,”107 improvisation is precisely an idea in the Kantian sense of the heuristic or regulative ideal: it is empirically impossible, but yet necessary for its realization (as Derrida taught).108 Consequently, even if it is right to note the loosening of control of the subject in respect to his own doing that allows for the surprising appearance of contingency and its artistic elaboration, the error of prejudice consists in mythologizing spontaneity and the unconscious nature of improvisational activity. As 106 E. Simpson, “Germaine de Staël’s Corinne, or Italy and the Early Usage of Improvisation in English,” in Lewis and Piekut (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, vol. 1, op. cit., pp. 255-261. 107 Jankélévitch, La Rhapsodie: verve et improvisation musicales, op. cit., pp.  207-208 and p. 222. Cf. Bertinetto, Eseguire l’inatteso, op. cit., pp. 280 ff. 108 J. Derrida, Unpublished Interview, in K. Dick, A. Ziering Kofman and J. Derrida, Derrida: Screenplay and Essays on the Film, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2005. Cf. S. Ramshaw, “Deconstructin(g) Jazz Improvisation: Derrida and the Law of the Singular Event,” in Critical Studies on Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 2, 2006, 1. Cf. also I.  Pelgreffi, “È possibile improvvisare? Appunti su Ornette Coleman e Jacques Derrida,” in Id. (ed.), Improvvisazione, op. cit., pp. 173-204.

The Grammar of Contingency

53

we know,109 only on the basis of technical and cultural preparation, which can be acquired through practice, imitation, and repetition, can one develop the capacity of an agile and spontaneous acting that, through its incorporation, can produce the unexpected—that is, the other with respect to the already known—precisely through what was already known: through imitation, repetition, and variation. Not the absolute creative freedom of the subject, but the interaction—between subjects, between the acting and the situation, between the performance and its enjoyment—, that exposes the practice to contingency and allows outcomes to emerge that, while surprising the preconditions of the practice, become a part of them. Thus the immediate and rigid separation between repetition and spontaneity, imitation and invention, the expected and the unexpected, is placed in crisis. Improvisation functions aesthetically as a grammar of contingency when, by means of thematizing itself reflexively, it is produced as improvisation—paradoxically constructing its own, purposely exhibited, spontaneity—and includes dialectically in itself what it excludes as its other. Therefore, when it succeeds, improvisation can appear as its opposite: preparation, realization, and repetition of the already fore-seen. Then there is also the inverse prejudice to the romantic one—the “Adornian” one. Adorno basically accuses (jazz) improvisation of falsity.110 By passing off the trite repetition of the same111 as spontaneity, jazz reveals itself to be the opposite of authentic artistic creativity which is supposed to invoke the “non-identical”: namely, individuality that is constitutively plural, process-like, contingent, and qualitatively irreducible to the merely formal conceptual logic of the necessary universal.112 As it was for the “romantic” prejudice, Adorno also misconstrues the relation between spontaneity and invention, on the one hand, and repetition and imitation, on the other. In the former prejudice, the first horn of the relationship is absolutized by eliminating the second; in this case, one is reduced to the other. Thus, the dialectic self-relation which constitutes improvisation as an open system, including its other while also excluding it, is disowned once again. Adorno seems not to understand that, in improvisation, innovative invention emerges only through the application of the known as the condition of the felicitous encounter with contingency; and, precisely through 109 Cf. supra, chap. 1.4. 110 Cf. T.W. Adorno, Essays on Music, Berkeley (CA), University of California Press, 2002. 111 I discussed the issue in A. Bertinetto, “Adorno ce l’ha con il jazz,” in Doppiozero, 6 aprile 2019, https://www.doppiozero.com/materiali/adorno-ce-lha-con-il-jazz (accessed April 2021). 112 In fact, “to articulate their own formal language,” works of art are “in need of what is nonidentical, heterogeneous, and not already formed” (Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, op. cit., p. 176). Cf. E. Tavani, L’immagine e la mimesis, Pisa, ETS, 2012, pp. 13-32.

54

Chapter 2

this encounter—which is articulated in the multiple interactions in which improvisation consists—the contingency (trans)forms the known, rendering it unforeseen.113 This is at odds with the fact that the recursive procedure belonging to improvisation—by which the sense of an element is retroactively configured from what it follows—is also operative, according to Adorno, in one of the paradigmatic cases of authentic art: informal music.114 His misunderstanding of improvisation as the false reduction of the transgression to norm is thus due to the cultural prejudices that keep him from understanding exactly how that practice—which he denies any artistic merit—is paradigmatic for his own notion of aesthetic success and of the law of the aesthetic form: it is not the reduction of transgression to the norm, but the normativity of the transgression—or the transgression as normativity—that is the aesthetic sense or the theme of improvisation.115 Once again, that means that the aesthetic success of improvisation appears as its negation. Adorno is the victim of this paradox: he does not manage to untangle it dialectically because he does not assume the perspective of the participant and judges the practice from the outside. Thus, he does not grasp the grammar of contingency that, as I have argued, constitutes the aesthetic specificity of improvisation. To conclude this chapter I can summarize the principle thesis as follows: the aesthetics of artistic improvisation concerns a grammar of contingency that can be conceptualized through the categories of emergence, presence, curiosity, and authenticity. It involves the appreciator as an element of its articulation and generates an aesthetic effect similar to that of a joke. Moreover, on the one hand, it involves failure as a structural possibility of a practice that is not guaranteed; on the other hand, its success can take on the appearance of failure (with respect to its being improvised), thus appearing as its other: a premeditated work(ing). In order to grasp the aesthetic appearing of the unforeseen, one then needs to assume the perspective of the participant by corresponding with it. This thesis, while rather broad, argues that artistic improvisation is characterized by the constitutive and formative role that the reference to the concrete and specific case reveals in the configuration of its aesthetically relevant qualities. The obvious consequence is the importance of the differences between the 113 To be honest, and as Markus Ophälders pointed out to me, in Adorno’s writings (for example T.W. Adorno, “On the fetish-character of music and the Regression of Listening” (1938), in Id., Essays on Music, Berkeley (CA), op. cit., 2002, pp. 288-317, here pp. 310-315) there also emerges a consideration of improvisation as a vital artistic practice. 114 Cf. T.W. Adorno, “Vers une musique informelle” (1961), in Id., Quasi una Fantasia: Essays on Modern Music, New York, Verso, 2002, pp. 269-321, here pp. 295-6. 115 Cf. infra, chap. 4.

The Grammar of Contingency

55

different works and performances and, for good reason, between the practices and styles of improvisation in various artistic realms. The improvisation for some time in vogue in the network of music clubs and labels found on the Berlin-based site echtzeitmusik.de116 is something different than the French tradition of organ improvisation in liturgical music; the collective improvisation in free jazz is far from the ornamentation in baroque music; the practice of the Commedia dell’Arte is quite different from theatersport; techniques and resources for contact improvisation and for butoh do not match those needed in the improvisation of tango; the aesthetics of an Improvisation by Kandinskij cannot be assimilated with the paintings realized by the improvisational technique of Alexander Cozens. The same can be said for all of the arts. Therefore, although the diverse improvisational practices share a type of production in which invention and realization coincide (or, as we will see, in which this coincidence is simulated), an aesthetics of improvisation cannot neglect the specific differences between artistic practices. These depend not only on the degree and the extent of the improvisation allowed or encouraged, as well as on the means, the strategies and the utilized materials, but even on the cultural ideas that inform them. The aesthetic theory that I have proposed intends to be valid in reference to the shared element in different practices of artistic improvisation: namely, improvisation as creative resource. In the final chapter I will argue for the paradigmatic character of this aesthetics for art as a whole. And I will conclude that the sense of improvisation resides in the performative presentation of the eutopia of aesthetic (con)sensing. In the next chapter, however, I will discuss some of the specific aspects of the forms of artistic improvisation in order to satisfy, at least to some degree, what is not only a legitimate desire for concrete examples on the part of the reader, but also a requirement for an aesthetic theory that considers the application to a concrete case not as an illustrative add-on, but rather as a crucial explanatory device within its articulation.

116 Echtzeitmusik means “music in real time.”

Chapter 3

The Arts of Improvisation In different artistic practices, the characteristic aesthetic quality of improvisation is an aspect or an effect or a manifestation (or a combination thereof) of the grammar of contingency. This grammar is articulated by an invention through the performance and is manifested thanks to the unforeseen taking shape of artistic materials. The invention in the moment is not ex nihilo and is presented in varying degrees according to different artistic practices, different genres, and different styles. Moreover, it can be just an exhibition, a staging, a rhetorical artifice, or a simulation; and yet, this simulation can still exhibit an aesthetics of improvisation. Furthermore, what improvisation denies in order to determine itself as improvisation—preparation, planning, repetition, imitation …—returns to it as the condition of its success. However, invention in the moment is the necessary and sufficient condition of improvisation and its absence indicates that the practice at hand is not improvised. It is the sufficient condition, because its presence is all that is needed for improvisation; it is the necessary condition because without it improvisation cannot happen. Nevertheless, as was seen (chap. 2.3.2), the duration of the moment of improvisation (“real time”) is configured according to its happening, and the moment of invention need not be simultaneous with the perception of its happening. For the aesthetic experience of improvisation, it suffices that the coincidence between invention and realization appears to the appreciator through the taking shape of the materials. In its turn, the aesthetic experience contributes to the happening of this manifestation, participating in the performance of the unexpected to the extent that it corresponds to the invitation to transform in art the encounter with the contingency set to work by the artists.1 The different artistic practices articulate specific grammars of contingency. It is neither possible nor necessary to explore their many details here.2 Therefore, 1 Moreover, the aesthetic experience, in terms of an affective, interpretative, and evaluative involvement with the work of art, is required for the realization of the work itself. Cf. G. Bertram, Art as Human Practice, op. cit., pp. 126-136. 2 Elsewhere I already did this for music (Bertinetto, Eseguire l’inatteso. op. cit.,) and, in part, for architecture (A.  Bertinetto, “Improvisation in der Architektur. Einige philosophische Überlegungen,” in L.  Schwarte and J.  Gleiter (eds.), Architektur und Philosophie, Bielefeld, Transcript, 2015, pp.  218-235, 280-284), and for photography and painting (A.  Bertinetto, “Improvisation and Artistic Photography,” in Bertinetto and Ruta (eds.), The Routledge

© Brill Fink, 2022 | doi:10.30965/9783846767078_004

58

Chapter 3

I will focus on those characteristics of improvisational practices that contribute significantly to the aesthetics of artistic improvisation, limiting myself to a sampling of some exemplary cases. 3.1

The Arts at Work: Between Performance and Product

It is first of all useful to consider the distinction between artistic practices that consist in a performance before an audience, the performing arts, and arts where the creative performance culminates with a product, an object commonly called the “work”: an ambiguous term given that it can also be used, as I have up to this point, in the sense of a “performance.” In the first type of art the experience of improvisation allows the realization of invention to be perceived in fieri; in the second type, the perception arrives a bit late, so to say, and one has an aesthetic experience of a completed improvisation or of the result of an improvisational event; or instead, the artifact is such as to arouse the participation of the appreciator in the aesthetic experience of the unforeseen. Although coherent from a conceptual point of view, in practice the distinction is more complex, both because many arts can assume a performative dimension and an objective dimension, and also because there are arts, paradigmatically cinema and video art, which consist in the exhibition of the representation of actions and events, and arts (such as video games and also some installations and works in the realm of design and architecture) whose work-object requires an improvisational performative interaction by an audience that becomes a performer. And, although the enjoyment of the performing arts has traditionally required the event of a live performance on the part of one or more performers in the presence of an audience,3 the physical co-presence between artist and appreciator is no longer necessary: thanks to audio-visual recording, to technological reproducibility, and to the possibility of artificially realizing sequences of sounds and images, the enjoyment of these arts does not necessarily require them to be present at the event where

Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts, op. cit., 2021, pp. 600-616; A. Bertinetto and M. Ruta, “Improvisation in Painting,” loc. cit., pp. 569-584). 3 On the notion of live and its practices, cf. P. Auslander, Liveness. Performance in a Mediatized Culture, London-New York, Routledge, 1999; Fischer-Lichte, The Transformative Power of Performance, op. cit., pp. 67-74.

The Arts of Improvisation

59

and when it takes place.4 Furthermore, since audio-visual events and movements can be generated through computational devices, it is no longer necessary for the performance to be realized by human beings: the agents can be robots or computers.5 This being the case, those artistic practices that can be defined as performative have the possibility of simultaneous co-presence between artistic production and aesthetic enjoyment: paradigmatic examples include music, theater, dance, and performance art. But poetry can also have its performative dimension, and improvisation becomes precisely the terrain on which to try out combinations of different media: for example, between the production of images and/or texts and music or dance,6 often from the perspective of a, indeed only apparently paradoxical, “cultivation of spontaneity.”7 3.2

Practicing Spontaneity Together: Improvisation in the Performing Arts

The performing arts are characterized by the use of ephemeral media such as gestures, movements, sounds, procedures, and actions that, if not recorded through audio-visual means or codified in notational systems, disappear soon after their execution. In fact, the existence of these media is fragile: it depends on their execution or on its reproduction through recordings to preserve traces

4 It should also be mentioned that an audio and/or video reproduction is always an event that can be used as an element in a live show. 5 As Philip Auslander argues (“Humanoid Boogie. Reflections on Robotic Performance,” in D. Krasner and D.Z. Saltz (eds.), Staging Philosophy. Intersections of Theater, Performance, and Philosophy, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, pp. 87-103), nothing stands in the way of considering what a robot does on stage as a performative action: in fact, we consider the actions of an actor that appear as spontaneous improvisations a performance, despite being the result of automatisms due to habit; this is also the apparent “paradox” of the actor according to Denis Diderot (Paradox of Acting (1773-78), Ithaca, Cornell University Library, 2009). In the end, contrary to what Noël Carroll claims, (“Philosophy and Drama. Performance, Interpretation, and Intentionality,” in Krasner and Saltz (eds.) Staging Philosophy, op. cit., pp. 104-121), intentionality as a property of the mind is not the necessary condition that qualifies an event as a performance. 6 Cf. Smith and Dean, Improvisation Hypermedia and the Arts since 1945, op. cit. 7 D.  Belgrad, The Culture of Spontaneity, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1998. Cf. supra., chap. 1.4 and chap. 2.4.4.

60

Chapter 3

of it (documents, transcriptions, recordings) or provide instructions for reproducing it (sheet music, scripts, and the like).8 The improvisations in the performing arts thus generate “ephemeral works in ephemeral media.”9 They are events and, at least according to a widespread pre-theoretical intuition, they are as such differentiated from objects. Objects occupy a single place in space, they persist in time by being completely present in the same moment, and they can be moved; conversely, events happen, require time for their development, and persist by having different parts in different times.10 In this sense the performance of a work of theater, music, or dance is tied ontologically to the spatio-temporal conditions of its happening; its experience involves the co-presence of performers and spectators. What characterizes improvisation in this case is that in the course of the performative event the performer invents what is offered to the appreciators. They witness not only an ephemeral execution of a work, but also the production of an ephemeral work: a work that is the direct and ontologically fragile manifestation of a working tied to the factual and contingent conditions of its happening. 3.2.1 The Roles of Improvisation In every performing art the degree of invention in the moment, on the part of the performer—and thus the contribution of the improvisation to the artistic value of the performance—is variable, never absolute. In fact, preparation is required in order to improvise:11 the capacity to use materials or to play an instrument, physical training, the command over one’s actions, the appropriate use of language. In dance, a choreography, as a choice of movements and positions, can be more or less studied and the fundamental distinction (even in this case of degree) is between improvisation in choreography (in which

8

9 10 11

On musical recording cf. A. Arbo and P.E. Lephay (eds.), Quand l’enregistrement change la musique, Paris, Hermann, 2015; Bertinetto, Eseguire l’inatteso, op. cit., chap. 4. For a more general theoretical reflection, cf. M. Ferraris, Documentality. Why It Is Necessary to Leave Traces (2009), New York, Fordham University Press: 2012; Id., “Che cosa può la registrazione?,” in Philosophy Kitchen, 11, 2019, pp. 193-210. For a general introduction, in a more analytic style, to the philosophy of the performative arts, cf. D. Davies, Philosophy of the Performing Arts, Oxford, Wiley/Blackwell, 2011. J.  London, “Ephemeral Media, Ephemeral Works, and Sonny Boy Williamson’s ‘Little Village’,” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 71, 2013, pp. 43-53, here pp. 46 f. Cf. R.  Casati and A.  Varzi, “Events,” in E.N.  Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2015, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2015/entries/events/ (accessed April 2021). Cf. supra., chap. 1.4.

The Arts of Improvisation

61

the improvisation can be limited to embellishing predetermined forms)12 and the improvisation of choreography (namely, of the forms and executed movements); furthermore, there can be variation in both the degree of the freedom of choice and also the novelty of the movements and the positions to be performed, as well as the degree of the performer’s specific physical preparation.13 In theater, improvisation can pertain to, in various degrees, the content (the subject matter), the sequence of scenes, the characters, the movements, and the dialogue. In the Commedia dell’Arte, improvisation pertains to the dialogue and the movement, since the characters are fully predetermined and the sequence of the scenes and their content are handed down through tradition. In theatersports, only the order of the scenes is predetermined, while the rest is improvised.14 In performance art (for example, the exhibitions of Joseph Beuys or Marina Abramović), the setting is established ahead of time by the artist, while its performance is undetermined.15 Poetic improvisation can operate with pre-established strophic structures, use traditional subjects, or move more freely; by referring back to the traditional canon of rhetoric it can concern elocutio (style), dispositio (organization), and inventio (argument)— perhaps by combining them with music (as in freestyle rap).16 In music, it stretches from the embellishment indicated in the composition and from the basso continuo, the realization of which happens according to pre-established rules and styles (renaissance and baroque styles of music), to improvisation over a set structure (mainstream jazz), to improvisation as a necessary means for the work’s realization (the indeterminate music of the avant-garde), to radical invention unfettered by predetermined structures (free improvisation).17

12 13 14 15 16

17

“A figura is an iconic representation of the fundamental position of the dance, frozen in an instant that suggests the appropriate way of executing its full dynamics” (Pietropaolo, Semiotics and Pragmatics of Stage Improvisation, op. cit., p. 91). Lampert, Tanzimprovisation, op. cit. pp. 13-44. Lösel, Das Spiel mit dem Chaos, op. cit., pp. 22-44; Pietropaolo, Semiotics and Pragmatics, op. cit. Cf. Fischer-Lichte, The Transformative Power of Performance. A New Aesthetics, op. cit. Ax, “Improvisation in der antiken Rhetorik,” op. cit.; M. Agamennone, “Modi del contrasto in ottava rima,” in M. Agamennone and F. Gianattanasio (eds.), Il verso cantato, Padova, Il Poligrafo, 2002, pp. 163-223; E.M. Hisama, “Improvisation in Freestyle Rap,” in G. Lewis and B. Piekut (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, vol. 2, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 250-257. For a more detailed philosophical analysis cf. Bertinetto, Eseguire l’inatteso, op. cit., chap. 1.

62

Chapter 3

Improvisation can intervene in different phases of a performative artwork. Before the performative event, improvisation can be a Vor-Kunst18—an art of preparation that precedes the real work of art—or it can be improvisation “applied” to the realization of artistic artifacts.19 It can then serve to explore and invent new materials for enriching an artistic language: tones, phrases, and techniques of sound production; typologies of gestures and movements; modalities of action, expressions, dialogues, and scenes; poetic verses. It can train the perception that artists have of their own doing: their relationship with an instrument, with their bodies, and with their own capacities for expression and interaction. It is thus a resource for preparing a performance. In dance it can be a method for acquiring particular physical abilities and habits to be used during the performance. Similarly, in theater and in improvised poetry, it can be practiced in order to acquire the capacity to recite with spontaneity or to exhibit a constructed spontaneity. It can be a strategy for the composition of works: to invent stories, to set up choreographies, or to generate musical pieces to be performed repeatedly. When improvisation enters into the pre-performative development of a work, the audience is usually absent; but, similar to what happens in nonperforming arts, the relevance of aesthetic perception is no less important: self-evaluation allows for the artist to select the results of improvisation that are worthy to become a part of her stylistic repertoire, to be automated into performative habits or to be arranged in compositions. In these cases improvisation culminates in products: materials, techniques, and abilities; performative modalities; artistic artifacts. This does not imply, however, that the improvisational nature of the preparatory phase necessarily leaves a trace that will be the focus of the work’s appreciation. Therefore, as with every artistic practice, the aesthetic importance of improvisation in the preparatory phase cannot be taken for granted: it may depend not so much on the intentions of the artists, but on the way that the work will be thematized by its presentation in the discourse of the world of art. Just as one might pretend that a work of careful preparation, not exempt from corrections and second thoughts, is an improvisation, so too can one conceal an improvisation by presenting the work as if it were the deliberate result of control over techniques and materials. It may seem paradoxical that the spontaneity of artists is the result of preparation: not the immediate creative expression of the performer’s natural talent,

18 19

Matzke, “Der unmögliche Schauspieler: Theater-Improvisieren,” op. cit., p. 176. Smith and Dean, Improvisation Hypermedia and the Arts, op. cit., p. 27.

The Arts of Improvisation

63

but the product of simulation and intentional staging.20 We know, however, that the myth of absolute spontaneity is false: improvisation does not exclude, but rather requires habit and preparation.21 The agility of a practice’s execution and the felicitous success of the encounter with the unforeseen are the results of performative habits that prepare the artist to be unprepared: plastic habits that are capable of welcoming the new. The paradoxical nature of the acquisition of spontaneity disappears if one understands the recursive and dialectic character of improvisation: it excludes its other (preparation, planning, imitation …) in order to define itself conceptually and to model itself as an aesthetic ideal; and yet, it requires that other in order to be realized empirically. For that reason, consciously welcoming preparation as a strategy to encourage spontaneity, preparing for it, is in no way paradoxical. What is paradoxical is wanting to reproduce the sense of immediacy from the first time, when the freshness of what happened in practice is irreparably lost. Imitation and self-imitation do not lead to an impossible repetition of the unrepeatable, but rather to the suggestion of encounters with the unforeseen that, once again, surprise the performer, strategically bypassing her intentional control.22 One must be aware of this especially when improvisation does not intervene in the preparatory phases but instead is a practice of performative invention. Although it can be recorded, thereby producing a reproducible object,23 when improvisation is an event underway it is characterized by the (obviously: gradual, limited, and situated) coincidence between production and product and by the co-presence of artist and appreciator which can be physical, spatiotemporal, or filtered through audio-visual media and thus only temporal. These are aesthetically important properties, since the way that these performances are produced is a constitutive part of the artistic phenomenon that the audience perceives. Some even think that improvisation is altogether unavoidable in the performing arts. The interpretation of works of theater, music, or dance require the adaptation of the work to the concrete performative situation.24 The expressivity of a musical interpretation draws parasitically from the expressivity of interpreted work, but also depends concretely on the interaction between the 20 21 22 23 24

Lösel, Das Spiel mit dem Chaos, op. cit., p. 129. Cf. Diderot, Paradox of Acting, op. cit. Cf. supra, chap. 1.4 and chap. 2.4.4. Matzke, “Der unmögliche Schauspieler,” op. cit., p. 168. I discussed the relation between improvisation and recording in reference to music in Bertinetto, Eseguire l’inatteso, op. cit., chap. 5. Similarly, as Gadamer teaches (cf. Truth and Method, op. cit., pp 307-311), even in places where the centrality of the text is clear (law and religious preaching) the need of its application implies that the concrete situation is important for the success of the practice.

64

Chapter 3

musicians and on environmental factors such as the acoustics of the space and mood of the audience: for this reason one can argue that every interpretation is in itself an improvisation.25 Similarly in dance, the movements of the dancers are arranged in relation to the performative situation and to the dynamics of the interaction between the bodies in space: in this sense dance would be “essentially improvisation,”26 as Valéry seems to argue in his “Philosophy of the Dance.”27 In theatrical acting the efficacy of the actor depends on her capacity to modulate her expressivity in response to the circumstances of its unfolding, attributing sense to the contingency of the performative situation. According to Anna G. Cafaro, improvisation is a resource which the actors apply in order to express their humanity. It is thus “the necessary condition for the representation of a text,” the “condition of performative realization between the determinism of the text, understood as the fixed element, and the aleatoric behavior of the actor, understood as their being human, namely, those elements intrinsic to human nature: it is the condition that allows for freedom and independence in the elements of implementation.”28 3.2.2 The Dialectic of Authorship In light of the thesis that improvisation is constitutive of every performance, we must differentiate between improvisation required as an intentional modality of artistic production and improvisation as an inevitable aspect of every human action (which includes musical interpretation, theatrical representation, and dance). Even though one could argue that the latter confirms the centrality of improvisation in the performing arts, its omnipresence weakens its aesthetic specificity, which consists in an artistic grammar of contingency that highlights the taking-form of artistic materials, the emergence of the aesthetic appearance of the unforeseen, and the creative presence of the performer. Even though improvisation has an interpretative dimension, given that it is nourished by already available resources, and even though performative interpretation has improvised elements, to the extent that the event of the work’s concrete realization can neither be anticipated nor repeated, the improviser 25 26 27 28

Cf. C.S. Gould and K. Keaton, “The Essential Role of Improvisation in Musical Performance,” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 58, 2000, pp.  143-148; B.E.  Benson, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, Cambridge (UK), Cambridge University Press, 2003. F. Pouillaude, “Vouloir l’involontaire et répéter l’irrépétable,” in A. Boissière and C. Kintzler (eds.), Approche philosophique du geste dansé, Villeneuve d’Ascq, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2006, pp. 145-161, here p. 149. P. Valery, “Philosophy of the Dance” (1936), in Salmagundi, 33-34, 1976, pp. 65-75. A.G.  Cafaro, L’improvvisazione dell’attore nel teatro di ricerca contemporaneo, Ravenna, Longo Editore, 2009, p. 13.

The Arts of Improvisation

65

is not merely an interpreter: she is the author of what she makes. Hence the nature of improvisation’s authenticity discussed above.29 Nevertheless, the issue is more complex and subtle. In contrast to the interpreter, the improviser declares her authorship. And yet, she not only feeds parasitically on the traditions she supports, but in opposition to the authorship of a composer, her authorship is always questioned by the loss of control that accompanies the emergence of the contingent. The improviser possesses an authorship that is exhibited (in contrast to the interpreter) and questioned (in contrast to the composer) at the same time, to the point that one could define improvisation precisely as the concomitant exhibiting and questioning of authorship.30 This dialectical relation has a crucial aesthetic importance. In order to understand its articulation, one could adopt a Hegelian framework: the thesis is the authorship exhibited by the improviser who is neither “simply” composer nor “merely” interpreter; the antithesis and the moment of contradiction arise when the control of action that emerges from the encounter with the unforeseen is questioned; the synthesis is the grammar of contingency elaborated through the encounter with the unforeseen that culminates in an authorship that is either confirmed by success or denied by failure. The dramatic character of this dialectic—which the appreciator also lives as the specific aesthetic quality of her experience of improvisation—is shown with particular clarity in cases where the interpreter is forced to take on the responsibility of improvisation. Improvisation can be a resource for confronting unforeseen events such as a violin string breaking during a concert, an actor forgetting a line in a theatrical production, or a dancer falling during a ballet

29 30

Cf. supra, chap 2.3.4. “Author” in this instance does not mean solely “whoever is the cause or origin of an artifact,” but, as in the expression “auteur cinema,” the personality of the artist expressed in the style of a work: this personality is what is exhibited and questioned in improvisation. As we will see in par. 5, this is the way in which in improvisation the idea according to which ars est celare artem is manifested. In this regard, the comparison between improvisation, on the one hand, and aleatory art, performance art, and happening, on the other, is interesting: although aleatory art and performance art also contemplate the possibility of improvisation (within the limits of a pre-established setting), in these realms authorship seems to be questioned programmatically and placed off limits rather than exhibited, since art is understood as a happening that cannot be traced back to a controllable sense, to the possibility of a normativity of contingency. Cf. Mersch, “Ereignis und Aura. Radikale Transformation der Kunst vom Werkhaften zum performativen,” op. cit.; Id., “Performance Art and Improvisation,” in Bertinetto and Ruta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation, op. cit., pp. 515-529.

66

Chapter 3

performance. Impromptu31 improvising intervenes to help a performance jeopardized by an unforeseen accident: it is a rescue operation that would not have been needed if the accident had not occurred; but, the improvised solution can bring about an aesthetically excellent result due to its capacity to give sense creatively to contingency by showing the moment in which the obstacle that threatened failure (the contradiction) brought about an unforeseen achievement and exhibition of authorship (by appearing, ex post, as its potential questioning). Therefore, regarding the case of the impromptu as a resource to avoid being surprised by an unforeseen emergency, the response cannot be certain. One needs to distinguish a reaction to the unforeseen needed to move the show forward (reactive improvisation) from an improvisation as the modality of artistic production deliberately chosen by performers and expected by the public (deliberate improvisation).32 On the one hand, this second case would seem to carry a lesser degree of improvisation, precisely because it is expected and not entirely unforeseen, which is exactly what defines improvisation. On the other hand, to choose to improvise one’s own performance in greater or lesser degrees means consciously assigning aesthetic relevance to the unforeseen events generated and encountered in the course of the performance, and also to the grammar of contingency articulated and exhibited in the confrontation with them: it means declaring that improvisation has aesthetic importance and is more than a sort of patched up repair. Thus the aesthetic importance of reactive improvisation will depend on how the unforeseen is treated artistically, as well as on how this treatment will or will not be intentionally exhibited to, or remain hidden from, the public—that is, on how the improvisation will become intentional and on whether the improviser will be exhibited and recognized as the author. The artists can simply aim to hide the accident—and then improvisation is only a substitute for what one ought and would want to do in optimal conditions—or they can (try to) articulate and exhibit, in response to contingency, its artistic grammar by welcoming the challenge as a stimulus for a creative invention that is able—thanks to qualities such as imagination, reactivity, presence, and virtuosity—to exhibit the formation of a material and thus avoid the disappointment of the audience by provoking their applause instead.33 31 32 33

L. Goehr, “Improvising ‘Impromptu’, Or, What to Do with a Broken String,” op. cit. On this distinction cf. supra, chap. 1.3 and chap. 2.2. The impromptu improvisation required by an emergency is in part analogous to the situation which occurs in the restoration of gaps when, as Cesare Brandi observes (cf. Theory of Restoration (1963), Florence, Nardini, 2005, pp. 58-59, 90-93) a missing part of the “fabric”

The Arts of Improvisation

67

3.2.3 The Time and Sense of the Performance Performative improvisation exhibits the logic of improvisation as a recursive and (trans)formative process.34 The artistic sense of the performance emerges from and through the process itself, and more precisely, from and through the interactions that nourish it: the interaction among agents (musicians, dancers, actors) and the interaction with the specific spatio-temporal situation of its happening, which directly or indirectly involves the appreciators. The sense of the performance is not the controlled result of an intentional process prepared in advance, also because what is decided and prepared in advance takes shape concretely thanks to what happens in the performance. In the precarious balance between order and chaos, the sense of the performance is constructed through the way that the performers act together (constituting their artistic identity through an interplay) by preserving, varying, or interrupting the aesthetic motifs at stake, by reacting to the unforeseen (the solicitations of the other performers and the environment), by mnemonically holding on to the past and by imaginatively stretching into the future. Their attention, however, is turned to the present and relative to what happens in the present, they quickly make decisions (often below the threshold of consciousness) about what to do and not only about how to do it. No one has total control of what occurs and things happen beyond the intentions of the participants: signs continually vary in their meaning, and so the meanings of the performance emerge through the performance itself, as in a conversation.35 What emerges from the interaction re-enters into the process as its condition. The sense of the process, its normativity, is always undecided: every instant has a value in itself and is a new beginning36 that potentially interrupts the temporal linearity and the normative regularity. Mistakes can be a creative resource,37 as long as one responds to them through an effective artistic grammar that, by understanding the unforeseen simply as something that happens and not as an error with respect to the normativity enforced in a certain moment, turns it

34 35 36 37

of the work (an unforeseen event) compels us to restore the unity of the form. In the restoration, however, the repair does not occur in an extemporaneous way. Cf. Bertinetto, Eseguire l’inatteso, op. cit., chap. 7 Sawyer, Creating Conversations, op. cit. On the formative character of the dialogical nature of improvisational interaction, cf. A. Sbordoni, “Composing as a Dialogue,” in Sbordoni and Rostagno (eds.), Free Improvisation: History and Perspectives, op. cit., pp. 133-140. Jankélévitch, La Rhapsodie, op. cit. Cf. A. Bertinetto, “‘Do not fear mistakes—there are none’ (Miles Davis). The Mistake as Surprising Experience of Creativity in Jazz,” in M. Santi and E. Zorzi (eds.), Education as Jazz, Cambridge, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016, pp. 85-100.

68

Chapter 3

into a cue [spunto]38 or an affordance39 for unexpected and valuable aesthetic results. A particularly emblematic case in this regard occurs when someone falls in dance:40 from an accident, which is potentially a cause of disaster, the fall can turn into a neutral incident or into a propitious occasion for a favorable artistic outcome. Hence the kairological and not simply chronological temporality of the improvisational event: a good improviser is one who not only knows how to do something that is appropriate for a determined moment and artistic context, but rather, as was noted before,41 who transforms the time and the context into an artistic opportunity through what she does and how she does it. This is not only a matter of doing the right thing when the opportunity arises, but of making things right, that is, of finding and inventing adequate opportunities for artistic success. The concept of kairós is reflexive: nothing is in itself opportune; something is opportune to the extent that it is valued as such retrospectively, after having exercised its potentiality, which is in its turn recognized only thanks to the result, namely, when it is no longer a simple potentiality. An appropriate aesthetic enjoyment of the performance requires focused attention both on the production and also on the content. It requires the capacity (learnable through experience) to follow the various processes that nourish the performance (decisions, interactions, reactions to the unforeseen) through their products (gestures and actions, words and sounds) by immersing oneself in the presence of the event with a participatory awareness and an attitude (which can be deluded and disappointed) of dedication to42, or still better, of trust and availability for, or of complicity and collusion with43 what happens, hypothesizing its sense through active (anticipatory) memory and imagination, but relaxing the planning consciousness that blocks the emerging of the sense (of the) unforeseen. This matters much more when greater importance and responsibility are given to improvisation. In order to better grasp the procedural logic of the improvisational event it then helps to think of artistic expressions such as a free collective musical improvisation, a theatrical improvisation without a script, or a performance of contact improvisation, or other types of dance in which the performance also generates its choreography and each of its elements acquires 38 39 40 41 42 43

Pareyson, Estetica. Teoria della formatività, op. cit., pp. 80 ff. J.J.  Gibson, The Ecological Approach To Visual Perception (1979), Brighton, Psychology Press, 2013. Lampert, Tanzimprovisation, op. cit., pp. 130 ff. Cf. supra, chap 2.3.4 Brandstetter, “Selbst-Überraschung: Improvisation im Tanz,” op. cit., p. 196. Cf. Matteucci, Estetica e natura umana, op. cit.

The Arts of Improvisation

69

sense retroactively by virtue of the responses that it receives.44 What characterizes the various arts are, obviously, the materials, the forms, and the artistic strategies they employ. 3.3

Music, Dance, Theater, and Poetry

My discussion of the individual arts begins with music because there does not seem to be any other art so steeped in improvisation. Just as, on an anthropological level, the first communicative interactions between a newborn and its caregiver are already characterized by a musicality of an improvisational type,45 so too historically, as the Hungarian musicologist Ernst T. Ferand has already argued, “there is scarcely a single field in music that has remained unaffected by improvisation, scarcely a single musical technique or form of composition that did not originate in improvisatory practice or was not essentially influenced by it. The whole history of the development of music is accompanied by manifestations of the drive to improvise.”46 Some, like Bruce Ellis Benson and Stephan Nachmanovitch, have come to the conclusion that “music making is fundamentally improvisational,”47 in the sense that “improvisation is the most natural and widespread form of music making.”48 The point is that music is real only when it is performed and listened to, and every execution, as with every experience of listening, is unique—unrepeatable in its singularity and unpredictable in its specificity. Even when it is based on a score that provides instructions for its execution, the interpreter appropriates the text in order to realize it in sound. Since there is a leap between the text and the sound, the sound happens like an unforeseen event, unable to 44

45 46 47 48

Improvisational normativity is not only retrospective, as Ted Gioia argues (The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990, pp.  62 ff.), but retroactive, because every new element acts on the pre-existing context by contributing in fieri to the articulation of the normativity of the process. Cf. G.  Bertram, “Improvisation und Normativität,” in Bormann, Brandstetter and Matzke (eds.), Improvisieren, op. cit., pp.  21-40; A.  Bertinetto, “Jazz als gelungene Performance. Ästhetische Normativität und Improvisation,” in Zeitschrift fur Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft, 59, 2014, 1, pp. 105-140. Cf. S.  Malloch and C.  Trevarthen (eds.), Communicative musicality, Oxford-New York, Oxford University Press, 2009. Ferand, Improvisation in Nine Centuries of Western Music, op. cit. (quoted in D. Bailey, Improvisation. Its Nature and Practice in the Music, Boston, Da Capo Press, 1993, pp. ix-x). Benson, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, op. cit., p. xii. Nachmanovitch, Free Play, op. cit., p. 6.

70

Chapter 3

be registered in all of its concrete details in the codification of musical notation. In fact, the interpretation seems to be unable to avoid improvising its adaptation of the text to sound. In short, since music, understood as “the art of sounds,”49 cannot do without its performative dimension, and since every performative event is tied to the moment and to the situation in which it takes place, improvisation permeates musical practice and experience. If we set aside the aforementioned case of improvisation as a rescue operation to deal with an unforeseen event that places the execution of a music piece in jeopardy,50 the realization of very structured musical pieces also cannot avoid some degree, however minimal, of unpredictability: it characterizes, for example, the expressive micro-adjustments—noticeable and measurable post factum—that the members of a string quartet realize on the spot during the course of a group performance.51 Nevertheless, the aesthetic importance of improvisation pertains in particular to that immense variety of musical practices in which this form of production is deliberately chosen as the modality that will form the musical sense: not solely as the method of composition for musical pieces that will also be repeatedly performed, but also and above all as the creative resource for the musical performance, that is, as the invention, in diverse modes and measures, of musical contents during the act of making music. Certainly, in the musical realm improvisation seems to be unable to do without an interpretative relation with the forms and materials with which it works. The difference between interpretation and improvisation seems then to reside in a different approach to the contingency of the present moment: for the interpreter, this is an unavoidable factual element of a praxis that aims at what must be; instead the improviser— who while preparing the performance through the technical exercise—aims at what can be and, on this basis, gives form in the instant to his encounter with contingency. In each case it is misleading to maintain that a piece of music is more improvised the more that it deviates from the pre-structured parts of a musical text, thus understanding improvisation as the inauthentic performance of a musical structure. This thesis assumes as the model of musical practice the classical Western tradition based on the ideal of the Werktreue (“fidelity to the original”). For that reason it does not grasp the specific aesthetic quality of music belonging to the oral tradition or in which the primary focus 49 50 51

A.  Bertinetto, La pensée des sons. Introduction à la philosophie de la musique, Paris, Delatour, 2017. Cf. supra, chap. 1.3, chap. 2.2., chap. 3.2.2. D. Glowinsky et al., “The movements made by performers in a skilled quartet: a distinctive pattern, and the function that it serves,” in Frontiers of Psychology, 4, 2013.

The Arts of Improvisation

71

of appreciation is the performance. These qualities can be appreciated if the specific social dimensions of the various musical genres are also understood. In that regard, what can be affirmed in general is only that, while respecting the constraints offered by the cultural traditions of reference—organ music, baroque, jazz, avant-garde art music, rock, electronica, rap, rāga, maqām, “free improvisation,” Latin American dance music, lyric music, Cantonese opera, etc.52—the intentional and attentional relation to the present situation in musical improvisation becomes a formative source of sense. This is particularly true for those musical practices, such as jazz, rock, or world music, that, as the Italian musicologist Vincenzo Caporaletti argues, are regulated by the audio-tactile principle. The constraint placed upon the execution is not given primarily through the visual mediation of written notation, but through the psycho-sensorial system of the musician and through the “physicalgestural modulation of sonorous energy” channeled through the music under the form of “swing” or “groove.” In these practices the gesture takes precedence over the text and the sense of the music “does not exist prior to its execution” but depends on “the phenomenological immanence of the synergistic complex constituted by the one who performs and what is performed.”53 Where the solo dominates, as in mainstream jazz, the musical “text” that results from the performance is personal, in that it is codified by the sonic nuances as “individual expressive markings;” however, where collectivity dominates, as in free jazz, improvisation is a sonic flow in which a social fabric manifests aesthetically. In both cases improvisation is not a music without form but the construction of sonic forms in the moment itself, wherein these forms are realized and offered as they are produced. Being an ephemeral and transient activity, it thus differentiates itself conceptually from composition. In fact, composition is understood as (1) the articulation of musical contents and their codification through notation or recording, (2) by means of a creative process temporally separated from the executive process, and (3) whose result is a set of instructions that normatively regulate its execution. Nevertheless, even when

52

53

In order to explore more thoroughly the details of musical improvisation from medieval Europe to the present day, see Bertinetto and Ruta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts, op. cit. (in particular, but not only, part III, pp.  313-472). Cf. also Nettl and Russell (eds.), In the Course of Performance. op. cit.; B. Nettl and G. Solis, Musical Improvisation. Art, Education, and Society, Urbana-Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 2009. V.  Caporaletti, Swing e Groove. Sui fondamenti estetici delle musiche audiotattili, Lucca, LIM, 2014, pp. 202-219.

72

Chapter 3

ignoring ontological technicalities,54 things are neither so simple or banal. On the one hand, composition does not exclude an appeal to activity of the improvised type. Composing can be a sort of continual improvisation on the basis of sketches and versions and can thus be understood as a sort of “slowed-down improvisation;”55 moreover, in certain cases the activity of composition can be finalized for the specific occasion of the performance or have the sense of providing “comfortable and artistically interesting spaces for improvisation” (as the saxophonist Steve Lehman claims). On the other hand, the improvisers compose in the sense that they “put together” sounds, which occurs not only in “real time”: they also compose (with) the instrument and (with) the body, acquiring instrumental techniques, constructing a repertoire of sonic and musical possibilities, preparing outlines and models of reference, learning performative behaviors, elaborating musical programs on the computer with and on which to improvise, experimenting with instruments and contraptions of various sorts in order to prepare pre-compositional material, and in general, incubating musical ideas over an extended time. Certainly, this composing does not (always) involve the production of a (written) musical work destined for new performances. But that does not negate the fact that, despite its ephemeral nature, musical improvisation can be understood as a work of art. Sometimes the function of improvisation is limited to the execution of parts of the musical work (as in the case of the cadenza in the context of a classical music concert); but, other times (for example, in the “open” and undetermined works of avant-garde composers like Earle Brown) it is required for the realization of the work and (for example, in the performance of a jazz standard) this executive modality is not only privileged for the interpretation of a musical piece—which is manifested through it—but is what gives sense to the piece itself—whereby the piece becomes an “ingredient” of the improvised performance. Overall the weight of the improvisation’s contribution to the musical performance varies according to the tradition and the genre. They range from simple embellishment and paraphrastic variation to rhythmic-melodic invention of an idiomatic type (that is, based on a recognizable style: for example, flamenco, baroque, or blues) on a fixed harmonic grid, all the way to nonidiomatic improvisation, namely, “free” improvisation with stylistic markings that, in the most radical cases, can be not only an improvisation with sounds, 54 55

For specific I refer the reader to A. Bertinetto, “Paganini Does Not Repeat. Improvisation And The Type/Token Ontology” in Teorema, XXXI/3, 2012, pp. 105-126. A. Schönberg, “Brahms the Progressive” (1947), in Id., Style and Idea, New York, Philosophical Library, 1959, pp. 52-101.

The Arts of Improvisation

73

but of sounds themselves: the improvisation of tones. Therefore, between the possible aesthetic ideals of a musical practice there can be not only the high quality interpretation of the reference material (for example, the harmony and the melody of a famous song), but also the aspiration to disrupt the plans that guide the performance—perhaps by extending the usual instrumental and vocal techniques to promote an adventurous confrontation with the contingency of the performative moment, even to the point of intensifying the risk of failure and, at the same time, the enjoyment of its possible success. If, from an aesthetic point of view, the pursuit of the freedom from style can become a new constraint,56 the improvisational freedom—not as a factual given, but rather as the aesthetic ideal invoked by an artistic praxis—can have strong social and spiritual motivations. Examples include free improvisation and the free jazz of the 1960s and 70s that had highlighted the (e)utopian character of improvising57 and its emancipatory potential (particularly with respect to the composer’s “dictatorship”58), but also, perhaps in a less emphatic way, contemporary musical practices in which improvisation is the joyful celebration of being together: a time to party. Novelty, however, is not always an aesthetic value in improvised music. Sometimes it privileges the respect for the executive and expressive canons that are handed down, perhaps as aspects of a ritual to be preserved through repetition. In the Indian tradition of Rāga, for example, the musicians do not improvise on a Rāga in the way that jazz musicians improvise on a standard, but improvise in a Rāga. Traditional and/or conventional schemes, references and models are not the means and the instruments for the free, expressive selfaffirmation of the improviser; but, on the contrary, the musician is the instrument of the Rāga. The variety of the modalities of improvisation also involve diverse modalities for the articulation of musical time. Narrative time, of the linear sort, in which a melody is articulated like a story, is one that is typical in a jazz solo through which a musical statement is modified and developed. In the course 56

57 58

Cf. supra, chap. 2.2. On this theme cf. M.  Ruta, “Improvisation and Orientation,” in Bertinetto and Ruta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts, op. cit., pp. 85-99 and D. Goldoni, “Forms of Improvisation and Experimentalism”, loc. cit., pp. 243-258. Cf. infra, chap. 4.7. It is famous the demand for freedom—a socially distinguished claim steeped in ideological elements—advocated at the turn of the 60s and 70s of the last century by the New Phonic Art group, led by trombonist Vinko Globokar, against the constraints imposed by the control of the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Cf. P.  Cavallotti, “‘A quale dito di Stockhausen sei appeso?’ Musica intuitiva e libera improvvisazione ai Corsi estivi di Darmstadt 1969-1970,” in Scritture della performance, 9/2, 2020, pp. 7-24.

74

Chapter 3

of this development an intense relation with the stratified temporality of a musical tradition can be articulated, perhaps referencing the melody of a song other than the one presented by the performance—and in such a way re-signifying it—that is, according to a cultural practice important especially in African American music, redefining its cultural meaning and identity.59 In other forms of musical improvisation, a situational temporality of the nonlinear type also emerges: not only does every moment potentially contribute to reshaping the significance of the past retroactively, but more importantly, the unwavering solidity of the sound draws attention to the intensive presence of the now.60 Music is a temporal process not only because it happens in time, but because it structures the perception of time: musical improvisation, by virtue of its happening in the moment in which it disappears, exhibits this temporal nature of music.61 The happening of improvisation is in this way part of its musical significance. Whether it deals with the performance of a group—based on the interplay between the musicians—or with a solo performance, the aesthetic relevance of improvisation emerges not only when one perceives the taking form of a sonic material, in the virtuosic solo or in the “conversation” with several voices, but also when one grasps the contribution that the action of producing music gives to the sonorous forms that have been generated. That contribution— thanks also to what can be heard in a recording (which does not necessarily betray the aesthetic sense of the improvisation)—can be abundantly clear in a case where, for example, due to an event that could have been a mistake, the execution takes an unexpected turn—not only for the audience that follows the unfolding of the performance, but also for the musicians themselves. In fact, although it is true that the aesthetic properties of improvised music are not properties of the actions producing them,62 these actions help to mold the artistic content of the music precisely because they are the fruit of improvisation.63

59 60 61 62 63

I. Monson, Saying Something. Jazz Improvisation and Interaction, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1996. Cf. M. Cosottini, “Improvvisazione e non linearità,” De Musica, 2013, 17, pp. 83-91. Cf. N. Cook, Beyond the Score. Music as Performance, Oxford-New York, Oxford University Press. 2013, pp. 70, 127. P. Saint-Germier and C. Canonne, “Improvisation, Action, and Processes,” in Bertinetto and Ruta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts, op. cit., pp. 114-128. D.  Davies, “Appreciating Improvisations as Arts,” in Bertinetto and Ruta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts, op. cit., pp. 145-158.

The Arts of Improvisation

75

The specific expressive quality of improvised music, as well as its capacity to involve its listeners, undoubtedly contributes to its aesthetic quality. Once again, certainly in different degrees and forms depending on the musical practice considered, the peculiarity of the expressiveness of improvised music is the fact that the emotive involvement of the musician feeds back on the expressive character of the music: in fact, the improviser emotively reacts to the expressive affordances of the music that she performs and that, in its turn, influences the expressive flow of the music. That does not mean that the musical expression is, in a manner of speaking, the transparent garb of the improviser’s internal emotion; rather, it is the realizing of emotion in and as sound, thanks also to the (more or less) empathic relation between the musicians, as well as between the musicians and the audience. Not only is the musical expression of already formed emotions offered to the listener, but also—certainly in diverse degrees and modes—the musical expression in fieri. In many improvisational practices, such as the Arabian music studied by Ali Jihad Racy, the expressive performativity assumes a participatory dimension and the improvisation “involves direct emotional exchange between performers and listeners.”64 This exchange can also express itself in the form of dance:65 improvised dance can articulate expressive responses to musical improvisation but can also assume an autonomous aesthetic role. The material of dance is made up of the gestures and the bodily movements of dancers who, by interacting with each other, with the physical space of the performative situation, and perhaps with the music, allow dynamic expressive forms to emerge in their making, freed from a pragmatic reference to the world.66 As in other arts, every style of dance is a set of aesthetic rules constitutive of an idea of beautiful form that conditions the performance and whose violation would make the movements non-artistic in that specific context. When choreographic models of steps and positions precede the performance, one can improvise by choosing combinations of movements and by interacting with the performative situation of the event and with one’s partner (as happens in dances such as the tango);67 but the more radical improvisation consists in the invention in real time of the choreography itself (one thinks of William Forsythe) or in finding new movements 64 65 66 67

A.J.  Racy, “Improvisation in Arabic Music,” in Nettl and Russell (eds.), In the Course of Performance, op. cit., pp. 95-112, here p. 108. For a deeper look at this theme one can now consult Midgelow (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Dance, op. cit. Cf. V. Fabbri, “Langage, sens et contact dans l’improvisation dansée,” in Boissière and Kintzler (eds.), Approche philosophique du geste dansé, op. cit., pp.  83-101, here p.  94; C.  Kintzler, L’improvisation et le paradoxe du vide, loc. cit., pp. 15-41, here p. 25. Cf. D. Sparti, Sul tango. L’improvvisazione intima, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2015.

76

Chapter 3

that break the formal codes and enrich them. In general, the borders that separate code and novelty, choreographed preparation and improvisation, are movable. According to the style of dance, various types of technique are exercised and prepared in order to provoke the unforeseen in the moment of the performance. The movements can be stimulated through various sources and media:68 visual, acoustic, and tactile. In contact improvisation (invented by Steve Paxton), it is the contact between the bodies of the performers that pushes the interaction forward. In other practices the process is nourished by the demands of particular media and environmental stimuli. From the interaction with the environment arises part of the aesthetic specificity of the performance. Thus, the choice of a particular set is a resource for breaking performative habits and provoking the emergence of unexpected movements by entrusting oneself to the situation (as Trisha Brown did when she used readymade urban environments for her performances). The site of the performance is a situation trouveé, according to the effective expression coined by Walter Siegfried, a play on the notion of an objet trouvè. If this latter idea is an ordinary object that is selected, decontextualized, and relocated in the space of a gallery or a museum, and thus in the art world, the situation trouveé concerns the introduction of an artistic practice into a place that is frequented daily (the entranceway of a building, a church, a parking lot, a forest …). In this regard, Siegfried continues, one can then speak of pressionism: the performance is not nourished so much by expressive gestures (as in expressionism), but rather by the “pressions” exerted by the situation to which the performers must react.69 Moreover, the adoption of everyday movements in the performative context (as in the shows of Jonathan Burrows) and the exhibition of the preparatory phases of the performance (the warm up) in and as the show can constitute strategies for increasing the rate of unpredictability, and above all, for producing immediacy and spontaneity by inviting the spectators to perceive the performance as improvised through the questioning, and the concomitant exhibition, of the distinction between art and the everyday. The bodies of the dancers are the protagonists of the performance. They are the principle instrument of (inter)action (where, however, in contrast to musical interaction, the dancers do not always perceive the other dancers during the performance, having then to proceed in an intuitive way); but, they are also modeled through the (inter)action: in this way dance manifests the 68 69

Cf. Lampert, Tanzimprovisation, op. cit., p. 65. Cf. W. Siegfried, “Situative Bilder,” in Ringgespräch über Gruppenimprovisation, LXII, 1996, pp. 11-13.

The Arts of Improvisation

77

recursive character of improvisation as an open system in which the results of the process—bodies, gestures, and movements—become its constitutive elements, acquiring a procedural character: to improvise by dancing is not only improvising with the body, but to improvise the body70–a body already prepared to be unprepared and responsive when faced with contingency and with the other. The instrumental character of the body is, however, also negotiated in the process: the suspension of control over the body, which is no longer an instrument but becomes the subject of and to the process, entrusting itself to the present instant and dedicating itself to what happens,71 is the way in which the performers in dance improvisation realize the dialectic between the questioning and the exhibition of authorship. In dance, improvisation is the exploration of the becoming of the subject through the contact, the encounter, and the response to the situated happening, which can not only involve a relation to the word and to music, but also elicit the interaction with the audience, thus flowing also into theater and performance art (as in the productions of Katie Duck, who is not surprisingly called “the Abramović of improvisation”).72 On the other hand, in theater, where dance as well as music and poetry can be elements, the body—as a procedural system that organizes itself in relation with its space—is also crucially important since the audience directly perceives the bodily actions and expressions of the actors. Gesturing and verbal language reciprocally determine its own expressive significance, which arises from the interaction between the two codes and from the collaboration between the actors. Theatrical improvisation has a long and noble history. If we limit ourselves to the West, the more important recent stages of this history are the Commedia dell’Arte (from the 16th to the 18th century) and contemporary improv theater. In the former, a cultural trove of traditionally handed-down contents— characters that can be traced back to recognizable types and masks with well-known features—is assimilated through imitation and the active use of 70 71

72

Loc. cit., p. 91. This work of the body, in the double sense of the genitive, is also crucial for theatrical performance. Cf. Pelgreffi, Filosofia dell’automatismo, op. cit., p. 101. J. Gaillard, “Risquer le vide,” in Boissière and Kintzler (eds.), Approche philosophique du geste dansé, op. cit., pp. 71-82. Although the phenomenological and existentialist perspective proposed by Sondra Fraleigh (Dance and the Lived Body, Pittsburgh (PA), University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987) to understand the philosophical dimension of improvised dance is not only plausible, but also fascinating and profound, I do not agree with the thesis that the body is never an instrument and always a subject (cf. loc. cit., p. 32): rather, it is the dialectic between instrument and subject that characterizes the body of the improvised dance. https://www.luccaindiretta.it/copertina/2019/12/11/katie-duck-e-il-senso-amaro-della-vitaa-spam-la-regina-dellimprovvisazione/155007/ (accessed April 2021).

78

Chapter 3

memory; and it is thus re-used in inventive improvised [all’improvviso] performances in which the script is adapted to the specific situation, relying on an ars combinatoria that is (trans)formed through its very exercise, and in which the roles are modeled on the actors.73 The performative adaptation to the circumstance of the representation pushes the actors to involve the audience directly through a “manipulative dramaturgy of perception”:74 the use of verbal and gestural deictics continually re-focuses the attention of the spectators on different points of reference. A special function is granted to “jests,” actions that are autonomously coherent and independent of the narration, through which the actors, by directly addressing the spectators, draw attention to the reality of the process of theatrical production, thereby breaking the dramatic spell and the illusion of an aesthetic separation between the performance and the audience (the “fourth wall”). The puppet and marionette theater can promote improvisation even during the phase when the masks and puppets are constructed before the presentation of a show that (in particular when it is geared towards children) lives primarily in the improvised, participatory, and often exhilarating interaction with the audience, as also happens in stand-up comedy.75 Contemporary improvisational theater, instead, extends and intensifies the contribution of improvisation to its narrative and dramatic construction.76 The principle feature is the invention of the narrative content (the fictional story) in the moment of performance through the interaction between the actors and the director, between the actors themselves, and between the actors and the audience. Various techniques, such as dividing attention and trance states, are adopted in order to avoid the intrusion of stereotypical behaviors, and thus to increase the level of creativity by easing control over the body and removing psychological blocks through a passive availability (the via negativa of Jerzy Grotowski). The incorporation of rules for the proper functioning of 73

74 75 76

Cf. Crohn  Schmitt, “Improvisation in the Commedia dell’Arte in Its Golden Age: Why, What, How,” op. cit.; Pietropaolo, Semiotics and Pragmatics, op. cit.; R.  Tessari, “L’improvvisazione come arte della memoria: il caso Commedia dell’Arte,” in Pelgreffi (ed.), Improvvisazione, op. cit., pp. 247-267. Pietropaolo, Semiotics and Pragmatics, op. cit., p. 60. Cf. C.  Canonne, “Improv, Stand-up, and Comedy,” in Bertinetto and Ruta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation, op. cit., pp. 530-543. For the history and the theory of contemporary improvisational theater cf. Lösel, Das Spiel mit dem Chaos, op. cit., pp.  53-103; Smith and Dean, Improvisation, Hypermedia and the Arts, op. cit., pp. 218-221; Cafaro, L’improvvisazione dell’attore nel teatro di ricerca contemporaneo, op. cit.; Drinko, Theatrical Improvisation, Consciousness, and Cognition, op. cit.

The Arts of Improvisation

79

the performative interaction, such as the “acceptance of an offer,”77 is required for the fluidity of the show’s performance. Here the aesthetic theme is the rise of fiction from the acting game. Theatrical improvisation in this way exhibits the specificity of artistic improvisation as the presentation of the workings [operari] of the artist through the work. In fact, there are two stories narrated at the same time: the fictional story narrated by the staged drama and the story of the actors who stage the drama. The spectator is thus persuaded to activate a multistable78 perception, which is focused alternatively on the reality of the flesh and blood people standing before them, on the recitation of the actors, and on the fiction of the characters whose actions are staged.79 As in the famous example of Jastrow’s duck/ rabbit image,80 it is not possible to pay attention simultaneously to more than one of the three dimensions of the process. The spectators do not have full control over the actualized perceptive modality, but what is particularly relevant in improvisation is the acting game, or the story of the actors who are engaged, through an exercise of reciprocal tuning, in the construction in “real time” of the dramatic event. It is not only the actors, but also the audience who collaborate on the production of the story, involved in the game of interaction that emerges here and now through the individual players. In contrast to the Commedia dell’Arte, here the appreciator is not manipulated, but invited, by the demolition of the “fourth wall,” to bring out unexpected connections. This occurs in particular through pragmatic reference to the real context (political, social, cultural) of the performative situation, which becomes a part of the story—so much so that in some circumstances informative labels are needed so that the acting can be perceived as acting, and lowering the stage lights is the only way to signal the end of what was, after all, nothing but a show, even though it was to a great extent truly invented on the spot. The ambiguity of the play between reality and fiction is highlighted and exploited aesthetically (obviously with different results) by Happenings and by performance art in which the artist does not grant the manifestation of her expressivity to an image, but rather is present in flesh and blood,81 staging (in artistic spaces or not) the crumbling of the “fourth wall,” or of fiction, and as 77 78 79 80 81

Cf. supra, chap. 2.2. Cf. Sawyer, Creating Conversations, op. cit., pp. 16 ff. Fischer-Lichte, The Transformative Power of Performance. A New Aesthetics, op. cit., pp. 89, 150 ff. Lösel, Das Spiel mit dem Chaos, op. cit., pp. 226-231. J.  Jastrow, “The Mind’s Eye,” in Popular Science Monthly, 54, 1899, pp.  299-312. Cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, op. cit., p. 194. In this regard the performance of Marina Abramović, “The Artist Is Present,” at MoMA in New York (2010), is paradigmatic.

80

Chapter 3

a result the intimacy of the co-presence shared by artist and the audience. What can be noted about it is the current tendency to radicalize the performative event’s characteristic of unrepeatability, while exhibitions like those of Marina Abramović still have an element of scenic construction, aimed also at artistic documentation and its videographic and photographic reproducibility, and thus open to the practice of re-enactment (as shown by recent retrospective exhibitions). Tino Sehgal, winner of the 2013 Venice Biennale, in fact conceives of the work of art as a “constructed situation” that arises between the audience and the performer, while Anne Imhof claims that her Faust (which won in Venice in 2017) is not supported by a narrative, but only by “thematic sequences”: “what the audience experiences are not fully realized pieces, but a series of improvised encounters.”82 In performance art, the artistic grammar of contingency tends programmatically to be resolved and perhaps to be dissolved when the performance is abandoned to the contingency of the staged situation. Even orally improvised poetry—from Homeric rhapsodes to troubadours and the Balkan sagas, from the improvisational Italian poets at work from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century83 to the slam poetry and freestyle rap of today—promotes an experience shared here and now between the audience and the performer and a multifocal perception that oscillates between the feat of poetic composition in real time (while mindful of possible metrical constraints), the beauty of the verse as signifier, and the signified poetic meaning. This can be the product of invention, and therefore the velocity of execution is the practice of the simultaneous constitution of thought and expression theorized by Merleau-Ponty.84 Or it relies on narrative content, handed down or received by the public at the time of the performance, in whose service the poetic improvisation is placed.85 As often happens, when the performance makes use of formulae (whose function is akin to riffs and “set phrases” in musical improvisation), the ability of the improviser consists in modulating them in a plastic manner as regards 82 83 84 85

Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tino_Sehgal; https://www.sleek-mag.com/article/anne -imhof-faust/ (accessed April 2021; thanks to Emanuele Arielli for this reference). A.  Esterhammer, Romanticism and Improvisation 1750-1850, Cambridge-New York, Cambridge University Press, 2008. M.  Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception (1945), London, Routledge, 2002, p. 221. Even in an improvised musical performance the themes can be provided by the audience on the spot. It is not just an ancient practice: the author of this text attended a performance in which the pianist, Stefano Bollani, invited the public to suggest a series of songs, which he then performed in an improvised medley.

The Arts of Improvisation

81

the specific situation of its use: in jazz and in other audio-tactile forms of music, as well as in improvised poetry, the formula is a mnemotechnical resource that helps to reactivate knowledge (such as rhythmic-harmonic articulations and narratives episodes) in the course of performing.86 In the traditions of the song-poems of the Basque bertsolari,87 the battles [tenzoni] of Chjam’e Rispondi widespread in Corsica, and the contrast in octave rhyme in Sardinian and Tuscan poetry, the poetic performance can acquire a competitive dimension, similar to the challenges of musical improvisation in jazz jam sessions: on the basis of predetermined arrangements and formal limits, such as the requirement of rhyming, the contenders perform a predetermined narrative theme by challenging each other through an elaboration of verses that for the adversary become unforeseen events to which she must respond in an inventive way. The competition is nonetheless collaborative. It is a sort of “antagonistic cooperation”:88 even though they are rivals, the two contenders rely closely on one another for the success of their performance. Poetic improvisation exhibits an extraordinary velocity of execution and for this reason improvisational poets have epitomized the Romantic idea of improvisation. As Benedetto Croce wrote, the luck “of rapid and immediate poetry or, as it is called, improvised [all’improvviso]” embodies “the ideal relationship between artistic genius and artistic creation,” by offering a representation of “inspiration, enthusiasm, the deity who speaks within and who imposes and dictates poetry to whomever is filled with it.”89 The aesthetic-critical judgment of this art is however still controversial, much more so than the other improvisational practices that do not suffer in such a marked way from the comparison with the premeditated version of the same artistic production. On the one side there are those—like Carl Ludwig Fernow in the essay “Über die Improvisatoren” (1801)—who describe it as the expression of a virtuosic enthusiasm that is embodied in the gesturing of the performer, thereby arousing the astonishment of the audience, and praise it as a “genuine form of poetry”90 due to its “extraordinary speed of the imagination, the heightened excitability and warmth of feeling, with which the soul easily transports itself into a state of inspiration, and that wonderful presence of memory, which has at its 86 87 88 89 90

I.  Mackenzie, “Improvisation, Creativity, and Formulaic Language,” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, LVIII, 2000, p. 176. D.  Lebord, La mémoire e l’instant. Les improvisations chantées du bertsulari basque, Donostia, Elkar, 2005. Agamennone, Modi del contrasto in ottava rima, op. cit., p. 197. B.  Croce, “Gl’Improvvisatori,” in Id., La letteratura italiana del Settecento, Bari, Laterza, 1949, pp. 299-311, here p. 301. Croce, “Gl’Improvvisatori,” op. cit., p. 302.

82

Chapter 3

unlimited behest all the rich supply of its ideas, images, and expressions.”91 On the other hand, there are instead those who, exactly like Benedetto Croce, label improvisation a “naïve and vulgar representation of real inspiration, which due to its spiritual nature, has no relation with longer or shorter time.”92 The philosopher from Pescasseroli seems to attribute its popularity to its being accompanied by music and considers it, at best, historically interesting as the expression of “the flexibility of Italian ingenuity” and of the “social life” of its protagonists, that is, as a matter of custom.93 It goes without saying that Croce, given the particular idealist stance of his aesthetics, was not able to appreciate the embodied character of this practice; but, it should also be noted that what in fact was exhibited as a (super)natural gift was the result of the exercise and application of rules. Emblematic of this is the story of the German Maximilian Langenschwarz.94 In 1834 he wrote the odd treatise Arithmetic of Language [Arithmetik der Sprache] in which he theorized mathematical operations for the absolute control of the spontaneous development of thought in a performance. And during shows he encouraged the audience to disturb and to interrupt the performance in order to strengthen the effect of the performer’s surprising ability to remain in control of the situation, regardless of unforeseen events. It should be noted that this display of bravura aimed more for popular success than artistic quality, and it is not surprising that critics, anticipating Croce, judged the show as superficial, inauthentic, and quackish, claiming that it was devoid of authentic poetry: the fundamental assumption was of course that poetry does not receive its themes from the public with whom the poet is interacting in the moment, but are invented in solitude and without distraction.95 In (aesthetic) defense of poetic improvisation, one should note that the accusation that it compensates for the 91 92 93 94 95

Loc. cit., pp. 302-3. Loc. cit., p. 301. Loc. cit., pp. 311-12, 304. S. Sasse and S. Zanetti, “Maximilian Langenschwarz und die Kunst, sich selber Steine in den Weg zu legen,” in S.  Zanetti (ed.), Improvisation und Invention, Berlin, Diaphanes, 2014, pp. 425-437. The exclusive opposition between poetry and improvisation was thematized by the Russians Aleksandr Puškin and Vladimir Odoevskij in direct reference to Langenschwarz. Cf. S. Sasse, “Improvisation versus Dichtung,” in Zanetti (ed.), Improvisation und Invention, op. cit., pp. 439-446. Moreover, the idea was and still is widespread that the value of an improvised oral poem is drastically reduced once it is transcribed. This is understandable, given that the transcription excludes the context faced by the poem when it formulated its own sense. In the same way one could argue that the recording of improvised music, theater, or dance de-contextualizes the performance, reducing its specific aesthetic value. Cf. Bertinetto, Eseguire l’inatteso, op. cit., pp. 168-171.

The Arts of Improvisation

83

lack of true art through a display of technique, artifice, and simulation is often directed at the virtuoso (particularly in the realm of music). But virtuosity— which can also be attributed to words and written verses—is not perforce a bad thing! In fact, with Hannah Arendt one can praise it, precisely as a game for its own sake, as a genuine expression of freedom.96 The (aesthetic) moral that we can draw from this is simple: the artistic quality of the performance of poetic improvisation must be valued case by case, just as with every other improvisation and work of art. 3.4

The Installation, Intermediality, and the Digital Revolution

Performative improvisation, in which invention and realization coincide, may concern the work’s appreciation rather than its production: the interactive practices between the spectator and the work of art in the realm of installation art, as well as the interactive involvement of the players in role-playing games or in video games, can be understood as improvisational.97 In particular, the installation, beyond accepting modalities of improvisation in artistic production and in the curating of exhibitions, is often a device whose enjoyment requires that the observer accept the invitation to an interaction whose

96 97

H. Arendt, “What Is Freedom?” (1958), in Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought, New York, Penguin, 2006, pp. 142-169. C.  Pearce, “Role Play, Improvisation, and Emergent Authorship,” in Lewis and Piekut (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, vol. 2, op. cit., pp. 445-468; C.T. Nguyen, “Creativity and Improvisation in Games,” in Bertinetto and Ruta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation, op. cit., pp. 685-698. Cf. D.M. Feige, Computerspiele, Berlin, Suhrkamp, 2015. This consideration can be extended to various types of games and also include those that C.  Thi  Nguyen called “arts of action” (C.T. Nguyen, “The Arts of Action,” in Philosophers’ Imprint, 20, 2020, 14, pp. 1-28), or aesthetic practices in which the focus of the appreciation of aesthetic attention is constituted by the actions accomplished by the appreciator herself, who has a self-reflective experience of her own activities; for example, dances like social tango, in which the dancers do not improvise dance steps before an audience, but for themselves; or in gastronomy. In the culinary art, the aesthetic relevance of improvisation not only concerns the invention of a recipe or the elaboration of a dish, but also the practices of tasting; and, as one can experiment in the everyday dimension of cooking, it is a practice that can first of all delight those who give it a try. Cf. A.  Bertinetto, “Dishes as Performances, Authenticity, Normativity and Improvisation in the Kitchen,” in HumanaMente. Journal of Philosophical Studies, 2020, 13, 2020, n. 38, pp.  111-142; N.  Perullo, “Improvisation in Cooking and Tasting,” in Bertinetto and Ruta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts, op. cit., pp. 681-684.

84

Chapter 3

modality of development involves improvisation.98 Rather than an artistic praxis that arouses a particular aesthetic experience, improvisation thus becomes the particular aesthetic experience that is produced through the appreciator’s performative confrontation with the work-device. This happens especially when the “rules of the game” and the margins of freedom leave room for the invention of modalities of (inter)action, thereby allowing the appreciator to perceive herself as the performer. One example among the many that could be cited includes the work The Cabinet of Curiosities (2017) by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, exhibited at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan. The work presents a chest of drawers; each drawer, when opened, emits various sounds and music. The work thus requires the appreciator to participate in a game whose rule is “open the drawers”: within the limits of the rule, the appreciator-performer is free to improvise, choosing at her pleasure whichever and how many drawers to open, for how long, and in what order. Thus the specific aesthetic experience—even though it is based on a common presentation to all of the appreciators—varies perceptibly due to the unpredictable actions of each visitor. Analogously, all visitors have a similar aesthetic experience in Ernesto Neto’s installation Body Space Nave Mind (2004), also exhibited at the museum in Kanazawa. Here the visitor must step inside the work in order to experience it, perceiving it by moving through it and touching it. Within the limits of the restrictions imposed by the integrity of a work constructed with fragile materials and by limited visiting times, the audience is free to choose what they do in order to “live” the work. This is a case, nevertheless, of a constrained freedom (that is, moreover, controlled by the museum guards). By realizing this freedom, the appreciator satisfies the prescriptions that are materialized through the installation. The installation can thus be understood as a sort of laboratory experiment: the artist constructs a setting within which the “guinea pigs” (the audience) move and act.99 In this context, the technologies of virtual reality deserve a separate discussion which, in addition to provoking the appreciator to interact, makes her imagination performative by generating unprecedented perceptual possibilities.100 However, by remaining with improvisation as the modality of 98

Cf. E. Landgraf, “Installed Improvisation: The Case of Erwin Redl,” in Bertinetto and Ruta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation, op. cit., pp.  631-644; E. Caldarola, “Improvisation and Installation Art,” loc. cit., pp. 617-630. 99 Thanks to Lisa Giombini for suggesting this idea. 100 On this issue I refer the reader to P. Montani, Tecnologie della sensibilità. Estetica e immaginazione interattiva, Milano, Cortina, 2014. See also K. Kwastek, Aesthetics of Interacton in Digital Art, Cambridge (MA), MIT Press, 2013.

The Arts of Improvisation

85

performative production of art, one can observe that the improvisational practices are becoming more and more inter- and multi-media. It is not uncommon for musicians, dancers, videoartists, poets, and painters to intervene in a concert of improvisation. The technologies for cross-platform improvisation are some of the most varied. What unites them is the fact that the specific artistic form of the performance emerges from feedback loops among the signals emitted by the various aesthetic channels that have been set up. The agents who produce these signals can be non-human agents whose intervention helps to intensify the de-centering of artistic subjectivity. The interaction between human performers and artificial intelligence can increase the possibility that the intentionality of artistic agency is surprised, intensifying the display of the questioning of authorship and potentially enriching the rate of “distributed creativity” from which the aesthetic novelty can emerge.101 If the co-involvement of non-human animals in a show of performance art contributes to the unpredictability of the event,102 the human-machine coimprovisation in various artistic practices103 expands the horizon of the grammar of contingency, both due to the machines’ broad possibility to respond to environmental provocations with aesthetically effective outputs, and also due to the diverse types of interaction implemented, for example, by interweaving relations with one or more human agents contemporaneously or with other machines. The contribution of digital technologies to the development of performative improvisation goes beyond the traditional instrumental dimension to which electronics are still linked and which, in the case of music, has already considerably expanded its creative resources beyond what they were in the past.104 A possibility offered by the internet is the telematic production of situational presence. The situational co-presence—thanks to which the audience witnesses the creative process and not only its results—can be implemented via the web, allowing the appreciators to enter virtually into the space of the performance during its unfolding and vice versa by transporting, so to speak, the artists onto the screen’s desktop where the spectators enter the web. Thus the performative situation extends its borders into Cyberspace, beyond the physical location of the performer: the ordinary experience of presence is qualitatively extended through a media-based and interactive co-presence. 101 Cf. supra, chap 2.3.4. 102 Fischer-Lichte, The Transformative Power of Performance, op. cit., pp. 101-107. 103 For poetry, see for example H.  Smith, Improvisation in “Contemporary Experimental Poetry,” in Lewis and Piekut (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, vol. 2, op. cit., pp. 360-379. 104 G. Fronzi, Electrosound. Storia ed estetica della musica elettroacustica, Torino, EDT, 2013.

86

Chapter 3

However, we may ask ourselves if this media-based co-presence allows us to grasp the affective and aesthetic atmosphere of the performance in the same way as physical co-presence does in a live show. The response must be two-fold: the interaction made possible by the internet can produce a strong sense of intimacy and participation, but due to the lack of physical contact the mediabased co-presence remains, for better and for worse, a “distant presence,” as if to echo the title of the Ethernet Orchestra’s performance Distant Presences.105 This experience augments traditional live performativity, but cannot really replace physical coexistence in the situation. Other artistic practices extend the range of live improvisation by means of new types of direct co-presence that involve the interaction with computational artists, that is, with machines. There are two important cases: the improvisation produced by providing inputs to a machine or to a network of machines such as an orchestra for the laptop or other devices (e.g. a smartphone); and the interaction between human artists and artificial intelligence. In the first case, computer devices are used as instruments to be manipulated by artists who interact with each other thanks to the audio and visual inputs and outputs generated and elaborated digitally. The groups of live electronic musical improvisation active between the nineteen seventies and eighties, such as Musica Elettronica Viva and the Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, along with the performances of deejays, are the pioneers of this practice. But the most interesting example is now offered by laptop orchestras: “Laptop orchestras are electroacoustic ensembles of digital instruments such as laptops, tablets, smartphones, and various controllers, often enriched by analog modular synthesizers, DIY circuitry, or other electric or electronic devices used to generate or process sound.”106 From an aesthetic standpoint, this practice is tempting due to the high degree of experimentality: the performers interact in real time by reciprocally copying and modifying programming codes through textual interfaces. The most interesting aesthetic particularity is that, since live coding involves fewer physical movements and can seem cerebral and slow, improvisation through the laptop seems to have a much weaker emotive impact than other more physical forms of improvisation. Even though the musical interaction is realized principally through the auditory canal, textual messages, and processing codes, this musical improvisation is nonetheless highly interactive: the creative unpredictability is due precisely to the fact that the audio-visual complexity and richness are produced by the 105 On this theme cf. Mills, Tele-Improvisation, op. cit. 106 E.  Tsabary, “Improvisation as an Evolutionary Force in Laptop Orchestra Culture,” in Critical Studies in Improvisation, 11, 2017, n. 1-2, pp. 1-12, here p. 1.

The Arts of Improvisation

87

interaction between diverse performers who each control a device—and not from a single computer which in principle could replace the network that connects the machines together. And yet the effect of this interaction through the technology of the web and shared live coding is the transformation of a greater number of sources of acoustic and visual signals (the laptops) in a sort of giant unitary instrument constituted by various devices and manipulated by different performers contemporaneously. The perception of the linked concentration of the artists, each of them absorbed separately in the dialogue with their own interface, makes the appreciator feel as if she is participating in a sort of ritual. The use of digital devices thus gives life to a new form of co-presence and media-based interaction. Despite the existence of important differences with respect to traditional improvisation (concerning the corporality, telematic interaction, parametric compartmentalization, the sources and the modalities of audio-visual control), the principle ontological and aesthetic characteristic of performative improvisation remains: the improvisers are human beings who interact with each other and with the specific situation, making creative decisions during the execution, such that the aesthetic quality of their work emerges through this interaction. In the second case, the technological extension of performative improvisation is more radical. Here artificial intelligence is not a controllable instrument for generating interactive improvisation; the machine is instead accepted as a partner in a live collective improvisation. The issue is whether or not a computer or robot is capable of improvising, that is, whether it can act in a creative way. It is one of the more interesting questions in contemporary scientific research and here we can only say that what interests us most is undoubtedly the following: if we accept the distinction between a creativity based on rules and a creativity that transforms the rules,107 of course artificial intelligence can be creative in the first sense. Algorithmic machines can improvise by using, combining, and exploring acquired and archived knowledge, by following the rules with which they have been programmed: in music they can recombine melodic and rhythmic patterns and harmonic progressions typical of a determinate musical style. Machines use so-called genetic algorithms to extract “phenotypes” from “genotypes”:108 a musical material, such as a repertoire of rhythmic and melodic cells and phrases, can be combined in order to generate 107 Cf. infra, chap. 4.4. 108 That also matters, regardless of improvisation in real time, for the so-called generative arts, in which the artist programs a machine that generates in an automatic way results that cannot be anticipated.

88

Chapter 3

other material, for example, other phrases. The results can be made more complex through stochastic mutations that produce causal variations and create unexpected results, such as excursions out of key.109 Thanks to its combinatory and explorative capacity, a computer can “learn” to play a progression of chords or to “improvise” in the style of Miles Davis or Mozart, exploring their “conceptual space” and resolving problems.110 Therefore, the machine can respond in real time in a pertinent and perhaps unexpected way to the inputs of a human co-performer. Nevertheless, improvisational acting is not reducible to a recombination of elements in real time.111 An algorithm’s automatic capacities of adaptation and apprehension do not allow for its transformation. Its memory and the speed at which it can process data are enormous and improved by the connection with other machines (the Internet of Things), but without human inputs the computers are not able to transform the rules that guide them: they are automatic, not autonomous. A computer by itself can play an instrument or produce artistic artifacts in a determinate style, but it cannot move a style forward: transformational creativity is (still) not a possibility for artificial intelligence. The practice of improvisation requires the capacity to evolve by adapting to the environment and transforming it. And this is what human performers do when, by means of an exercise that involves the creative generation of habits that lead to the formation of personal aesthetic styles, they learn to improvise in a specific artistic field. Computers cannot improvise in this eminent sense: they cannot develop their know-how on their own by transforming the rules of action through the adaptation of their own doing to a specific situation. Given that they can only implement the expression of already available algorithms, they improvise neither in the Arendtian sense of “beginning something new,” nor in the Sennettian sense of refining their own abilities by adapting them to the specificity of the environment.112 To frame the question in terms of evolutionary biology, which is often used in AI research, computers—at least today—do not evolve without external human involvement. In so-called live algorithms, the algorithm or the digital 109 An example is given by the computer Shimon. Cf. G.  Hoffman and G.  Weinberg, “Gesture-based Human-Robot Jazz Improvisation,” in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2010. 110 L. Casini and M. Roccetti, “The Impact of AI on the Musical World: Will Musicians Be Obsolete?,” in Studi di estetica, XLVI, s. IV, 2018, 3, pp. 119-134, here p. 123. 111 Cf. M.  Young and T.  Blackwell, “Live Algorithms for Music. Can Computers Be Improvisers?,” in Lewis and Piekut (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, vol. 2, op. cit., pp. 507-528; G. Lösel, “Can Robots Improvise?,” in Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 2018, n. 1, pp. 185-206, here p. 196. 112 Cf. supra, chap. 1.4.

The Arts of Improvisation

89

generative genotype is produced by a designer and the phenotype (the offspring of the genotype) can feed back onto it “organically,” giving rise to creative results, but only by virtue of the inputs furnished during the calculation, that is, thanks to a direct intervention by the user who for instance provides live sampled sounds. Therefore, the computational performers are not by themselves creative emergent systems in which feedback arriving from the environment can provoke structural changes, generating authentic novelty.113 What really happens, even in the context of “free” improvisation, is that the musician sends signals to the computer and it reacts to them according to rules (pre-established algorithms) that leave room for the irruption of chance.114 And yet, the research on the improvement of the intelligence aspect of AI relies on models of learning that belong to improvisational interaction, in which an agent forms artistic habits by training through the interplay with other subjects;115 moreover, the computational artists actually take part in an improvised interaction. The inability of computers to invent the rules for their own performance in the moment is not an insurmountable obstacle for understanding the interactions between a human and an algorithm as improvisational. The algorithm can become a partner in an interactive performance between machines that follow rules and human performers who make creative decisions.116 Not only in the realm of music,117 but in any artistic interaction with 113 Cf. A.  Eldridge, “Cyborg Dancing: Generative Systems for Man Machine Musical Improvisation,” in Proceedings of Third Iteration, 2005, pp. 129-142. 114 Cf. Young and Blackwell, Live Algorithms for Music, op. cit.; P.  Saint-Germier, “Turing ex tempore: un ordinateur peut-il improviser de la musique?,” in C.  Canonne (ed.), Perspectives philosophiques sur les musiques actuelles, Paris, Delatour, 2017, pp.  47-73. The impossibility of improvisation as a practice of freedom for digital systems is argued, beginning with a reflection on Plato, by G. Chiurazzi, “L’uscita dalla caverna: digitalizzazione del reale e libertà,” in Itinera, 10, 2015, pp. 13-25. 115 P. Grüneberg and K.  Suzuki, “An Approach to Subjective Computing: A Robot That Learns from Interaction with Humans,” in IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development, 6, 2014, 1, pp. 5-18. 116 As in the case of the improvisations of George Lewis (trombone) together with the algorithm Voyager. Cf. G.E. Lewis, “Too Many Notes: Computers, Complexity and Culture in ‘Voyager’,” in Leonardo Music Journal, 10, 2000, p.  33-39; Id., “The Secret Love between Interactivity and Improvisation, or Missing in Interaction: A Prehistory of Computer Interactivity,” in W. Fähndrich (ed.), Improvisation V, Winterthur, Amadeus, 2003, pp. 193203; Id., “Interactivity and Improvisation,” in R.  Dean (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Computer Music, Oxford-New York, Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 457-466; Young and Blackwell, “Live Algorithms for Music,” op. cit., p. 510. 117 Interesting in this regard are the Drawing Operations of Sougwen Chung (https://sougwen.com: accessed April 2021): improvisational paintings in real time generated thanks to the creative interaction between the artist and a drawing robot. Cf. C.  Moruzzi, “Improvisation as Creative Performance,” in Bertinetto and Ruta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts, op. cit., pp. 47-59.

90

Chapter 3

a computational improviser the human performers respond to the outputs of the algorithm, recognizing it as a partner that is potentially responsive and capable of generating performative responses that can contribute to the aesthetic valence of their artistic performance. The artistic significance of this interaction emerges through the interaction itself, as happens in the improvisational interactions between human performers. Some confront questions of computational agency by arguing that computers do not possess intention or will, even though their behavior during the musical performance seems intentional. Thus what can be attributed to them is only a “fictional intentionality”118 or a “quasi-subjectivity.”119 Nevertheless, this is not the real issue. Intentionality does not concern the will as the hidden cause of performed actions, but instead concerns the possibility of describing the event as an action (or an interaction) performed by someone (or something) with propositions of the type: “I did what happened” or “the robot did what happened.”120 Thus what matters are not so much the intentions of the performers, but instead the possibility of ascribing musical events to them (or, more in general, artistic ones) by granting them responsivity and (a sort of) responsibility. Thus George Lewis was right to argue that the point is not “whether machines exhibit personality or identity, but how personalities and identities becomes articulated through sonic behavior.”121 In conclusion, the collaboration between human beings and AI expands the possibilities of live improvisational interaction. Although the computational performer (still) does not manage to transform its own rules by itself, all that is required for producing an artistic interaction is that the interactive relation between the human and computational performers gives rise to a reciprocally responsive relationship, from which can emerge results that are expressively and, more generally, aesthetically valuable. By negotiating artistic results in real time through and with machines, the human performers interact with the culture that has produced the algorithms recorded and memorized in them. The interaction through and with machines articulates an artistic grammar of contingency that generates unforeseen outcomes and whose aesthetic success will be valued on a case by case basis. Both cases of the expansion of the practices of improvisation through the use of computers and the interaction with computational performers do not therefore lead to the exaltation of the 118 Lösel, “Can Robots Improvise?,” op. cit., p. 189. 119 G.E.  Lewis, “From Network Bands to Ubiquitous Computing: Rich Gold and the Social Aesthetics of Interactivity,” in G.  Born et al. (eds.), Improvisation and Social Aesthetics, Durham-London, Duke University Press, 2017, pp. 91-109, here p. 98. 120 Cf. Bertinetto, Eseguire l’inatteso, op. cit., pp. 81-91. 121 Lewis, “Too Many Notes,” op. cit., p. 38.

The Arts of Improvisation

91

non-human capacities of the computational executors as the prerequisite of a (by now antiquated) aesthetics of the machine; rather, they integrate the technology into expressive human practices,122 thereby expanding the artistic resources of the grammar of contingency. In such a way they exalt some important aspects of the aesthetics of improvisation. The artistic gain of this collaboration/challenge between human and machine depends largely on the potentially qualitative increase of the responsivity of interactions from which the aesthetic success can emerge. 3.5

Improvisation as Product: Painting, Sculpture, and Literature

A thorny question is the aesthetic importance of improvisation in nonperformative artistic practices, where the appreciator typically does not directly experience the artist’s activity, but her product. In these arts—photography and cinema, literature and non-performative poetry, painting and sculpture, architecture and design, etc.—the process and the product usually do not coincide and the aesthetic experience of the appreciator begins when the improvisational activity has already come to an end. What is the contribution these arts can make to the aesthetics of improvisation? I want to explore the intuition that in this field improvisation can be not only a technique of artistic production, but also a crucial aspect of the work’s aesthetic theme. This takes the form of an invitation to enjoy the work in a participatory and interactive way as the presentation of the producer, by proxy so to speak, and the manifestation of a particular modality of production focused on the articulation of an artistic grammar of contingency. We will begin with painting. The performative modalities of improvisation in painting can be practiced by painting in front of an audience and possibly by interacting with other performers (musicians, dancers, actors). Although the product is ontologically distinct from the process, here the aesthetic theme seems to be the materialization of the work through the interaction between the artist, the materials, and possibly other performers. It is the work in fieri, precisely the performance, that constitutes the focus of aesthetic appreciation. When the performance ends, a product remains that can take on an autonomous artistic value. There are the two cases commonly cited as paradigmatic of improvisational painting: Jackson Pollock’s action painting and Picasso’s painting. Both 122 G.E. Garnett, “The Aesthetics of Interactive Computer Music,” in Computer Music Journal, 25, 2001, pp. 21-33, here p. 32.

92

Chapter 3

men are portrayed—the first in a film by Hans Namuth (1950),123 the second in one by Henri-Georges Clouzot (1956)124—as performers who improvise their works in fieri. The painter here becomes an actor: the works of improvisation are not only paintings created through the action of painting, which have assumed their own artistic (and economic) value and can be contemplated at MoMA or some other place. The works are also the filmed performances: in the first case, the American painter who dances across a surface and drips paint randomly to produce the typical squiggles of his paintings; and in the second, the painter from Málaga who creates and continually modifies the sense of his figures through imaginative constructions and erasures. Even when we disregard the film editing work that transforms long and repeated work sessions into a few minutes of spontaneous creative magic, the aura of improvisation that the works of the two painters acquire is due to the film, which presents their work as the direct and immediate, as well as continually evolving, expression of the artist. In an ontological framework, the difference between performance and work (in an objectual sense) is nonetheless clear.125 Given that a performer cannot retrace his steps, an improvised performance cannot be corrected. Any revision will instead regard the results of the performance, for example, its recorded sounds. The painter, however, can retrace his steps and the work-object can endure all sorts of transformation, as long as the artist decides to consider the work unfinished (and, independently of the artist, even subsequently). As the films show, this is exactly what happens with Pollock and even more so with Picasso: in every stage of their work the two artists continually modify what has been previously painted. Nevertheless, the films also clarify a crucial aspect of improvisation as a method of artistic labor: the interactive “dialogue” with forms and materials through which every gesture of painting becomes an invitation for a subsequent gesture that retroactively modifies those which came before. Despite the difference between a work that ends in its performance and a work that remains as a result of a finished performance, both cases can be attributed to a conscious use of improvisation as a creative resource. The problem, however, concerns how improvisation can contribute to the aesthetic experience of a painted image. In order to tackle this problem, we can start with the sketch, the rapid execution of a free-handed drawing of an 123 Cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cgBvpjwOGo (accessed April 2021). 124 A fragment of the film is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHlTvEAI3Q (accessed April 2021). 125 Cf. A.  Bertinetto, “Immagine artistica e improvvisazione,” in Tropos, VII, 2014, n. 1, pp. 225-255.

The Arts of Improvisation

93

object. Traditionally the sketch was a provisional product designed either to be integrated or corrected at the end of the production of the completed work, or to act as a model for the work. Nevertheless, due to the will of the artist or thanks to the historical events of aesthetic taste, the sketch can become or be perceived as a completed work. By considering it in this way, the figurative artists thus accomplish an operation similar to that of composers, such as the already mentioned Giacinto Scelsi, who composed by improvising and recording the result of the musical improvisations: the musical improvisation is in this case a sort of sketch that, thanks to its recording, and to subsequent transcriptions, can become a work. The pictorial sketch, instead, can become a work if the artist decides that the result of what has been executed quickly and free-handedly is a work to be offered to the participatory contemplation of the viewers. The ontological differences between the two practices notwithstanding, what they share aesthetically seems to me more fundamental. In both cases the appreciator is invited to perceive the freshness and the unexpectedness of the creation, to understand the constraint of producing in real time as a stimulus for an inventive encounter with the available material, and to be focused, through the dynamic appearance of the figure’s unfinishedness, on the pragmatic reference of the object to the action that generated it and to the situation in which it takes place. An example is the practice of urban sketches, which exploits drawing on the spot and actualizes Claude Monet’s idea that the painting ought to be realized in situ in order to restore the first “impression”:126 the place where one currently finds oneself becomes the propitious occasion for artistic production, inviting a responsive and creative adaptation to the contingent situation, which requires presence and curiosity. Certainly, in contrast to an improvisational event, the sketch, as an object, is always open to amendment. But, then again, the recorded result of a performative improvisation is also open to amendment, and its own correction can intensify the improvisational quality of the work. By preserving (intentionally or not) the trace of a rethinking (a “pentimento”), the artist inserts into the painting a pragmatic reference to its production. As in the works by the Swiss painter Rolf Winnewisser, the painting intentionally bears traces of the preceding layers, narrating the history of its birth; it is as if the appreciator is able to perceive not only the finished work but also the painter at work.127 In the enjoyment of a performative 126 Cf. E. Gombrich, The Story of Art, London, Phaidon, 1951, p. 399. Thanks to Hero Lotti for having shown me the practice of urban sketches. 127 Cf. F.  Thülermann, “Gelenkter Zufall. Der Prozess des Malens,” in Fähndrich (ed.), Improvisation V, op. cit., pp. 63-73.

94

Chapter 3

improvisation we can have the direct experience of the way that—through the unforeseen—the sense of what already happened is transformed retroactively so that we participate in a normative artistic order changing in fieri; conversely, when we observe a painting, we can grasp the transformation of the normative order only after it has happened, perhaps seeing the coexistence of multiple contrasting norms or, more radically, the work’s account and interpretation of the conflict between order and chaos:128 improvisational painting tells us about a series of changes, events in the past, that we can infer but not engage with directly through our current perception, while improvisation in the performing arts shows it to us in the course of the work. However, the principle requirement for the aesthetic importance of improvisation in painting is that the painting illustrates the gesture that gave rise to it in such a way that one sees its creator in the painting; thus, the agent is recognized in the trace of her gesture: the painting declares the improvisational making that gave rise to it. Thanks to more robust, rapid, and rich brush strokes—as we find in Tintoretto, Van Gogh, the Gutaj group of Osaka and the masters of action painting Franz Klein and Willem de Kooning or, in more recent times, Georges Mathieu (and his almost calligraphic painting directly with the tube) and the Chinese artistar Yan Pei-Ming (who uses flat brushes for his enormous paintings)—or by virtue of pregnant formal or material effects (such as the slashes made by Lucio Fontana), the painting is itself an indicator of its own cause: an action that emerges through its result.129 In the realm of sculpture the effect of improvisation emerges for instance in the impressionistic sculptures of Medardo Rosso, which are dynamically unfinished and laden with expressivity. The aesthetic effect of improvisation is more intense when the paintings and sculptures appear to emerge beyond the intentional control of the agent as the materials take shape. In this regard one can point to blotting,130 the method of painting used by the English painter Alexander Cozens—a method that influenced different styles from impressionism to surrealism. The image (typically a landscape) is born through a process in which improvisation plays the principle role. First of all, by applying color with the hands in a non-controlled way, one creates blotches on the canvas. The imagination of the artist is then invited, so to speak, by those very same blotches of color, to choose—exploiting the phenomenon of pareidolia—the ones more suitable 128 Cf. P. Legrenzi, Regole e caso, Bologna, il Mulino, 2017. 129 Thanks to Nicola Davide Angerame for his valuable advice on contemporary painting. 130 F.  Weltzien, “Tintenflecken als Ideengenerator,” in Zanetti (ed.), Improvisation und Invention, op. cit., pp. 463-478.

The Arts of Improvisation

95

for seeing possible compositions of shapes (an idea explicitly inherited from Leonardo),131 which will then be reproduced in a traditional way (other painters will neglect this phase, accentuating the randomness, unexpectedness, and precariousness of the artistic outcome). The productive principle of the image is ultimately nature itself (chance): the image of the landscape arises in a way analogous to the landscape itself, and so it is not necessary to leave the studio in order to paint it. An auto-poietic role is attributed to the material and the artist interacts with it, appearing as a witness to the proceedings that it has set into motion. The image becomes the living subject of action that produces behaviors and perceptive experiences,132 stimulating reactions and interactions. In this way we perceive the appearance of the aesthetic unforeseen and not simply an action (perhaps premeditated and prepared) stamped onto its product. In the realm of contemporary art, that happens above all in the appreciation of works that seem to be born from the occasion, from the situation, and from a lack of control that is undergone or sought after: works of street art, tied to a concrete place, often the measure of the material and social precarity of their creators, mostly ephemeral artistic expressions of rule-breaking with a political significance, and auratic apparitions of an unforeseen aesthetic gratuitousness;133 works whose originality emerges thanks to the artists’ self-imposed restrictions, as in the project Drawings Restraint (1987-2010) by Matthew Barney,134 and in the Blind Drawings, paintings made or realized by Robert Morris at the start of the 1970s without the aid of sight, in which the lack of control due to a self-imposed incapacity to see, and thus to foresee, the images that are being painted leads to improvisation;135 self-propelled 131 Leonardo advised his painting apprentice to pay attention on the marks on the wall and on the figures that appear in the ashes and the clouds, because in their random forms one can find the “most wonderful inventions, which awaken the painter’s ingenuity to new inventions.” Leonardo, Trattato della pittura (1540?), Firenze, Giunti Demetra, 1997,  § LXIII. 132 Cf. H.H. Bredekamp, Theorie des Bildakts, Berlin, Suhrkamp, 2010, pp. 231-306. 133 Works of street art appear gratuitously because they are not searched for: we stumble upon them when the cityscape offers them to us. They are auratic, in that they stand out with respect to the context and due to their ephemeral character that destines them to be erased. Cf. A. Baldini, “Street Art and the Politics of Improvisation,” in Bertinetto and Ruta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts, op. cit. pp. 285-299. 134 S.  Sasse, “Matthew Barney. Selbstbehinderung,” in Zanetti (ed.), Improvisation und Invention, op. cit., pp. 127-136. 135 I owe my awareness of the work of Robert Morris to Francisca Pérez Carreño.

96

Chapter 3

kinetic sculptures, like the Strandbeests of Theo Jansen that exploit the power of the wind to move in correspondence with the environment;136 paintings and sculptures whose unpredictable result manifests by emerging from the interaction between material and artist,137 thus presenting the de-centering of the subject-author and the provisional nature of the form. Regarding this final aspect, the paintings by Richter138 are paradigmatic; still more radical is the metamorphic and even evolutionary Plastik of Joseph Beuys, which entrusts the form of the work to the metamorphoses—through variations in temperature and color, drying and chemical alteration—of the materials used: organic materials such as honey, wax, and fat, highly conductive metals like copper or an insulating material like felt.139 These are all cases where the authorship is exhibited through its questioning. They are occasions for the elaboration of an artistic grammar of contingency. And yet, improvisational painting does not necessarily require that the movement of the brush actually be improvised. Since pure or absolutely free improvisation does not exist, what matters is that improvisation is more than a symptom of the unpreparedness that merely leads to artistic failure, and instead emerges as the aesthetically significant expression of the human adventure into the uncertain confrontation with contingency. In this regard, as John Gilmour140 argues, the various images of Monte Saint-Victoire painted by Cézanne are paradigmatic: these landscape improvisations dismantle the inherited visual codes in order to rediscover a new order inspired by the poetics of impression. In short, improvisation can be the self-referential theme of the painted image that exhibits a spontaneous, inspired, and unconscious doing. The invitation to observe the painting in this way is addressed to us by Kandinskij’s Improvisations. These are not improvisations in the proper sense: they were planned by the artist through outlines and preparatory studies;141 for that reason they are analogous to those musical pieces (capricci, preludi, fantasie) which invite the interpreter to offer them to the listener as if they were 136 Cf. A. Iacobone, “Improvisation in Sculpture,” in Bertinetto and Ruta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts, op. cit., pp. 585-599, in particular pp. 595-596. 137 Cf. infra, chap. 4.3-4. 138 E. Landgraf, “Improvisation, Posthumanism, and Agency in Art (Gerhard Richter Painting),” in Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 2018, n. 1, pp. 207-222. 139 Cf. J. Beuys, What is Art? (1986), Russet, Clairview Books, 2007. 140 J. Gilmour, “Improvisation in Cézanne’s Late Landscapes,” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 58, 2000, pp. 191-204. 141 S.  Kiefer, Improvisation und Komposition. Wiederholbarkeit und Unvorhersehbarkeit. Begriffserklärung und ästhetische Kriterien. Ein Essay, Berlin, Arkadien Verlag, 2011, pp. 122 ff., 209 ff.

The Arts of Improvisation

97

improvised, even though they are not. Here the interpreter is the appreciator herself, who ought to be able to perceive the painting as the product of a simultaneity not only between the time of the composition and the time of the production (or between the decision to apply a color on the canvas with a particular brush and the execution of the gesture by which the arm moves the brush), but also between the time of the inventive performance and the time of its appreciation, as if the image of the painting were to take form in the course of its perception. Obviously, the work-object does not typically materialize when we perceive it; and yet it does not seem terribly weird to claim that the sense of the work of art is reconfigured every time in the course of our perceiving it with imagination and dedication in a specific situation. Being offered to our aesthetic experience, which requires an interactive encounter that puts the appreciator into play with the contingency of a configuration of sense not guaranteed by unchanging rules, the works of art seem to be reborn—not as objects, but as works of art—thanks to each new encounter. The invitation to perceive the work as improvised can be understood as a signal that directs our attention to the manifestation of that unexpected and initial creativity whose event marks the successful work. This allows us to grasp the temporality of the image in the unforeseen moment when the image presents itself to perception, and also to enjoy art as “intensified life” (Emil Schumacher).142 This could also be an effective path for discussing improvisation in poetry and in literature. Rob Wallace143 observes in this regard that the entire process of writing could in general be understood as “an extended improvisation, where a set of materials (words, a poem, a novel, etc.) is developed over time and achieves a final form (i.e. the published work—but this itself takes multiple and mutable forms),” as happens on a jazz record. Nevertheless, Wallace continues, it certainly seems more profitable to consider the specific roles that improvisation can play in poetry and literature: the spontaneous and unintentional modality of the composition of a text due to “inspiration;” a deliberately chosen method for inventing the material of poems and stories and inducing an effect of improvisation in the reader; the discipline with which the writer teaches herself to put her emotions into written form as they surge forth,

142 Cf. R.  Gagel, “Improvisation in der Malerei—eine Spurensuche,” in Ringgespräch über Gruppenimprovisation, LXII, June 1996, pp. 23-26. 143 R. Wallace, Improvisation and the Making of American Literary Modernism, London-New York, Continuum, 2010, p. 15.

98

Chapter 3

without subsequent revisions, thereby possibly obscuring the improvisational and spontaneous character of the text’s generation.144 A first interesting aspect is that the spontaneity of writing, at times genuine,145 is often a sought after aesthetic effect: one that is deliberately staged. This is a case of a real literary topos. From the écriture automatique of André Breton to the declaredly improvisational poetry of the beat generation (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Frank O’Hara)146 and finally to the countless devices that utilize chance occurrence and creative inspiration as the generative element of a narrative (from Erasmus of Rotterdam’s In Praise of Folly to Thomas More’s Utopia and to Montaigne’s Essais, from Milton’s Paradise Lost to Coleridge’s Kubla Khan and to Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn),147 the insistent declaration of the immediately spontaneous and intuitive nature of a work suggests to the reader the right way to approach poems and narratives. This is clearly a rhetorical gesture, a cultivated affectation that places itself in the tradition of nonchalance [sprezzatura]:148 the rejection of art (as technique and artifice) to exhibit authenticity, naturalness, and simplicity (as in haiku and the culture of Japanese wabi-sabi). Moreover, the impression that literature is improvised can also arise from a contorted, heavy, and restless style and not from an affection of grace or of the fluency of writing (one thinks of Thomas Bernhard).149 But the principle point is this: to the extent that a work can be, at least partially, written “in one shot” according to the Kerouacian motto “First thought, best thought,” the text is also the result of preparation, rethinking, and further elaborations; and, at times, the absence of revisions, the mark of genuineness, is itself deliberately manufactured. The claim of spontaneity is constructed through the use of stylistic conventions—beyond simplicity or, on the contrary, the nervousness of writing, free association, the digression into tangents, fragmentation, the valorizing of originality and autobiographical realism—, nourishing itself with tropes such as the absence or the display of effort, the affectation of neglect, the direct transcription of experience in the presence of the event, the chance occurrence, the readymade character of writing, intimacy with the reader, the

144 Loc. cit., p. 16. 145 It would seem to be the case of Langston Hughes, for example: cf. loc. cit., pp. 82-83. 146 Cf. S.  Zanetti, “Claude Lévi-Strauss und André Breton über ‘écriture automatique’,” in Zanetti (ed.), Improvisation und Invention, op. cit., pp. 273-283; S. Heine, “First thought, best thought. Jack Kerouac und Allen Ginzberg,” loc. cit., pp. 245-259. 147 Cf. R. Fertel, A Taste for Chaos, New Orleans, Spring Journal, 2015. 148 D’Angelo, Sprezzatura, op. cit. 149 Thanks to Marcello Ruta for pointing out this connection.

The Arts of Improvisation

99

local root of the narrative theme, expressive freedom, superhuman inspiration (enthusiasm), or the indebtedness to external causes (such as the use of drugs). A second aspect to highlight is that the very search for an aesthetics of literary and poetic spontaneity, however false and unrealistic, nonetheless expresses the aesthetic value of improvisation as the (e)utopia of creative freedom.150 By staging the questioning of the strict intentional control of making—tied to the mechanical ideal of fabrication151 which aims to eliminate contingency in order to follow a pre-determined plan—this aesthetic rhetoric thematizes freedom not only from (restrictions, rules, intentions, control), but also for: for an intensification of the sense of presence,152 that is, of the awareness of experiencing time and living the present,153 and for a responsive encounter with the contingency of the materials and the environment with which the artist interacts154—an encounter from which the unexpected can spring forth, as it occurs, on the side of enjoyment, with the flicker of the poetic image. For example, this occurs in the already mentioned haiku, and in general in brief verses (Ungaretti’s “M’illumino d’immenso”155 is paradigmatic) that, while perhaps the result of trials, rethinking, and re-envisioning, invite us to improvise a meaning in the act of reading. One can thus say that poetic improvisation has aesthetic value when the poetry is not (only) the description of experience and the representation of reality—in itself contingent, ephemeral, and metamorphic—, but itself (the production of) experience—contingent, ephemeral, and metamorphic.156 In conclusion, the highlighting of the topos of spontaneity must not persuade us to ignore that literature can really be improvised (as the coincidence of invention and realization). Indeed, the improvisational encounter with the word, if not the very refusal of the word and the violation of the rules of the existing language (as in the anarchic linguistics of the Soviet literary

150 151 152 153

Cf. infra, chap 4.7. Cf. Arendt, The Human Condition, op. cit. Cf. supra, chap. 2.3.2. The expression of feeling in time, in the present moment, is according to Wallace (Improvisation and the Making of American Literary Modernism, op. cit., p. 18) the central role of improvisation in the literature of American modernism, in particular in Ezra Pound, Langston Hughes, Gertrude Stein, and Wallace Stevens. 154 Cf. B.  Lee, “Spontaneity and Improvisation in Post-War American Poetry,” in J.  Bray et  al. (ed.), The Routledge Compendium of Experimental Literature, London-New York, Routledge, 2012, pp. 75-88. 155 G. Ungaretti, Mattina, in Id., L’Allegria (1914-1919), Milano, Mondadori, 2011, p. 96. 156 Cf. Wallace, Improvisation and the Making of American Literary Modernism, op. cit., pp. 21-22.

100

Chapter 3

underground from the 1970s to the 1990s),157 can become the central theme of writing. In this regard the Swiss writer Robert Walser158 is emblematic. His writing not only proceeds in an improvisational way, without revisions, but exhibits a self-imposed irreversibility within his writing through a recursive process of reaction to the unforeseen occurrence (here the written word) that characterizes the forming of performative improvisation in “real time.” The performativity exhibited by the text (which is placed beyond “real time”) thus reenters into its con-text. The contingent moment of invention is displayed by a self-reflective writing that thematizes the features of its production: the tension between the conceptual program and the realization of action, the accumulation of ready to use material, the recourse to practiced formulae to make up for uninspired moments, the violation of semantic and syntactic rules, the aleatoric quality of writing. The possibility of the use of language in the contingent hic et nunc of writing is thus indicated by the text that pragmatically declares the improvisational procedure it employs: an important example of how improvisation can comprise both the form and the content of literature. 3.6

Cinema, Photography … and the Readymade

The contingency and the situatedness of artistic production are also the principle themes of improvisation in cinema and in photography. The artist is pragmatically indicated as present in the work which at the same time offers itself as emerging from the relation between the agent and the complex situation of action, in which various subjects and instruments take part, beginning with cameras and movie cameras. The cinema—one thinks of the Brazilian Cinema Novo of Glauber Rocha, the films of Robert Altman, John Cassavetes, Jacques Rivette, and Jean-Luc Godard, but also of the more recent films of Sean Garrity, just to mention a few names—can be improvised in various ways and to various degrees.159 One can realize improvisation by making music and images interact, as occurs in the experimental film of Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren, Begone Dull Care 157 R. Sala, “Alcune norme per un’anarchia della lingua: i manifesti d’improvvisazione del sottosuolo letterario russo,” in Itinera, 10, 2015, pp. 302-314. 158 Cf. C.  Walt, “Improvisation als poetisches Produktionsprinzip bei Robert Walser,” in Zanetti (ed.), Improvisation und Invention, op. cit., pp. 333-344. 159 Here, as elsewhere, based on the extent of improvisation in the work, one can distinguish between a work that contains elements of improvisation (or improvised parts) and a work that is improvised. Cf. D. Collins, “Aesthetic Possibilities of Cinematic Improvisation,” in Croatian Journal of Philosophy, XIX, 2019, n. 56, pp. 269-295.

The Arts of Improvisation

101

(1949), in which the moving figures drawn directly on the film offer a visual representation of Oscar Peterson’s music, and as occurs in many examples of contemporary digital video art (often available on YouTube). Nevertheless, the cinema is usually a collective adventure and the improvisational contribution can arrive from different co-involved subjects: actors, camera operators, and directors, often through interactions between them.160 The improvisation of actors in the cinema is similar to what occurs in the theater. Through the screen the spectator sees people (actors) interacting as they do in real life with all of their uncertainties, hesitations, confusions. This effect of authenticity—which emerges thanks to the cinematographic staging, not in spite of it—can be accentuated if the actors in the film are not professionals.161 The story unfolds while it is being filmed, emerging through the interactions of the actors-characters, as in real life without absolute control over what happens and what they do. It is true that the effect of realism and of spontaneity can be achieved through simulation (although the improvised acting is not necessarily naturalistic, as the 1974 film Céline et Julie vont en bateau by Jacques Rivette shows), but if one knows how a scene was shot one will notice, for example, how the actor feels what his character lives as the event unfolds. Improvisation generates an aesthetic effect of intimacy between the appreciator and the actor-character: “Thus, the audience encounters a fictional event of a character going through a thought process, inferring something, and reacting emotionally by encountering an actual person actually doing these things.”162 There are two principle ways that the director can improvise: by taking part in the scene, guiding it as it is being shot, and by assembling the scenes, 160 In the realm of soap operas, telenovelas and tv series one can also speak of an improvisation in terms of its production as a response to various forms of the unforeseen and also to the satisfaction of the audience: thus an actor can be substituted by another actor in the course of the work in order to interpret the very same character, either because the portrayal was not satisfactory, or because the actor is no longer available. In general, above all with online series, the production takes account of the way that the public reacts to a pilot episode or to a season and adapts the plan for the next episode accordingly. One can thus argue that the appreciator participates in the production of the series. However, given that it is mostly unconscious and involuntary, this participation is one of the many examples of the control and the regulation of the aesthetic preferences of the audience/ consumers that pervade the age of digital communication. On this issue cf. E.  Arielli, “Taste and the Algorithm,” in Studi di Estetica, XLVII, IV serie, 15, 2019, n. 3, pp. 77-97. 161 The aesthetic consequences of the involvement of “everyday people” in cinema, television, and in other contemporary shows are discussed in E. Fritz, Authentizität, Partizipation, Spektakel. Mediale Experimente mit “echten” Menschen in der zeitgenössischen Kunst, Köln-Weimar-Wien, Böhlau, 2014. 162 Collins, “Aesthetic Possibilities of Cinematic Improvisation,” op. cit., p. 289.

102

Chapter 3

choosing them not from a predetermined model but intuitively discovering surprising connections that exceed the spectator’s expectations. The sense of the film emerges in response to individual episodes, like a collage of disparate elements. Finally, the camera operator improvises by matching her action to the specific situation, exploring the visual space of the scene while filming it, choosing the details on which to focus the gaze in the course of the work and interacting with the actors and the director in a way that renders the film fresh or raw, in a word: alive. As in the other non-performative arts, the fact that the enjoyment occurs only after the end of the improvised production163 and that the product lasts after the end of the process does not impede improvisation’s aesthetic contribution to cinema. First of all, despite the differences between attending a live improvisation and accessing it through a recording, even a musical improvisation recorded and edited in post-production can be appreciated aesthetically as improvisation. Moreover, the possibility of simulating improvisation through the most accurate execution of a plan is present in all media: the simple exhibition of improvisation is a meaningful artistic operation that attests to the aesthetic value one attributes to it. As in the other arts, to claim that a film is improvised (even if it is not, or is only partially, as was Cassavetes’ 1959 film Shadows) can therefore be a stylistic gesture that aims to arouse the participatory enjoyment of the spectator. Furthermore, if one accepts the argument of contextualism, according to which “the appreciation of works […] involves attention not simply to the manifest properties of the exhibited objects […], but also to ‘invisible’ properties that depend upon the relations in which these entities stand to their art-historical contexts of generation,”164 not everything that is artistically relevant (for example, the history, the modalities, and the means of production for a particular work) is directly perceivable in the work. Thus, even if improvisation were always perceptibly indiscernible from 163 One should not forget, however, the possibility of a live televised transmission of improvised interactions in real time between directors, actors, camera operators, and the audience in attendance. On the contribution of the “creative adventure” of the live telecast to the “phenomenology of improvisation” cf. U. Eco, The Open Work (1962), Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, 1989, pp. 105-122. 164 Davies, Art as Performance, op. cit., p. 191. Similar contextualist arguments against aesthetic empiricism, according to which only what is directly perceivable matters for the appreciation of the work, are elaborated by various authors, among them A. Danto, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: A Philosophy of Art, op. cit.; G. Currie, “Supervenience, Essentialism and Aesthetic Properties,” in Philosophical Studies, 58, 1990, n. 3, pp. 243-257. J. Levinson, Aesthetic Pursuits, op. cit.

The Arts of Improvisation

103

the effect of a simulation, this would not lead to the devaluing of the artistic merit of this practice. Nevertheless, as in all of the cases of improvisation, the inverse simulation is what is more interesting for an aesthetics in which what is excluded by definition (preparation) enters back into the picture as a factual condition of improvisation: the illusion produced by genuine improvisation that, precisely because it succeeds, appears as something other than itself, that is, as the result of a precise execution of a pre-established plan. On the other hand, the possibility of failure is not a good reason for maintaining the aesthetic inefficacy of improvisation. In fact, many non-improvisational films fail, perhaps because they lack precisely that exploratory, innovative, anarchic, and surprising quality which is the distinctive sign of a successful improvised film. Moreover, contradicting the aesthetic expectations of the viewer can be, and often is, an aesthetic merit rather than a demerit, and what from an outside perspective appears as incoherent chaos can instead be the expression of a different normative organization instituted by that particular work. Briefly, and more generally—this theme will be discussed in chapter 4— the very possibility of artistic success presupposes the possibility of failure. Indeed, the work itself can fail to satisfy the aesthetic criteria which it originally aspired to negotiate and instantiate while being, at the same time, their genesis and application. And yet, whether the work fails or not can only be settled through each single aesthetic experience. It also goes without saying that in cinema, as with theater, the disappearance of the fictional illusion of the “fourth wall,” provoked by improvisation, is not necessarily the cause of artistic failure; it can indeed encourage a more direct relation between the artists and the audience, placed in contact with the artistic making and with the taking form of the artistic material.165 The aesthetic specificity of the cinema of improvisation rests precisely in perceiving in the cinematic result the reality of artistic production in its contingent situation. Jean Renoir and Roberto Rossellini can be considered the progenitors of this cinema in which the camera does not anticipate actions, but follows them in fluid shots and in which, as Jacques Rivette maintains, the film is a dialogue with the actors and with the situation of the scene while it is being filmed. The shot itself shows that it is participating in the unfolding of the events during their unfolding: “the act of filming is part of the film itself.”166

165 S. Villa, “Improvisatory Practices and the Dawn of the New American Cinema,” in Lewis and Piekut (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, vol. 2, op. cit., pp. 322-337. 166 G. Mouëllic, Improvising Cinema, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2013, p. 37.

104

Chapter 3

The exhibition of the act of production in the result is also the principle motive behind photographic improvisation. Photography, albeit differently from the cinematographic “moving image,” is inclined to capture acts, gestures, and actions, and has a close relationship with performative improvisation: by freezing the instant, it presents the intense expressivity of the dancer; it captures the clou of theatric interaction; it communicates the heat of the jazz musicians involvement with the music, the symbiosis with the instrument, the mutual understanding between the performers. Photography documents and exalts performative improvisation. And yet, even more than cinema, it seems at first glance to be far from improvisation as a modality of artistic production. Cinema, literature, and arts like painting and sculpture, lacking the simultaneity between artistic production and reception, restore the effect of improvising when the material seems to take shape in an unforeseen way. Photography, on the other hand, by immortalizing the moment, appears to divide the process and the result clearly; moreover, the work of the photographer does not appear to consist in the encounter with a physical material and with cultural material, as it is instead reduced to a shot. One might think that improvisation does not have a specific aesthetic importance in photography, above all because photography can seem to be devoid of true artistic status. The heart of the issue appears to be that photography would remove the need for an artist who works a material.167 The photographer would be reduced to the tool of a machine and of “nature” (according to the famous thesis of Henry Fox Talbot)168—the true actors of the photographic process—and the image that results from them would not have any of the expressive representation belonging to art. Thus, improvisation in photography would indicate an absence of art, rather than a specific modality of its exercise. That would seem to be confirmed by the fact that one does not need an artistic commitment in order to take photographs: we all improvise photographs in our daily lives. Obviously, this is a gross oversimplification,169 dispelled by the simple fact that only some improvisational photographers create photos that are aesthetically valid and even fewer have artistic motives. Moreover, recent contributions in the field of the philosophy of photography reject the prejudice against the artistic importance of the photographer’s 167 For an introduction to this theme see C. Marra, Le idee della fotografia, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2001; M. Guerri and F. Parisi (eds), Filosofia della fotografia, Milano, Cortina, 2013. 168 H. Fox Talbot, The Pencil of Nature (1844), Chicago-London, KWS Publishers, 2011. 169 And yet among the defenders of this conception (rather widespread since the inception of photography) can be found some eminent philosophers: cf. R. Scruton, “Photography and Representation,” in Critical Inquiry, 7, Spr. 1981, n.3, pp. 577-603.

The Arts of Improvisation

105

work.170 And yet this prejudice also suggests a way to understand the specific contribution of the photographic practice to art. It consists in the performative exercise of the rhetoric of spontaneity through which art impersonates nature, denying that it requires a particular skill. In short, photography is the practice of sprezzatura: the exhibition of creative spontaneity as the lack of intention, control, work, and as a reliance on the contingency of the unexpected forming of the image. Art in/as the absence of art. By moving away from painting (as a conscious and controlled use of techniques and materials, not as a surprising confrontation with the image), the photographic aesthetic approaches that of the readymade:171 despite the evident ontological differences, in both cases the reality of an encountered object is exhibited as art. As has been observed, the downplaying of manual skills in photography is “the same phenomenon elevated from dadaism to the characteristic trait of its own poetics.”172 Differences aside—the photo evokes the presence of the object (in the image) through its absence (in reality), while the readymade invokes the absence of the representation through the presence of the object173—what is shared is the identification between the object and its referential exposition as really or artificially present.174 The artistic gesture employs both practices in the deictic selection of a content. And in this regard it is telling that Duchamp called the performative process of the readymade a “snapshot effect.”175 The point is that improvisation also has a strong connection with the readymade.176 Both practices exhibit the crisis of the separation between art and life and art and reality. The readymade are real objects that enter into the realm of art thanks to an ontological-semantic transformation.177 They suspend the rigid distinction between art and reality because they demonstrate that 170 Cf. D.  Costello, On Photography. A Philosophical Inquiry, London-New York, Routledge, 2018. 171 There are many who hold this view: Franco Vaccari (Fotografia e inconscio tecnologico, Torino, Agorà editrice, 1994), Filiberto Menna, Claudio Marra, Rosalind Krauss. Cf. Marra, Le idee della fotografia, op. cit. 172 Marra, Le idee della fotografia, op. cit., p. 191. 173 Vaccari, Fotografia e inconscio tecnologico, op. cit., pp. 95 ff. 174 On the image as artificial presence, cf. L.  Wiesing, Artifizielle Präsenz, Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp, 2005. 175 R.  Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-garde and Other Modernist Myths, Cambridge (MA), MIT Press, p. 206. 176 Cf. A.  Bertinetto, “La paradoja de los indiscernibles y la improvisación artística,” in S. Castro and F. Pérez Carreño (eds.), Arthur Danto and the Philosophy of Art, Murcia, editum, 2016, pp. 183-201. 177 Cf. Danto, The Transformation of the Commonplace, op. cit.

106

Chapter 3

everything can become art. Conversely, improvisation, in which invention and execution coincide, suspends the separation between art and reality in the other sense. It is art that shows the reality of the productive process, displaying the vitality of art: it is art perceived as life, because by perceiving the artistic phenomenon, the appreciator attends (somewhat late) the “birth of art through a living gesture.”178 Furthermore, invention and realization coincide in the readymade, given that the artist does not invent anything that is not already real. The transfiguration of the real object in the work of art depends on a declarative and performative gesture in which, as in improvisation, the invention is already execution and vice versa: the readymade is improvised precisely because it is not prepared, but rather found, by the artist. For its part, the readymade plays a central role in improvisational practices: materials and forms that are ready to go are resources which the artist can tap in to during the performance. That also happens in collage and in scrap yard art or junk art: arts of recycling which through their own appropriative and combinatory re-use of materials reside in the sphere of improvisation.179 My thesis is thus that improvisation and photography encounter each other through the common denominator of the readymade as extreme declinations of the aesthetics of sprezzatura and as the production of art through the questioning of its rules. From a semiotic point of view, both are deictic practices. Improvisation, as an utterance, “points to the moment and place of uttering”:180 It refers pragmatically to the single and unrepeatable situation of improvising, inserting it into the process/product as its constitutive element. The photographic image points indicatively to the act that produced it and to its specific situation.181 It is not only the trace and the imprint of the object to which it refers and that, through the complicity of light and mechanism, causes it, but also the trace of the shot that, surprising the intentions of the photographer, implies the interaction between the photographer, the photographic device, and the referent from which the image emerges.182 Photography thus possesses two characteristics typical of performative improvisation: situationality (indexicality) and responsivity. The ontological and ecological link with the contingent situation of production is aesthetically 178 179 180 181 182

Marcello Ruta, personal communication. Cf. Peters, The Philosophy of Improvisation, op. cit., pp. 9-19. Tarasti, Signs of Music, op. cit., p. 194. Cf. supra, chap. 2.2. P. Dubois, L’acte photographique et autres essais, Paris, Nathan, 1983. Cf. R. Arnheim, “The Two Authenticities of the Photographic Media,” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 51, 1993, pp.  537-540; S.  Knaller, Ein Wort aus der  Fremde: Geschichte und Theorie des Begriffs Authentizität, Heidelberg, Winter, 2007, pp. 27 f.

The Arts of Improvisation

107

important and the image emerges from the responsive confrontation of the photograph with contingency. In the snapshot (as opposed to a posed photograph) the image is furthermore improvised because it is not pre-viewed ahead of the click and surprises the very glance of the photographer, who will see the result of her act only after having accomplished it. The image strikes perception in an unforeseen and unpredictable way that is not controllable and syntactically not programmable: the direct exhibition of an ungovernable real, the message exceeds the intentions of the author and the communicative codes that Roland Barthes captured with the notion of punctum.183 One could thus consider the act of the photographer as intrinsically improvised. The price one pays for this, however, is the irrelevance of a specific aesthetics of photographic improvisation. Yet, also in music, theater, and dance, the specific aesthetic relevance of improvisation disappears if the interpretation is understood as necessarily or essentially improvisational. But is there then a specific role for artistic improvisation in photography? The response is an affirmative one: improvisation can be both the specific theme and also a specific aesthetic quality of the photographic image. It is its theme (or content) when, as in the photographs of Henri CartierBresson, the “decisive moment”184 is taken by surprise, that is, the sudden nature of an event or the improvised character of an action is manifested. The photographic subject is taken by surprise by the click of the photographer or performs an action unforeseen by the one who perceives it, surprising the photographer and, through her, the observer. In such a way the relevance of the aesthetics of improvisation for photography consists in the valorization of the photographic act’s sought after occasionality. The contingent unpredictability of the event becomes a constitutive ingredient of the aesthetic result, whether the photographer lies in wait in order to locate prey to conquer, accurately preparing a geometrically balanced setting, or whether she works in an immersive way, mixing in with the events that the photo will capture without predetermining an encounter with the unexpected.185 Like the improvisational painting of urban sketches, street photography celebrates the bond of the act of photographing with the specific situation, which will become the theme of the image. 183 R. Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, London, Macmillan, 1981. Cf. Marra, Le idee della fotografia, op. cit. p. 142. 184 H. Cartier-Bresson, The Decisive Moment, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1952. 185 Cf. “Street Photography’s Perfect Unpredictability, Interview with Dimitri Mellos by Arek Rataj,” https://www.lensculture.com/articles/dimitri-mellos-street-photography-sperfect-unpredictability (accessed April 2021). I am thankful to Simona Chiodo for the information on street photography.

108

Chapter 3

The aesthetic importance of the improvisation of the photographic act nevertheless seems compromised due to two factors. On the one hand, the improvised character of a photographic image can be the deliberate result of a carefully prepared fiction: the image’s exhibited improvisational authenticity is staged rather than authentically improvised. On the other hand, despite the essential ontological connection of the photographic image with the instant of its production, just looking at the photographic image is proof that we have arrived late, as when we approach the recording of a performative improvisation. Even if the photographer’s shot had been the result of improvisation, it captures the passing of time by always stopping the instant, immortalizing it: “photography seems to reveal, in its very attempt to stop it, the impossibility of the experience of the present in its punctual instantaneousness.”186 The photographer can, in fact, re-elaborate photographs, tossing out mistakes and choosing which ones to exhibit: this selection process seems to be the specific formative contribution of the photographer to the artwork.187 We are not in the presence of the event: the event no longer exists. The image is uprooted from the context that produced it. The simultaneous co-presence of the artist, the performative situation, and the appreciator is lost: and it is the photograph itself which gives it witness. Moreover, the photograph—here the reference to Benjamin is obvious188—reproduces the uniqueness of the instant, repeating it and multiplying it, even though its unrepeatability would seem to be the mark of improvisation (in so far as it is not recorded, as happens precisely with the photographic reproduction of reality). However, there are no compelling reasons against the importance of improvisation in photography. As we know, preparation—the “other” of improvisation— is a constitutive element of its practice; the simulation can be a pathway to its aesthetic experience and this also applies to photography. Moreover, as Dubois189 observes, the reproducibility of the photograph works in relation to signs, while its uniqueness regards the relation of any sign to its referent, always unique, which the photo—in itself singular—denotes, instituting a

186 F. Vitale, “Istantanee. Note su ‘fotografia’ e ‘tempo’ a partire da La Jetée di Chris Marker,” in Aisthesis, 11, 2018, n. 2, pp. 189-196, here p. 194. 187 Cf. U. Eco, “Di foto fatte sui muri,” in il Verri, n. 4, 1961; cit. in Marra, Le idee della fotografia, cit. pp. 240-244. 188 W. Benjamin “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” (1936) in Id., Illuminations, London, Fontana, pp. 217-252. 189 Dubois, L’acte photographique, op. cit.

The Arts of Improvisation

109

new “aura”: the aesthetic valence of the unrepeatability of the instant,190 which also belongs to improvisation, and that photography not only captures, but also forms. The unrepeatability, the singularity, and the situatedness of improvisation are constitutive properties of the act and of the photographic referent that become ingredients of its aesthetic appearance. By authenticating the past existence of the object from which it proceeds and that it shows—it can lie about its meaning, but not about the existence of the thing—the photo attests to the interaction that happened between the act of the photographer, the device, and the object that formed the image and is its artistic content. The photo is not only, like the recording of a musical improvisation, a documentation thanks to which we can perceptively access an event from the past and relive it aesthetically, but instead is the aesthetic event that consists in the unforeseen appearing that forms the image. Improvisation is, moreover, a specific aesthetic (or formal) quality of the photo when it shows authenticity, for example, through a shaky and blurred image that, by revealing the involvement of the photographic act in the happening of the photographed event, intensifies the impression of the shot’s accidentality and stages an improvisational approach to the photographic practice.191 This aesthetic quality is intensified by two factors: the function of time and the performative impact of the photo, that is, its production of reality through the participation in the event that it captures. If in general photography and the performative event of improvisation both refer to the ephemeral instant and to ongoing movement—the first by pinning it down, the second by running out in it—the use of a light meter, in real time, can generate a time articulated through the artistic appeal to feedback (from the situation to the photographic act), hijacking the shot towards unforeseen outcomes.192 This is not only about the possibility of representing the temporal flow through an image of spatial movement displayed with layered photography, resulting from the dilation of the exposure time—as in the photos of Michael Wesely.193 Instead, the improvisational aspect of photography emerges when attention is diverted from the product to the process: the scene of the image would not be, and would not make sense, independently of the intervention of the 190 Vaccari, Fotografia e inconscio tecnologico, op. cit., p. 37. Cf. Bertinetto, “Aura e improvvisazione,” op cit. 191 Cf. W. Ullrich, Die Geschichte der Unschärfe, Berlin, Wagenbach, 2009, pp. 123-135. 192 Vaccari, Fotografia e inconscio tecnologico, op. cit., p. 121. 193 Some of his photos of Potsdamer Platz and of other locations in Berlin are the result of an exposure time lasting over two years. Cf. https://wesely.org/ (accessed April 2021).

110

Chapter 3

photographer, whose (past) performative presence is displayed in the photo.194 The photographer appears as an aesthetic element of the taking form of the image indicated by the photo: as passive agent, who manipulates filters and lenses by interacting here and now with the scene and, while relying on one’s own experiential know-how in its confrontation with contingency, must in the moment of execution relinquish control over what happens. More specifically, the photographer can interact with the situation that the photo stages, not by interrupting the temporal flow and fixing its stratification, but instead by acting in time and producing a form in an unforeseen way. This describes the specific photographic poetics of Germano Scurti (who, as a musician, is also among the greatest contemporary interpreters of bayan). Scurti (in his role as photographer) emphasizes his own physical-gestural interaction with the device and with the photographed event by recording it without being able to pre-view its result, given that the display shuts off due to his use of long exposure times.195 The aim of this “action painting with camera” (Scurti’s definition) is not the reproduction of reality, but the production of an “event” that has value in itself, regardless of its referential meaning, as the immediate perception of life. […] A relationship between the creative technical device and the world no longer linked to vision, to the gaze, to the history of the gaze, to its predatory mechanisms, and to the possession and manipulation of the world, but to blindness, to its possibilities of creating care and aesthetic transfiguration in the extemporaneousness it establishes and in the risk it produces.196

194 One thinks of the photographic work of James Welling. Cf. D.  Costello and D.  McIver Lopes, “Spontaneity and Materiality: What Photography Is in the Photography of James Welling,” in Art History, 42, 2019, n. 1, pp. 154-176. 195 Some of Scurti’s photographs are exhibited here: http://www.spreafotografia.it/profile9190-gescurti.html (accessed April 2021). 196 Germano Scurti, personal communication. Moreover, as I. Pelgreffi writes (“È possibile improvvisare? Appunti su Ornette Coleman e Jacques Derrida,” op. cit., here p.  188), improvising “means preparing oneself for a partial blindness of the action […].” In this regard, an extreme case (even more radical than the “blind paintings” of Robert Morris) is that of the Slovenian photographer Evgen Bavčar, who cannot be visually surprised by his photos, because being blind, they are not only unforeseeable for him, but rather unseeable. Their artistic value is not due to their author’s visual control over the image production process; yet, unlike passport photos in an automatic photo booth, each image is here an actus mentis guided by the imagination and by the descriptions of others. I thank Walter Menon for introducing me to Bavčar’s work.

The Arts of Improvisation

111

The photograph becomes a performance, interacting with the situation—the object of the shot—by transforming it through the composition of more points of view. The performative aspect of photographic improvisation also intervenes, ultimately, through the use of images and the relation with them developed through various media. If the traditional snapshot photo has always had a strict relation with the contextual circumstance of its production, including the viewers it engages (family members and friends), this pragmatic dimension of the photo is today even more pervasive and invasive: we all shoot and post our improvised photos in real time to show ourselves and our locations to the circle of our contacts in the virtual space of social media. The photo is thus the performative praxis of the construction of interactions through the self-referentiality of the photographer in the image. The Milanese photographer Pietro Privitera has heightened this communicative immediacy of the digital photograph artistically—the actualized version of the Polaroid, which had already made possible the immediate vision of the result of the shot—by using Instagram (but nonetheless applying his own filters to transform its aesthetically kitsch appearance) as the platform through which to transmit the instant captured by the device (a smartphone) immediately to the internet. In this case the photograph becomes the performative praxis of the interaction not only with the specific situation of the shot, but above all with the collectivity of the viewers. The total sharing of photos on Instagram develops an event that is the result not only of the individual but of a collective intelligence. […] In this sense, the photography posted and shared on Instagram is already a new photograph: every single user who shares and gets shared participates in a process that enriches and is enriched, precisely as happens in every actual language, even and above all through the errors and imperfections of millions of anonymous contributions.197 Therefore the improvisational dimension of the photograph involves production and enjoyment also at the level of collective interaction through social media accessed via smartphone, tablet, and pc, simultaneously tools for the production, diffusion, and reception of the photographic image: an unforeseen image, by virtue of the velocity of production and diffusion, of distracted

197 P. Privitera, Polagram o Instaroid. Evoluzione dell’homo photographicus, Milano, ed. Pietro Privitera, 2016, p. 31.

112

Chapter 3

enjoyment and of its occasional nature; an image capable of generating creative interactions. 3.7

Architecture, Design, Land Art

The impact on collectivity by an artistic expression of the improvised sort is also very relevant for architecture. Normally one thinks of architecture as art articulated in two phases: a plan and its realization. Nelson Goodman198 discusses the hypothesis that architecture is, similar to music, an allographic art, drawing the conclusion that it is an intermediate case. The analogy between music and architecture depends on the fact that the concrete realization of a building is based on an annotation: the plan. This, like a musical composition, can be born from an improvisational work and assumes the appearance of an improvisation—as in the architectural sketches by the Iraqi Zaha Hadid: sketches of apparently chaotic bi-dimensional lines and forms that, similar to the graphic notation in avant-garde music, offer suggestions for the imagination of a form rather than provide a model for its realization. Nevertheless, unlike music, what is considered a work in architecture is the building, and not the plan. Thus the analogy between music and architecture loses its traction and the latter is rather closer to autographic arts like painting. If the notion of improvisation is applied to the concrete construction and not to the plan, what in the performing arts leads to the coincidence of invention and execution, process and product, as well as the simultaneity of performance and enjoyment, in architecture only concerns the first coincidence, given that the constructive process and its result are separated: the enjoyment does not concern the process of fabrication, but instead the constructed building (even if the construction sites always attract some curious onlooker). This enjoyment can be of the artistic type. In fact, architecture is that art which provides the space for (almost) all of the others. It can be thus thought as the contextual condition of interaction for improvisers in dance, music, and theater. As David P. Brown199 has shown, the artistic practices of the twentieth century that are nourished by improvisation (improvised theater and dance, performance art, free jazz, action painting) have also reinterpreted and utilized the locations of performative events in unforeseeable ways. The grammar of contingency specific to improvisation in the performing arts also entails the 198 Goodman, Languages of Art, op. cit., pp. 218-221. 199 D.P. Brown, Noise Orders. Jazz, Improvisation, and Architecture, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2006.

The Arts of Improvisation

113

creative use of buildings, whose older functions are rethought and redesigned: churches and schools are (ab)used as spaces for avant-garde music concerts, while skyscrapers host performances of improvised theater. The collective appropriation of spaces is often understood as the prerequisite to or part of the realization of a performance of improvisation. Brown’s thesis is not only that architecture can be utilized for the practice of artistic improvisation: rather, it must be thought expressly for such a purpose. Because, he argues, an architecture appropriate to the practice of improvisation is more adequate to satisfy the needs of human beings as relatively spontaneous beings that must interact with the environment. Consequently, the design can help the practice of improvisation and, vice versa, artistic improvisation can become the model for an innovative design. The application of the categories of improvisation to architecture leads us to understand architectural practice as an activity that is not necessarily articulated in two rigorously separated phases—the preparation of plans and their realization—and that also concerns the interaction between a plan and its particular realizations. These can react to the plan and modify it retroactively by applying it to a specific concrete situation. The architecture that Brown has in mind underscores the dynamic nature of the physical and social space; it liberates the form by organizing it in unforeseen ways in order to adapt it to the metropolitan environment that develops by itself, in improvisational form, and not on the basis of prefixed plans: it is an architecture that facilitates improvisation because it is itself improvised. Both artistic and everyday improvisation and also architectural realization are “interactive form-making processes”200 that operate on the basis of a model of spontaneous organization, in which the interaction between the agents and the concrete situations of their operating constitutes an opportunity for initiating creative processes. By virtue of the strict connection between the aesthetic plane and the functional plane, creativity in the field of architecture and (as we will soon see) of object design sheds light on the affinity between everyday improvisation and artistic improvisation. As it is in everyday practices, improvisation allows the artist to go around the rules, repurpose objects, recycle materials, transform conventions, and tactically appropriate institutions:201 recycling, repurposing, recombination, and appropriation are the privileged modalities of improvisation in the fields of architecture and design. First of all, a specific trait of improvisation in architecture is the repurposing of old buildings. Buildings change their functions over time and 200 Loc. cit., p. 60. 201 Cf. de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, op. cit. Cf. supra, chap 1.5.

114

Chapter 3

adapt to new situations.202 This is an improvisational practice that involves not only architects who renovate old buildings in order to assign them new functions—one thinks of the conversion of old factories and industrial hangars into cultural centers—but also of users who update old buildings for purposes that were previously unforeseen and unpredictable. As Richard Sennett writes, “Improvisation is a user’s craft. It draws on the metamorphoses of typeform over time.”203 An improvisational quality is also attributed to the unplanned formation of buildings and cities. The construction of settlements without planning through “spontaneous” organization, interacting with the environment, adapting themselves and in turn adapting the environment to their needs, is a constant in housing culture. This is not just a history of the past. Unplanned and “spontaneous” developments of the modern periphery are cases of organic and autopoietic development: the result of a collective, improvisational creativity. In the attempt to respond effectively to natural and social situations, the work of humans—here returns the topos of natural spontaneity—is presented thus as a sort of continuation of natural forces. In many cases it is difficult to comprehend such settlements as forms of aesthetically successful architecture, that is, as artistic practice. The result—for example the Brazilian favelas204—can be ruinous both in terms of aesthetics and in terms of function: a building abuse due to misery. That confirms the pejorative meaning that the adjective “improvised” often assumes when it is attached to a building. Nonetheless, the aesthetic success of a constructive productivity that is apparently not regulated can be the indicator of the functional success of the work of a collectivity. This is particularly evident in vernacular architecture. There are many examples of it: the tents of nomads, Celtic tombs, or dwellings in alpine countries.205 These are works that exhibit the successful harmony of climate, materials, and forms, and cannot be attributed to an individual designer but instead to the community to which they belong. It is an improvised architecture, both because it is not executed according to the 202 G. Parsons, “Fact and Function in Architectural Criticism,” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 69, 2011, pp. 21-29. 203 Sennett, The Craftsman, op. cit., p. 236. One can understand this operation in comparison to the improvisational logic of the relationship between the musical work and its interpretations: in fact, successful interpretations act retroactively on the work, inventing new and unpredictable meanings and transforming it in unforeseen ways. Cf. Bertinetto, Eseguire l’inatteso, op. cit., chap. 7. 204 Cf. D. Goldblatt, “Urban Shanties: Improvisation and Vernacular Architecture,” in Evental Aesthetics, 1, 2012, n. 3, pp. 90‐112. 205 Cf. B. Rudofsky, Architecture without Architects, Garden City (NY), Doubleday, 1964.

The Arts of Improvisation

115

design of an architect, but designers and executors who are often the same individuals who will make use of them, and also because the construction materials are improvised. In some forms of free musical improvisation, objects of various types, available in the performance situation, are (ab)used as musical instruments and materials for the musical construction in fieri. Similarly, in vernacular architecture what is found in situ is often used as a construction material through inventive adaptation and recycling. It is a practice that, relying on the resources that are already available, respects the contingency of the concrete situation and adapts to it, taking advantage of it both aesthetically and functionally. This kind of making is ecologically and aesthetically effective because it is ad hoc.206 The buildings are not simply realizations of abstract compositional principles. The particular situation (the position, the materials, and the historical and social context) influences and characterizes their construction: the rules are reinterpreted in every new situation. This creative respect for place, which becomes concrete in the ability to adapt to the specific case and that is promoted also by “auteur architecture,”207 manifests another aesthetically improvisational trait of architecture: the design succeeds when its realization is focused on the specificity of the situation and its conception even involves its future users. A similar type of improvisation can also be an effective modus operandi in the design of objects, both in terms of function and also aesthetically. In this field the improvisational dimension can pertain to the phases of planning, in which the form of a prototype is elaborated prior to the manufacturing of the artifacts that occurs in a series according to the plan itself, or the genesis of a single object through a process of bricolage,208 according to an artisanal conception of design in which improvisation concerns the material construction of the object. In industrial design, improvisation focuses more on the idea than on the object. It is, however, a process that can involve varying agents in the creative encounter with available materials and functional demands; moreover, the improvisational configuration of the idea can require the abilities of craftworkers thanks to which the designer can manufacture the artifact concretely. Artisanal design, instead, also carries the forms of improvisation to the phase of realization, in particular, as Richard Sennett209 observes, in order to adapt 206 Cf. C. Jencks and N. Silver, Adhocism. The Case for Improvisation, London, Soubleday & C., 1972. 207 Cf. P. Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, Basel-Boston-Berlin, Birkhäuser, 2006. 208 C. Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1966. 209 Sennett, The Craftsman, op. cit. pp. 235-237.

116

Chapter 3

the design to the specific situation through decisions concerning the form in a continuous dialogue with the material. The material realization can thus influence the design retroactively. Contemporary design incorporates improvisational processes through a number of modalities. In general, the improvised design is re-design: not a process that begins ex novo, but a process of reassembly;210 an “act of interpretation”211 of the pre-existing, rather than an absolute creation; a finding that becomes inventing in roundabout ways and in which there are the means (circumstances, materials, instruments) to determine the end of the making, and not vice versa.212 In particular, strategies of recycling are adopted through the re-purposing and the re-combination of pre-existing elements (similar to a musical mashup). Every re-use bears traces of the original use: exemplary is Tejo Remy’s Milk Bottle Lamp (1991), whose forms highlight the discarded materials from which they originate. The artifact approaches the readymade (as in the Reifensofa of the group Des-in, 1975).213 Elsewhere, the improvisational contribution comes from users who appropriate an artifact situatively, transforming its function without intending to impact its form: such as when a lighter is used as a bottle opener.214 There are more radical examples which highlight improvisation by radicalizing the anti-functional or provisional characteristics of forms and materials. In the antifunctionalism of the Italian avant-garde (Ettore Sottsass) and also in the Dutch collective Droog (2011), improvisation is affirmed as an aesthetic quality of the product. The seriality (of the model) and the singularity (of the object) are combined: the model is provisional and simply outlined; the final form of the object, designed with makeshift materials, is unique and definite solely in the moment of its realization. In more extreme examples (such as those of the German Kai Linke) deformed objects are realized by letting chance intervene in the process of production: the rejection of authorship is produced 210 B. Latour, A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design (with Special Attention to Peter Sloterdijk), 2008. http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/112DESIGN-CORNWALL-GB.pdf. (accessed April 2021). 211 C. Dell and T. Matton, “Improvisation Technology as Mode of Redesigning the Urban,” in Lewis and Piekut (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, vol. 2, op. cit., pp. 39-56. 212 M. Bies, “Claude Lévi-Strauss und das Wilde Denken,” in Zanetti (ed.), Improvisation und Invention, op. cit., pp. 205-215. 213 A. Frye, Design und Improvisation. Produkte, Prozesse und Methode, Bielefeld, Transcript, 2017, pp. 161, 173. 214 This type of example is the non intentional design of Uta Brandes, Sonja Stich, and Miriam Wender. Cf. loc. cit., p. 162.

The Arts of Improvisation

117

by an artistic grammar of contingency that overturns itself in the affirmation of the contingency of the artistic grammar itself. The most striking practice, however, is open design: the users participate in the shaping of the products, disseminated via the internet, and appropriate them. The DIY mentality is thus applied to the technique through the web. By making projects freely available and modifiable, design becomes participatory. Here authorship is relative to the process and to the networks; it does not concern the original or innovative form.215 I conclude this presentation of the forms that improvisation assumes in various artistic practices with a brief reference to a genre of art that exposes the presence of contingency in artistic making. The aesthetic theme of land art (and of bio art) is the collaboration with nature that exhibits the processes of growth and decay in nature itself.216 Both artists (Robert Smithson, David Nash, Richard Long, Bruce McLean, Andy Goldsworthy …) and also spectators improvise with the changing events of the environment. The works have an ephemeral quality, given that the natural processes bring about the transformation and often the destruction of human interventions. Moreover, they have a site (and on occasion a time) specific character. The fragility and caducity of the works form part of their artistic significance: the contingency of the artistic producing and product become the theme of a practice in which not only, as with Kant’s creative genius, “nature gives the rule to art,”217 but also art itself is handed over to nature and its metamorphoses. The Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson (Utah, 1970) is one of the most effective examples, because the relation between art and nature is affirmed and at the same time problematized: the work of the artist consists in preparing the conditions for the emergence of the working of nature (working that can bring about the destruction of the human work). The artistic grammar of contingency is resolved in the exhibition of natural contingency as the “artist” that improvises by taking forms in the interaction with the spectator, and who moreover is often restricted to enjoying the work through documents or media. Environmental art and bio art can thus be understood as the expression of the challenging of the art/nature dichotomy typical of the rhetoric of improvisational spontaneity. And in such a way the art of gardening can also be understood, at least in the practice of French gardener and botanist Gilles Clément: an improvisational interaction that, by rejecting the violent control over 215 Loc. cit., pp. 177 f., 184 f., 208 f., 232 f. 216 Smith and Dean, Improvisation, Hypermedia and the Arts Since 1945, op. cit., pp. 114-119. 217 I. Kant, Critique of Judgment (1790), Indianapolis (IN), Hackett Publishing, 1987,  §46, p. 174.

118

Chapter 3

nature, “works by reacting constantly to the cues that arrive from a material that is always in motion, always alive, that is nature itself,”218 the unpredictable co-author of a work that begins (to live) when the artist (the gardener) delivers it. These practices are examples of an artistic formativity that forges the specific modalities of its own production by articulating its own grammar of contingency. Their particularity is that the opposition between art and nature is overcome not because the artist acts spontaneously, but because nature improvises “artistically”:219 a case, literally radical, of improvisation.

218 Lisa Giombini, personal communication. Cf. L.  Giombini, Gilles Clément. Piccolo prontuario di metafisica da giardino, ms (lecture held in Rome on March  3rd, 2019). Cf. G. Clément, Le Jardin en movement, Paris, Pandora, 1991; Id., Une brève histoire du jardin, Paris, L’Œil Neuf, 2011. 219 Cases like these (in which the responsibility for the improvised artistic production is entrusted to natural processes) or those examined earlier (in which the improvisational quality depends on the interaction with technological machines and devices) suggest that improvisation, the paradigmatic model of human practice—at least in terms of its relation with creativity and normativity (cf. infra, chap. 4; Bertram, Art as Human Practice, op. cit.; Id., “Improvisation und Normativität,” op. cit.)—, can reveal interesting perspectives also for the artistic practices within the horizon of philosophical posthumanism. Cf. F. Ferrando, Philosophical Posthumanism, London-New York, Bloomsbury, 2019; Landgraf, “Improvisation, Posthumanism, and Agency in Art,” op. cit.

Chapter 4

An Aesthetics of Success: Improvisation as a Philosophy of Art What is the contribution of improvisation to aesthetics, to art, and to the philosophy of art? After having proposed the aesthetic categories through which to articulate improvisation’s grammar of contingency and having thus considered their salient traits in various artistic practices, the thesis that I intend to discuss in this chapter is the following: improvisation illustrates, here and now, the aesthetics of success according to which the criteria of art’s success and failure are negotiated in and through every single work and performance. Artistic normativity emerges from concrete interactions within the practice. Artistic works and performances are not determinable according to pre-established norms; they are unforeseeable even for the artists themselves and feed back on the normativity of the form of art in question. This happens paradigmatically in improvisation. In fact, improvisation neither involves nor requires the violation of or the exception from norms. As the artistic exercise of a grammar of contingency, improvisation exhibits the work(ing) of normativity-in-(trans)formation, which is specific to the aesthetic experience of art. 4.1

Imperfection?

In order to argue this thesis one first needs to discuss a rather widespread conception about the aesthetics of improvisation, which I think is rather misleading. If we accept the pejorative sense of improvisation as acting without preparation or in a makeshift manner—when “all the decisive blows are struck left-handed,” as Benjamin puts it1—a common misconception would maintain that improvisation belongs to an aesthetics of imperfection. This is the third prejudice from which the aesthetics of improvisation must distance itself, after those of spontaneity and repetitiveness, which were resolved in chapter two (sec. 4.4). Let’s see what it means. We are often forced to accept solutions to problems in daily life that are only partially satisfying, using objects for unintended functions and contenting 1 Cf. Benjamin, One-Way Street, op. cit., p. 27.

© Brill Fink, 2022 | doi:10.30965/9783846767078_005

120

Chapter 4

ourselves with outcomes that are only less worse. For instance, when a table is wobbly, we place a book under its leg: it is not ideal, but in the moment and without a better option, it can suffice. Similarly, some contend that artistic improvisation is forced into a “radical acceptance of the imperfect”:2 thus, it would not attain the standards of complexity and structural organization that characterize the aesthetics of an art based on forethought, planning, composition, and revision. This conception, which can be called imperfectionist, is widespread above all in studies of jazz and musical improvisation.3 It presupposes a broadly perfectionist notion of art whose success would be measured according to predetermined standards of quality, which refer either to the way in which a performance realizes a work, or to the way in which an artist realizes her plan. It is the aesthetics of formal, planned organization prior to its execution: the aesthetics of the work as a “Platonic” universal that exists independently from its empirical realizations and that rewards the faithful adjustment of the latter to the former. It is an aesthetics that eliminates contingency. Improvisation, from this perspective, would be the renunciation of perfection and the deviation from the aesthetic norm, from the ideal plan, or from the score—especially if improvisation is the performative modality chosen to realize a pre-existing artistic configuration, such as a jazz standard.4 A possible misunderstanding, however, needs to be avoided. The imperfectionist conception thinks that it uses the concepts of “perfection” and “imperfection” not in an evaluative sense, but in the descriptive sense found in its Latin origin. Perficere means “to complete, to bring to an end, to finish, to do completely.” Therefore “imperfect” would simply mean “unfinished, incomplete.” On this basis, the imperfectionist thesis maintains that improvisation, the art of the un-finished and the un-re-fined, can be appreciated in spite of the constitutive lack of precision and formal finish. It can therefore be contrasted with the aesthetics of perfection, which regards the aesthetics of the work as the product, in itself completed and definite, of a creative activity controllable 2 C. Dell, Das Prinzip Improvisation, Köln, Walther Koenig, 2012, p. 192. 3 Cf. Gioia, The Imperfect Art, op. cit.; A.  Hamilton, “The Aesthetics of Imperfection,” in Philosophy, 65, 1990, n. 253, pp. 323-340; Id., “The Art of Improvisation and the Aesthetics of Imperfection,” in The British Journal of Aesthetics, 40, 2000, pp. 168-185; L.B. Brown, “Feeling My Way—Jazz Improvisation and Its Vicissitudes—A Plea for Imperfection,” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 58, 2000, pp. 113-123. 4 In the field of music the works of Julian Dodd are paradigmatic of this philosophical ideology. Cf. J. Dodd, Works of Music, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2007; Id., “Upholding Standards: A Realist Ontology of Standard Form Jazz,” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 72, 2014, pp. 277-290.

An Aesthetics of Success

121

according to artistic objectives and predetermined aesthetic criteria. And yet, at least since Romanticism and since the artistic avant-garde, it is no longer— or not always—governed by the ideal of the beautiful form according to the rules of proportion, order, and symmetry. The imperfectionist thesis seems in the end to rest on the idea, in itself correct, that in order to be aesthetically valued, artistic works and performances (and on closer inspection every object and phenomenon) must be placed into their appropriate ontological categories.5 The necessary condition of the validity of aesthetic judgment is that the judgment is based on appropriate criteria, given that the artistic merit is relative to the standards enforced in the practice, in the genre, and in the ontological category to which the work and the performance belong. Thus, in order to judge the artistic value of a painting one needs to consider its artistic category (is it a fresco or a framed painting?), its genre (is it a portrait or a landscape? Is it a religious work?), its historical period (is it a medieval or a modern painting?), and its style (is it an impressionist or a futurist painting? Is it a Van Gogh or a Carrà?). If we evaluate an impressionist painting with criteria valid for a Hellenic sculpture, our judgment will not be reliable: we ought to refer to the standards of evaluation determined in reference to the appropriate category. In this way, when it is a matter of judging artistic improvisation, such as a musical improvisation, the imperfectionist thesis maintains that it would be misleading to refer to criteria valid for musical works. Improvisations are either processes underway or they are products that carry in themselves the trace of the non-premeditated activity that has been realized. Thus, in comparison to musical works and to other works of art, they are imperfect. Nevertheless, this imperfection is not a defect: it is the categorial standard on which its aesthetic judgment is based. This conception only appears to be correct. First of all, it results from a partial and misleading understanding of a thesis that, in the wake of an important essay written in 1970 by the American philosopher Kendall Walton, we can call categorialism. In short, Walton argues that every artistic realization must be evaluated on the basis of the characteristics typical of its own “category” (genre, style, ontological constitution, etc.): the aesthetic evaluation is legitimate only if it adopts the correct category. Imperfectionism, however, mixes things up. On the one hand, it believes it follows categorialism by arguing that improvisation is a specific practice to be evaluated iuxta propia principia. On the other hand, however, the labeling of improvisation as an aesthetics of imperfection functions only if one assumes that “completeness” (or “perfection”) is 5 K. Walton, “Categories of Art,” in The Philosophical Review, 79, 1970, pp. 334-367.

122

Chapter 4

a general standard of artistic success that improvisation just cannot satisfy. In conclusion, the work-object realized by a premeditated and controlled activity would be the model of artistic success. Improvisation distances itself from this model and unable to satisfy it adequately, it is compelled to make a virtue of necessity. The virtue would be expressed by the aesthetic qualities recognizable in any case as an improvisation; the necessity by the constraints which improvisation must suffer, in this way not being able to satisfy all of the standards of artistic success. Although the concept of imperfection is declared descriptive, the assumption of one practice as the paradigm by which to measure another practice is a surreptitiously evaluative move. Recently a defensive argument was proposed to counter this objection against imperfectionism,6 leveraging the Kantian thesis that perfection is not the ultimate criterion of aesthetic evaluation.7 The argument, a simple reproposal of Walton’s categorialism, contends that imperfection is a “negative value pro tanto”:8 it is a negative value when it does not concern practices such as improvisational ones, even though in this field, given the circumstances, it would be a positive value. And yet, if we accept the Kantian thesis according to which perfection is not the criterion for commensurating artistic results, it is, precisely for that reason, no longer coherent to maintain that improvisation is a case sui generis, given that in its case even imperfect or “funky” outcomes are enough.9 The reason for the Kantian thesis is that conformity to the aim, implied by the concept of perfection, does not have a constitutive function in aesthetic judgment10 but, as was explained by (among others) Luigi Pareyson, is negotiated by every work of art that (trans)forms the criteria for its own 6

7 8 9

10

L.B. Brown, D. Goldblatt, and T. Gracyk, Jazz and the Philosophy of Art, New York-London, Routledge, 2018, pp. 161-289. The authors refer to the book by Daniel M. Feige, Philosophie des Jazz (Berlin, Suhrkamp, 2014), which explicitly and correctly takes up the thesis I have argued, particularly in “Jazz als Gelungene performance. Ästhetische Normativität und Improvisation,” op. cit., and “‘Do not fear mistakes—there are none’ (Miles Davis). The Mistake as Surprising Experience of Creativity in Jazz,” op. cit. Kant, Critique of Judgment, op. cit., §§15-16, pp. 73-78. Brown, Goldblatt and Gracyk, Jazz and the Philosophy of Art, op. cit., p. 284, note 18. The three authors (loc. cit.) seemingly do not notice that this category of “rough” or “funky,” like the wrong notes of Thelonius Monk and the mistake of Miles Davis, originally had a negative connotation—since it originally means “stinking” or “putrid”—and acquires a positive aesthetic value only as it overturns a previously enforced normative context by performatively illustrating the autopoietic character of the aesthetic normativity of art. As Luigi Pareyson argued (L’estetica di Kant, Milano, Mursia, 1984, pp. 90-91 and 156-209) that applies not only for “free beauty” (typically that of a musical improvisation, of an arabesque or a decorative design, that, as abstract, is free from objective purposiveness), but also for “adherent beauty,” which presupposes the concept of the represented object.

An Aesthetics of Success

123

success. The correct consequence to draw from the Kantian thesis is not the validity of the aesthetics of imperfection for improvisation, but on the contrary, that perfection and its opposite are not the (ultimate) criteria of artistic success because—as is shown precisely by improvisational practices—the norm of success does not precede the work of art, but is realized by it internally. As I will argue in the following pages, the thesis that roughness or funkiness is a positive aesthetic value in a certain context and that, consequently, a rough or funky artistic outcome in this context is aesthetically positive, bases the configuration of aesthetic predicates on theoretical, rather than aesthetic, judgment. But only an aesthetic judgment regarding the experience of an individual case can establish, for example, whether or not being rough or funky is an aesthetically valuable property of a certain musical improvisation (when many improvisations are something other than rough or funky). If one instead maintains, as Andy Hamilton11 now does—and contrary to what was argued by Gioia—that the aesthetics of imperfection is neither a negative aesthetics (that it does not entail a simple tolerance for errors and imperfections) nor a positive aesthetics limited solely to a specific context (as it was for Brown, Goldblatt, and Gracyk), but rather positive since it consists in the constant search for contingencies to which it responds, one gets closer to the idea that I am proposing in this book. It is no longer clear, however, what the theoretical role for the notion of imperfection will be. And the suspicion that such a notion does not have a real theoretical role is supported by the fact that Hamilton no longer considers the notion of imperfection to be central for improvisation, but instead for performative practices as such: thus, the label “aesthetics of imperfection” seems to boil down to a way to account for the risk of making a mistake in public. The point should rather be that the constitutive lack of guarantees, namely, the aesthetically (un)founding role of the possibility of failure, constitutes the beauty of aesthetic experience (of art and beyond). Thus, the thesis that I want to articulate in this chapter is what follows: the aesthetic specificity of improvisation consists in its performative exhibition of the very dynamics of aesthetic experience and, in particular, of its transformative and fluid normativity that remains consigned to the possibility of failure.12

11 12

In fact, far from depending on perfection, it includes it because the criterion of perfection does not precede the object, but is the result of the object in its representation. A. Hamilton, “Improvisation as Spontaneous Creation versus ‘Making Do’,” in Bertinetto and Ruta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts, op. cit., pp. 171-186. Cf. G.  Bertram, “Why Does the End of Art Matter for Art in General? Explaining the Modernity of Art with Hegel against Hegel,” in A. Bertinetto and G. Garelli, Morte dell’arte

124

Chapter 4

In conclusion, the aesthetic specificity of improvisation surely does not depend on an implicit call to ignore wrong notes or to magnanimously support the mediocrity of a performance, but also not on the invitation to grasp the aesthetically attractive aspect of its roughness or lack of refinement. Rather, an initial, provisional, and theoretical result of this reflection is this: what must be questioned is not only imperfectionism, but the very categorialism on which imperfectionism is based. To avoid getting lost in the details of the vast scholarship on the complex theme of aesthetic evaluation, I am here interested in outlining the aspects that pertain to the aesthetics of improvisation and the contribution that this practice offers to art as such. The heart of this question seems to me to be this: although the determination of the categories for what we value provides the normative framework for our evaluation—given that in order to formulate a reliable judgment it is important to know if the music that we listen to or the show that we attend is an improvisation in a studio, or live, or the execution of a composition, let alone to recognize the style of the work in question and to have other information available that can guide our experience and our judgment—,the choice of the categories on which to base experience and judgment (for example, the aforementioned roughness or funkiness) is itself an evaluative operation, at least implicitly.13 The artistic and aesthetic categories carry, at least implicitly, values that guide experience and inform judgment, which our experience and our judgment in their turn mobilize. In fact, the categories that regulate the configuration of the ontological identity of the work of art, along with some of its aesthetic and artistic meanings and values, are also generated in the course of cultural practices of artistic production and of aesthetic evaluation: they are not fixed, but instead they are in evolution. They are not external to aesthetic experience: they are involved in its configuration from the inside.

13

e rinascita dell’immagine. Saggi in onore di Federico Vercellone, Roma, Aracne, 2017, pp. 19-29. According to the line of thought partially divergent from that of Giovanni Matteucci (Estetica e natura umana, op. cit., p. 53), considering the evaluation a crucial element of aesthetic experience (of art, but not only), that is, considering the aesthetic experience as intrinsically evaluative (on the theme, cf. D’Angelo, Estetica, op. cit.), does not involve the abandonment of the operative order of experience. As improvisation illustrates, evaluation has (or at least can have) a performative dimension: it intervenes operatively on the same criteria through which it interacts with and through experience, generating “common sense,” that is, the communicability and community of taste (cf. infra, sec. 6).

An Aesthetics of Success

4.2

125

No Identification without Evaluation without Transformation

This being the case, my thesis is that improvisation offers the model for the transformative dynamic of art. The normativity of an improvisation emerges from the performative interactions that constitute it in the creative confrontation with contingency. Similarly, the meanings and the values of the works of art are continuously renegotiated through the contingent dynamics of artistic praxis. This occurs both in the production of the works by the artists (which I will dwell on a bit later) as well as through the aesthetic experience of them: the success of a work or of a performance is decided thanks to the way in which appreciation, rooted in emotional and participatory contact, as well as on cognitive and contemplative distance, situatively negotiates the criteria for the aesthetic value of the work on the basis of the transformation endured by those who experience it. There is no definitive judgment. In fact, judgment requires each appreciator to complete the aesthetic experience directly: an evaluative and interpretative experience that (trans)forms whomever undergoes it as well as the work that provokes it. The interpretation of works of art reinvents their meanings and their criteria of evaluation, responding to the evaluations of the past, working as a proposal for a “common sense” in fieri, that is, as the request for a plural consensing [consentire],14 and opening the possibility—as well as establishing constraints—for future interpretations.15 The success and the meaning of a work, responsible for its ontological identity as a cultural construct, cannot depend solely on the intentions of the author. On the one hand, as we will see shortly (sec. 3), the work emerges from authorial intentions through the unforeseeable vicissitudes of the confrontation with forms and materials, and does not spring forth from the intentions of the artist as the simple realization of a prefixed plan. The particularity of improvisation consists in its exhibiting and thematizing this event. On the other hand, although authorial intentions are not irrelevant for the interpretation of 14 15

Translator’s note: here and in what follows, I have translated consentire with the neologism “consensing” to capture the author’s emphasis on a sense of agreement or consensus that is also a sensing and feeling-along-with (con-sentire). As was already anticipated in chap. 2.3.2, regarding the question, rather in vogue in the analytic circles, if aesthetic judgment can be based on the testimony of others or if it ought to rely on direct experience, I believe as follows. The testimony of others can be relevant for guiding and formulating a judgment of a work, as well as for orienting the aesthetic choices of individual appreciators. Nevertheless, since it is not a judgment of an (exclusively) epistemological type, the aesthetic judgment is an activity that each individual appreciator accomplishes on their own on the basis of a direct experience of the work. Being evaluative and interpretative, such experience participates in the (trans)formation of the specific aesthetic normativity of the work in question.

126

Chapter 4

a work, they are never the final instance of judgment; rather, they are among the elements in play in the interactions of artistic practices,16 as happens in improvisation. However, the success and the meaning of a work can never be worked out by the appreciation and evaluation of an individual appreciator, even though the success and the meaning of a work require those appreciations and evaluations. An artwork’s success and meaning emerge from interpretations as well as from the uses and abuses to which the work is adapted or conformed.17 They vary in unforeseen ways as a consequence of the various interpretations generated, situatively, through the aesthetic experiences of individuals. The history of an interpretation and of the effects of a work, its Wirkungsgeschichte, to use Gadamer’s well-known concept,18 is therefore the work itself as a cultural construction whose identity emerges, (trans)forming itself, through the ways in which it is lived, understood, and (ab)used. As if to say: the formation of a work does not end when the artist stops working and publicly displays what she has done. The interpretations and the (ab)uses of a work produce meanings that (trans)form it retroactively: they are contributions (not programmable in advance) to further reconfigurations of the work which, in its turn, succeeds aesthetically to the extent that it (trans)forms whomever experiences it. One 16

17

18

Cf. A.  Bertinetto, “L’emergentismo nell’arte,” in Philosophy Kitchen, 11, 2019, pp.  177-191. Certainly, the openness or indeterminacy of the work can be desired intentionally by the author, as is the case with artistic practices of the avant-garde examined, among others, by Umberto Eco (The Open Work, op. cit.). Nevertheless, the modality of the aesthetic success of this opening varies by virtue of the experiences in which it is encountered and of the interpretations and evaluations that follow from it. For example, the potential of surprise and shock, which contributed to the aesthetic significance of a work by Cage or Duchamp, is today reduced, if not negated, by the audience’s addiction to similar artistic phenomena: which in the long run can involve the alteration of the work’s meaning. Coherently with the exercise of metic intelligence through which, as Michel de Certeau observes (The Practice of Everyday Life, op. cit.; cf. supra, chap 1.5), human beings bend rules and historical institutions to the needs of specific situations of their acting, while on the one hand the works of art can arise through the recycling and the repurposing of pre-existing materials and objects (as in the case of collage), on the other hand artworks undergo operations of reappropriation and repurposing, of the improvisational sort, that can bring about real creative abuses (abuses, understood, with respect to a preexisting normative context): for example, a television series about a royal house can be used to promote regional tourism, painting in the past designed for religious indoctrination become objects of pure aesthetic contemplation, a musical piece can be adopted to generate behavioral responses in concrete situations. Cf. J. London, “Third-Party Uses of Music and Musical Pragmatics,” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 66, 2008, n. 3, pp. 253-264. The term literally means “history of effect,” “effectual history.” Gadamer, Truth and Method, op. cit., pp. 301 ff.

An Aesthetics of Success

127

can then argue that artistic normativity—or, the evolving web of the semantic and axiological determinations that shape the ontological-cultural identity of the work of art—emerges, unpredictably, through the experiential interactions that (trans)form artistic practices: that is, concretely, through those who produce art and those who experience it. This condition implies that appealing to predetermined categories does not guarantee the validity of a judgment and that the principle of categorialism, according to which the ontological identification of a work of art is the condition for its evaluation (that is, “no evaluation without identification”), must be converted into its opposing principle: “no identification without evaluation,”19 according to which the ontological identification of a work itself, as a cultural artifact, is conditioned by evaluative and interpretative practices. In fact, as the British philosopher Peter Lamarque maintains, the conditions of the work of art’s identity are “value-laden” and for this reason they “are distinct from those of functionally-defined artifacts and physical objects in the natural world.” Not only is the work of art the result of a creative activity by human beings who introduce something new into the world, but its ontological substance requires “a complex cultural background of practices [cultural and evaluative], conventions, established modes (accepted or reacted against), prevailing ideas, political and social currents, as well as available materials, technology, and economic circumstances,” “appropriate beliefs, attitudes, modes of appreciation, and expectations.”20 Now, since the cultural practices and their normative force can change, it follows that the work of art, whose ontological-cultural identity is founded on these practices, can also change. We must therefore qualify the thesis—whose partial understanding also feeds the imperfectionist prejudice—according to which we must place a work of art in the correct category in order to appropriately evaluate it.21 Although the credibility of aesthetic judgment requires the reference to appropriate categories, it is precisely through the processes of aesthetic appreciation and evaluation that the appropriateness of the category is established and thus that the ontological identification is realized: the artistic categories (genres, norms, aesthetic concepts and values) are generated thanks to the (trans)formation of the work of art’s sense that occurs in aesthetic evaluation. 19

20 21

J. Margolis, What, After All, Is a Work of Art?, University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999; P. Lamarque, Work and Object: Explorations in the Metaphysics of Art, Oxford (UK), Oxford University Press, 2010; E. Zemak, “No Identification Without Evaluation,” in The British Journal of Aesthetics, 26, 1986, pp, 239-251. Lamarque, Work and Object, op. cit., pp. 61, 41, 54. Loc. ct., p. 75. Walton, Categories of Art, op. cit.

128

Chapter 4

The American philosopher Joseph Margolis grasps this point very well by understanding evaluative interpretations to be performative. In fact, not only does the individuation of a work of art (as distinguished from non artistic artifacts) involve, beyond the transformation of pre-existing materials (stone, wood, sounds  …), the attribution of cultural, interpretative, intentional and evaluative “parts” to the artifact—what is a derivative of the hermeneutic practice of assigning meaning to the object through interpretation—, but the interpretations cannot be limited a priori: “you cannot settle the ontology of art by imposing a priori constraints on the logic of interpretation.”22 Certainly, the factual-material structure of a work constitutes a constraint that is not only difficult to get around, but also the essential condition of the work. Thus, in reference to art one cannot accept relativism à la Nietzsche, according to whom “there are no facts, only interpretations.”23 Nevertheless, the contrary thesis is also without value, by which the artifacts that are the works of art are completely identifiable with their factual-material elements. The works of art are cultural constructions: interpreted and interpretable facts. They have factual and material conditions (exposed to transformations by physical causes), but they are not reducible to them: the interpretations to which they are subjected contribute to the shaping of their identity. Therefore, since the interpretations influence the meanings of the cultural constructions to which they are applied in a transformative way, the meaning and the identity of the works cannot depend solely on the cultural environment from which they originate, but depend also on the subsequent interactions within the cultural dynamics that they help to nourish.24 Therefore, the works of art are both (trans)formable and also (trans)formative. They are “physically embodied and culturally emergent entities”: they are (trans)formable entities because, as cultural entities, they are not ontologically fixed or unchangeable—even though the variations (due to natural or cultural causes) of their physical base cannot cross over the threshold, determined case by case, of the minimal empirical conditions necessary for the very survival of the work itself as a material artifact and for its experience by an appreciator. 22 23 24

Margolis, What, After All, Is a Work of Art?, op. cit., p. 95. F. Nietzsche, Writings from the Late Notebooks, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 139. Ultimately, since the determination of the identity of the work is an interpretative decision with (trans)formative effects, this is the reason for which the practice of restoration, also involved in the flow of the transformations of taste and of aesthetic normativity, is controversial and contentious: on this theme cf. L.  Giombini, “Artworks and Their Conservation. A (Tentative) Philosophical Introduction,” in Aesthetica Preprint, 110, 2019, pp. 1-75.

An Aesthetics of Success

129

The identity of the works can be specified only in terms of the cultural properties in flux as they are subjected to interpretative transformations, that is, to situated and responsive improvisations, due among other things to the changing of linguistic meanings through history.25 In other terms, the evaluative interpretations, which are not rigidly bound to classificatory criteria that allow us to attribute unchanging properties to physical entities, (trans)form the identity of the work. Moreover, works of art are not only subjected to transformation but are themselves transformative because they intervene on reality: they modify the “furnishings of the world”26, retroactively shaping the human environment, beginning with whomever has an experience of it, and transforming the meaning and the cultural identity of the preceding works,27 along with artistic practices and categories. A category, such as an artistic style or genre, can undergo transformations by virtue of new works that, through the aesthetic experiences of individuals, invite them to renegotiate intersubjectively its sense as aesthetic practice.28 A work, perhaps improvised, can generate changes because it induces experiences that invite whomever undergoes it to invent new uses of the language in order to describe it. For example, characterizing an improvisation as rough or funky not only (re)configures the aesthetic and cultural meaning of that improvisation, but also influences, through comparison and contrast, its evaluation of other improvisations and works, thus helping to (re)configure the significance of the categories “roughness” and “funkiness.” The (normative) artistic categories (genres, styles, aesthetic concepts) are not simply 25 26 27

28

Margolis, What, After All, Is a Work of Art?, op. cit., p. 71. Thanks to Roberta Dreon for a useful comment on this point. As T.S. Eliot observes, the new works of art modify retroactively those of the past by referring to them culturally (even in a non-explicit way): “what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new. Whoever has approved this idea of order, (…) will not find it preposterous that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past.” (“Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1920), in Perspecta, 19, 1982, pp. 36-42). Eliot’s thesis is taken up again in reference to photography by S. Sontag, On Photography (1973), New York, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2005, p. 111. Cf. E.  Terrone and A.  Condello, “Genre Classification: a Problem of Normativity and Exemplarity,” in W. Gephart and J. Leko (eds.), Law and the Arts, vol. 18, Frankfurt a. M., Klostermann Verlag, 2017, pp. 39-46.

130

Chapter 4

unchanging objective properties that characterize the work of art; rather, the works of art actualize and (trans)form the categories of art: the works of art are not contents that, so to say, enter into a category like objects inserted into a box. The relation between works and artistic categories is an interaction of reciprocal determination. It is an improvisational relation for which: a) the artistic categories are (trans)formed and emerge from (interpretations of) works of art; b) every work of art is emerging, since, while it is an application of the category (which is a norm), it (potentially) exceeds it, helping to (trans) form it. In this regard Margolis presents the example of one of Picasso’s most celebrated works, Les demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), and writes that “the innovation of Picasso” (with Les demoiselles d’Avignon) “cannot be routinely reconciled with any of the would-be canons of well-formed painting up to the intrusion of Les demoiselles.”29 Picasso’s innovation is an “improvisation” (on categoriesnorms and other works of art: in particular, Les grand bagneuses (1906) by Cézanne and African cult masks) “open to further improvisations” thanks to which the categories-norms themselves are transformed. In summary, works of art are not only the physical artifacts whose aesthetic interpretation and evaluation depend on predetermined categories. Rather, they are cultural constructions (re)generated by interpretative-evaluative attributions of meaning that are realized through aesthetic experiences of an affective and cognitive nature: the identity of the works emerges from these experiences and attributions of meaning; it is continually formed and transformed by them. Therefore, the ontology of art, with its categorial determinations, depends on the emergent and improvisational dynamics of artistic practices (production, interpretation, critique) that feeds back onto the identity of the works. Although the physical object (the statue, the painting, the photograph …) can remain (or be restored as) the “same,” the cultural “part,” emerging from the interactions in the realms of production and of reception, is in flux. The evaluative interpretations creatively give form to the flexible meanings and the identities of the works of art (even retroactively) and likewise the emerging of a work of art actively influences such interactions, (trans)forming the criteria of evaluation and interpretation. In short, the meaning and the identity of the works of art emerge and are (trans)formed through the improvisational interactions in which the works themselves participate. With that being the case, the imperfectionist thesis must be rejected. It is a biased and misleading application of categorialism, which also gets revised in 29

Margolis, What, After All, Is a Work of Art?, op. cit., p. 93.

An Aesthetics of Success

131

light of the transformative dynamism of artistic-aesthetic normativity. In this framework, my thesis is that improvisation constitutes the model for the development of artistic practices; it is not that, by going beyond aesthetic normality, improvisation gives rise to a presumed aesthetics of imperfection. For that reason, in the remainder of this chapter, I will argue that the comprehension of improvisation as the artistic articulation of a grammar of contingency reveals a promising conceptual horizon for the philosophy of art itself: that of an aesthetics of success, according to which the exercise of creativity, along with the functioning of artistic normativity and the dynamics of aesthetic appreciation, are all of the improvisational sort. 4.3

Creativity ex improviso

Let’s begin with the relation between improvisation and creativity.30 According to the British philosopher Berys Gaut, creativity can be defined as “the capacity to produce original and valuable items by flair.”31 It seems appropriate to define something as creative when it is judged as original (that is, as the first with regard to other objects and actions) and praiseworthy (it has value, for example, because it finds solutions to problems or is the cause of satisfying experiences) and whose realization requires talent, ability, and intelligence (not being merely mechanical or accidental). An explanation of this type does not offer the sufficient conditions for creative action. In fact, given that a work or an action is creative only if it cannot be traced back completely to prior conditions, there does not exist a recipe or set of instructions for achieving creative results with certainty: an explanation that could provide the sufficient conditions of creativity would paradoxically eliminate creativity itself.32 Creativity requires “a causal ‘gap’ between the antecedents of the creative step and the 30

31

32

Obviously it is not possible here to account for the depth of an argument as broad and complex as the issue of creativity. Here I am concerned only with suggesting in a plausible way that approaching a notion like improvisation can be a theoretically felicitous move, at least in the artistic realm. B.  Gaut, “Philosophy of Creativity,” in Philosophy Compass, 5, 2012, n. 12, pp.  1034-1046, here p. 1041. Cf. M. Boden, Creativity and Art, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 1: “Creativity in general is the generation of novel, surprising, and valuable ideas.” On the theme of creativity, also in relation to musical improvisation, a useful perspective from a sociological-philosophical point of view is the volume edited by G. Fele, M. Russo and F.  Cifariello  Ciardi, Creatività musicali. Narrazione, pratiche e mercato, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2017. Cf. A. Bertinetto, “Performing the unexpected,” in Daimon, 57, 2012, pp. 117-135.

132

Chapter 4

moment of creation.”33 In that sense it is understood as emerging, since it is new and unforeseeable with respect to its antecedents.34 The criteria that Gaut proposes to identify an action or a creative product (originality, value, flair) are thus not recipes of the preceptive type for creativity, but guiding-concepts that allow something to be classified as creative in retrospect: they serve as a conceptual clarification of the actions and the products that can be judged creative (in terms of originality, praiseworthiness, and flair) after their realization. Because of the positive value typically assigned to these properties, “creative” is a predicate used as the criterion of value (or merit)35 for processes and for relative products: it is a normative concept rather than a descriptive one. A normative concept expresses a norm, that is, it states what it takes to achieve a goal. Thus, something is creative if it satisfies the norm of creativity, that is, if it has the merit of being original, praiseworthy, and an expression of ability, and is thus considered as an example that other actions and products ought to follow. Nevertheless, one cannot predict ahead of time which specific qualities a creative action or work will have in terms of originality, value, and ability: in fact, the responsible qualities of originality, of value, and of ability vary from case to case. Empirically, creative acts and objects are realized in very different ways: a universal formula for creativity does not exist.36 For that reason, although it can result from a long and thorough preparation, the creative action or work has something surprising: it is unexpected and unforeseeable. This is so because creativity is intrinsically bound to improvisation, but also liberated by improvisation. In the case of artistic production, this connection between creativity and improvisation seems to matter in an eminent way. This is what shines forth from the following reflection by John Dewey:37 A rigid predetermination of an end product whether by artist or beholder leads to the turning out of a mechanical or academic product, The processes by which the final object and perception are reached are not, in 33

34 35 36 37

J.L. Brown, Time, Will, and Mental Process, New York-London, Plenum Press, 1996, p. 235; Cf. R.K.  Sawyer, Explaining Creativity, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006, p.  33. Cf. R. McDonough, “Emergence and Creativity. Five Degrees of Freedom,” in T. Dartnall (ed.), Creativity, Cognition, and Knowledge. An Interaction, Westport-London, Praeger, 2002; D. Campbell, The Metaphysics of Emergence, New York, Pelgrave-McMillan, 2015. On the concept of emergence cf. supra, chap. 2.3.1. Cf. F. Sibley, Approach to Aesthetics, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2001, pp. 1-23. Cf. D. Novitz, “Explanation of Creativity,” in B. Gaut and P. Livingston (eds.), The Creation of Art, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 174-191. J. Dewey, Art as Experience (1934), New York, The Penguin Publishing Group, 2005, p. 144.

An Aesthetics of Success

133

such cases, means that move forward in the construction of a consummating experience. The latter is rather of the nature of the stencil, even though the copy from which the stencil is made exists in mind and not as physical thing […] The unexpected turn, something which the artist himself does not definitely foresee, is a condition of the felicitous quality of the work of art; it saves it from being mechanical. In other words, artistic creativity cannot be conceived (only) in terms of problem-solving, but rather (also) as problem-finding. It is not just about how to adapt a medium to a previously formed idea; and, it does not function as a sort of translation of a content already available in a material following pre-established production rules. Instead, it has an explorative character and establishes its objectives in the course of its work.38 The materials utilized are not only elements that must be organized in order to conform to a predetermined set of contents and forms. The materials, as with the specific situation of creative action and the implements with which the artists set themselves to work and interact, have a constitutive role in the creative process. This is not simply a matter of vehicles or tools under the total control of the artist who manipulates and adopts them. On the contrary, they offer “cues” [spunti]39 that invite the artist to an interaction that can lead her to modify the initial idea, as well as the forms and techniques she will utilize, in various ways through more or less experimental means before obtaining the final result. To echo Gadamer, “there is a leap between the planning and the executing on the one hand and the successful achievement on the other […] This leap distinguishes the work of art in its uniqueness and irreplaceability.”40 By virtue of this confrontation with the materials, the success of the work emerges out of its planning and its realization. Therefore, artists can experience tension and surprises in response to their own works.41 The creative work, although produced with ability and intelligence, surpasses the control and the intentions of the artist. And just as the improvisers do not have full and strict control over what is happening, the artist, although she has mastered the techniques of her craft 38

39 40 41

Cf. R.K. Sawyer, “Improvisation and the Creative Process: Dewey, Collingwood, and the Aesthetics of Spontaneity,” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 58, 2000, pp. 149161; G. Hagberg, “Against Creation as Translation,” in Id., Art as Language, Ithaca-London, Cornell University Press, 1995, pp. 109-117. Cf. Pareyson, Estetica. Teoria della formatività, op. cit., pp. 80 ff. H.-G.  Gadamer, “The Relevance of the Beautiful” (1977), in Id., The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays, Cambridge (UK), Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 33-34. Cf. Dewey, Art as Experience, op. cit., pp. 53-54, 68. E. Huovinen, “On Attributing Artistic Creativity,” in Tropos, IV, 2011, n. 2, pp. 65-86.

134

Chapter 4

and has learned and incorporated the related skills, does not completely dominate what she does. And just as the improvisers are exposed to the contingency of the process and present that contingency as art,42 so too the artists are exposed to the contingency of the interaction with forms and materials, that is, the contingency of the encounter with the concrete and unforeseeable situation of their practice. As Giovanni Matteucci argues, creativity consists in the reciprocal relation between the agent and that with which the agent is at work: creativity is interaction with the contents and the materials of experience. Artistic creativity is a practice of exploration that is articulated in the contingency of an “articulation (so to speak, live) of experience with a material device. Any artist knows how creative the transition from the sketch to the concrete realization of the work is, regardless of how detailed the sketch was.”43 Hannah Arendt, as we know, highlighted this by elaborating the Kantian conception of artistic genius as the “predisposition through which nature gives the rule to art”:44 creativity is not a sort of fabrication.45 While pre-established rules and plans of production must be followed in order to fabricate multiple exemplars of an already designed artifact, creative activity requires that invention does not come before the production of the work, but forms a part of it, because the result is creative if it emerges from action and from making (and from their technical, material, and cultural conditions) in unexpected ways. In this regard, two observations can be made. First of all, the creative imagination at work in art functions in an improvised way.46 If the term “improvisation” is understood in the etymological sense of “not seen before,” the results of the imagination are in effect unexpected. They emerge from the real and in the present without being able to be anticipated: they initiate an experience not fore-seen. Although anticipating a future sense of its exercise—including cases when it intervenes on known models and scenarios (as in the case of a novel or a film that makes reference to real historical events)—, the artistic imagination functions by improvising, that is, by generating scenarios otherwise unforeseeable and unforeseen, or by organizing already available materials and information in an unscripted way.

42 43 44 45 46

Cf. E.  Landgraf, “Improvisation: Form and Event. A Spencer-Brownian Calculation,” in B. Clarke and M.B.N. Hansen (eds.), Emergence and Embodyment, Durham-London, Duke University Press, 2009, pp. 179-204. Matteucci, Estetica e natura umana, op. cit., p. 88. Kant, Critique of Judgment, op. cit., §46, p. 174. Cf. Arendt, The Human Condition, op. cit., pp. 139-149, 171 ff. Bertinetto, “Performing Imagination. The Aesthetics of Improvisation,” op. cit.

An Aesthetics of Success

135

Secondly, as previously noted,47 even Arendt’s distinction between creative fabrication and action (like the Kantian distinction between art and craft on which it is based),48 although valid in the transcendental sense, that is, as the definition of the field of the conditions of possibility of an experience, must be rethought in light of the theses of Sennett and Preston49 according to which every human practice, including fabrication, requires improvisation as the adaptation of a plan to specific and changeable environmental conditions. Human industriousness exercises a pragmatic and operative (not) knowinghow of an artisanal sort: in order to be able to function effectively, the skills, rules, and abilities required for the concrete realization of human plans are adapted, modified, and refined in the course of their very use through improvisational interactions. The distance between artistic creativity and artisanal creativity is therefore not as great as it seems: in fact, improvisation constitutes its trait d’union. 4.4

Creativity at Work

Artists, in the unfolding of their imaginative and materially productive work, find themselves in the conditions of improvisers who, on the one side, possess artistic talents and abilities, while on the other side, do not know exactly what they do because their acting is made possible and at the same time conditioned by physical and cultural automatisms.50 Their work unfolds in the realm of traditions, genres, and practices of the cultural and technical sort that condition their activity (without their complete awareness) and in turn retroactively shape these conditions. The conditions of possibility for the practice are continually re-elaborated within and through the practice itself. The same holds for the intentions and plans of the improvisers, who are surprised by the contingent events of the performance. What the improvisers do retroactively shapes the preconditions of their actions (plans, intentions, resources), feeding back on them, such that the material and normative preconditions of the practice emerge from the practice. But this does not mean that creative acting, in art or in other fields, is anti-normative.

47 48 49 50

Cf. supra, chap. 1.4. For the relation between improvisation and imagination, not only in the artistic realm, cf. Asma, The Evolution of Imagination, op. cit. Kant, Critique of Judgment, op. cit. §44, p. 172. Sennett, The Craftsman, op. cit.; Preston, A Philosophy of Material Culture, op. cit. Cf. Pelgreffi, Filosofia dell’automatismo, op. cit.

136

Chapter 4

To confront the question of creativity through the key of improvisation carries two advantages. On the one hand, it allows the overcoming of the dualistic model of creativity supported by Jon Elster,51 according to which creativity would consist in two phases: the creating of constraints (intentional precommitment) and their subsequent exploration. On the other hand, it allows the connection between rule based creativity and rule changing creativity52 to be identified in the dynamic by which the normativity of a practice is constructed in the unfolding of the practice itself. Creativity is not the result of the intention to act in an inventive way, but, as Matteucci writes, consists rather in the “ability to play the game of experience by exposing the lines of force in a field”: that is, in corresponding to the constraints that orient acting by inviting a response. Therefore “creativity should be examined not in terms of the application ‘of’ a rule, but instead the application ‘to’ a rule: it is the search for a constraint, the appeal to it, rather than its application.”53 Artistic production is not only the result of a creativity governed by rules, as is the case when a creative and surprising move occurs within the rules of a game, such as when an imaginative move by a star player remains within the rules of soccer. Sometimes, artistic production requires a transformative creativity, which can take two forms. There are, on the one hand, examples of paradigm shifts (as in Kuhn’s scientific revolutions)54 that, through the violation of the rules that govern a practice, give life to another practice, opening a new “conceptual space”55 once the revolutionary gesture is recognized as the

51

52

53 54 55

J.  Elster, Ulysses Unbound: Studies in Rationality, Precommitment, and Constraints. Cambridge (UK), Cambridge University Press, 2000. Cf. E.  Picciuto and P.  Carruthers, “The Origins of Creativity,” in Paul and Kaufman (eds.), The Philosophy of Creativity. New Essays, op. cit., pp.  199-223. For a critique of the model of creativity called “geneplore” (generation + exploration), cf. Matteucci, Estetica e natura umana, op. cit., pp. 73-75. Cf. N.  Chomsky, Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought (1966), 3rd ed., Cambridge (UK), Cambridge University Press, 2009. Chomsky’s distinction is adopted E. Garroni, Creatività, Macerata, Quodlibet, 2010. Margaret Boden (“Creativity: How Does It Work?,” in M. Krausz, D. Dutton and K. Bardsley (eds.), The Idea of Creativity, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2009, pp. 237-250) instead offers a tripartite articulation: the first two types of creativity (combinatory and exploratory: that is, the new combination of new ideas and the exploration of an existing conceptual space) are referable to Chomsky’s notion of “rule-governed creativity,” while the third, transformative creativity (the emergence of the new), conforms with Chomsky’s notion of “rule-changing creativity.” Matteucci, Estetica e natura umana, op. cit., p. 85. Cf. T. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), Chicago, (Il), The University of Chicago Press, 2012; G. Vattimo, “The Structure of Artistic Revolutions,” in Id., The End of Modernity (1985), Baltimore (MD), Johns Hopkins Press, 1991, pp. 90-109. Cf. Boden, “Creativity,” op. cit.

An Aesthetics of Success

137

exemplar by a community of subjects (which is constituted as such thanks precisely to this communal recognition): for example, the creativity of the soccer player who grabbed the ball with his hands and invented rugby (at least according to a well-known anecdote), or the creativity of Monet and Schönberg who, respectively, with the painting L’impression, soleil levant (1872) and with the Five Pieces for Piano (1923), gave rise to impressionism in painting and to 12-note serialism in music. And yet, on the other hand, beyond such striking examples, transformative creativity also has a more pervasive and “distributed” dimension, albeit more subtle and hidden. In the encounter with material forms, in respect to which the artists remain “in the osmotic threshold of activity and passivity,”56 the exploration of a genre or of a style is the exercise of that (not) knowing how which, through the excellence of a making, as it were, covertly modifies the rules of the practice not by re-writing them, but by (co)responding to them. To return to soccer, one thinks about how Johan Cruijff’s tactic of totaalvoetbal (total football) in the Netherlands applied the rules to the game in an innovative way; or to remain in the artistic realm, about how Mozart transformed rococo into the harmonic force of Viennese classicism—intensely expressive while at the same time delicately enchanting, even with the adoption of more complex forms. Formal and material constraints (such as traditional conventions, aesthetic styles, cultural contexts, technical problems and solutions) always govern the production of artistic works and performances. Nevertheless, as I argued in the preceding section, such constraints are not completely rigid, because artists (trans)form the artistic category, the genre, or the style, while they are realized. Artists work in the realm of conventions and rules, modifying them while at the same time applying them by realizing their works: the application of conventions reshapes those conventions themselves, that—as the expression of dynamically changeable aesthetic categories—are in evolution. Artistic production exhibits the connection between the types of creativity just considered: the one based on rules, the one that transforms the rules in a striking way, and the one that, instead, responds to the rules. Artists work by (trans)forming the norms that regulate their practice—by corresponding to them. Consequently, improvisation is not (or better: is not always and constitutively) a minor expression of creativity or a deviation from artistic normativity (or normality): for example from the canon of a genre or of a style, or from the formal structure of a composition. Improvisation is not merely the exception to the rule of art. Rather, in the hic et nunc of the performance, it exhibits the creativity that characterizes artistic normativity: it shows artistic normativity 56

Matteucci, Estetica e natura umana, op. cit., p. 108.

138

Chapter 4

creatively at work, that is, normativity as generated in the praxis that it regulates. Improvisation manifests what happens in artistic practice in a more extended and distended time: the normative conditions, as well as the performative abilities, intentions, and plans are involved in the artistic process not as external guides and rules, but instead as part of the process reshaped, in the long run, by the process itself. That seems a valid characteristic for all of the human practices where, in contrast to what happens in the execution of an algorithm, “we make up the rules as we go along.”57 Therefore, although it is useful heuristically to conceive of improvisation as a “non-genre genre” in order to grasp its specific character, the justification for this expression is not the one adopted by Randy Fertel, for whom a genre (or a style) designs an interweaving of expectations, while an improvisation promotes the new, or still, what cannot be traced back to a genre, such that “[a]ll improvisations deviate from their generic model by emphasizing the here-and-now, performance character of their discourse.”58 This view understands improvisation in terms of an exception to the rule: improvisation as the alternative to the rule. My thesis, however, is that this very exception, this continual exceeding, is the rule of normativity’s transformation in art (and, on closer inspection, in human practices tout court), even if it does not present itself as a specific deviation or a striking and intentional violation of the rule, but rather as its responsive acceptance.59 If it is true that, so long as improvisation is recognizable, it must emerge as the exception with respect to the norm (in this case: a genre, a style, or a performative habit) and a norm must be enforced because an unexpected exception can be given, it is also true that it is the norm itself that requires alteration so that it might apply concretely, effectively intervening on the real. The genre also lives in the here and now of the works and of the particular experiences that exceed it: the genre lives by altering itself in ways not foreseen by its pre-existing normative structures. Improvisation is not the alternative to the rule,60 but is rather alterative of the rule, even though alternatives to the rules and alternative rules can then spring forth through this alteration. In the microcosm of a performance of improvisation the confrontation with contingency here at work is the practice of creativity through the articulation of artistic and aesthetic habits (in terms of ability and conventions) 57 58 59 60

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, op. cit., par. 83. Fertel, A Taste for Chaos, op. cit., p. 46 and p. 96. Thanks to Mirio Cosottini for his helpful comment on this theme. Cf. D.  Fischlin and A.  Heble (eds.), The Other Side of Nowhere: Jazz, Improvisation, and Communities in Dialogue, Middletown (CT), Wesleyan University Press, 2004, p. 13.

An Aesthetics of Success

139

that shape a normativity in fieri. In the macrocosm of the artistic field, every genre is (trans)formed in an improvisational manner by the individual works that give it life. The works emerge from the confrontation with unforeseeable outcomes between aesthetic and technical norms, plans, materials, and situations: they are not occurrences of the typical or atypical characteristics of a pre-established genre, but contribute to re-inventing the modalities of production and the criteria of their very evaluation. As Luigi Pareyson maintained, art is a (per)formative doing, “a way of doing that invents the way of doing while doing it,” that is, it invents the criteria of its realization and the norms of its evaluation;61 each work of art is a concrete negotiation of the criteria of its success, which are realized in the course of the aesthetic experience of them, and that the artist already has of it as the appreciator of her own work and working. As a specific artistic practice, improvisation is thus paradigmatic not only of artistic creativity, but also of the transformational dynamics that characterize the aesthetic normativity of the world of art. 4.5

Performative Normativity

Having argued that the creativity at work in the artistic field is improvisational, I will now move on to the second thesis through which I will articulate an aesthetics of success as the specific contribution of improvisation to aesthetics, to art, and to the philosophy of art: aesthetic judgment, which reflects the emotive and cognitive involvement of the subject in the experience of (and with) works of art (and more in general of, and with, aesthetic objects), does not depend passively on the respect for (aesthetic and artistic) categories that are static and, so to say, ready to use; rather, it shapes its normative force in a situative way—namely, on the basis of and thanks to concrete experience. Despite the differences between their respective competencies, aesthetic improvisation and aesthetic judgment operate in a similar way:62 by adapting, indeed by inventing, the norm in response to the specificity (of the experience) of its object, aesthetic judgment is improvisational; and improvisation in its turn— by putting into play the normativity of a practice—is the performance of aesthetic judgment or aesthetic judgment as performance. 61 62

Cf. Pareyson, Estetica, op. cit., p. 59. This observation invites us to overcome the Kantian separation between genius and taste and between artist and spectator, modeled on that between theory and practice, proposed again by Hannah Arendt in the tenth lecture on judgment in Kant as the dialectic between creative genius and the discipline of the judging public. Cf. H. Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (1982), Chicago (IL), University of Chicago Press, 1992.

140

Chapter 4

4.5.1 The Performance of Aesthetic Judgment The judgment concerning the correct application of a pre-established norm can function, at least at first glance, in technical practices governed by algorithms that have the inferential form “if … then.” When we buy a coffee from a vending machine we follow a routine of the type: “if you want coffee, then: a) make your selection, b) insert the coin, and c) press the button.” In these cases we have a set of intentions and goals, along with a set of devices, procedures, and rules to realize them. There is a plan, a rule, or a general concept: by sticking to it we achieve our goal. The judgment about its success is commensurate with the appropriateness of the actions taken in order to realize the plan. Naturally, there can be varying degrees of success: we can stick to the plan in better or worse ways, be more or less precise, more or less effective in achieving the goal, evaluating the implementation of the plan accordingly (the intention, the rule, the concept). Now, as we have seen in chapter 1, this model of action is in itself questionable. In fact, the plans (sets of intentions and objectives) are not completely prepared before their practical realization. Rather, it is through acting that the plans are elaborated as connections between intentions and objectives on the one side, and means and rules on the other. In the artistic realm, this model does not apply. There certainly exist general rules and gimmicks of this type for producing a successful song or tv series, such as when someone writes a piece of music or the script for the episodes of a tv series—both by applying neuroscientific research and statistical analysis to the liking of a sequence of sounds or to mechanisms of suspense in serial storytelling, as well as by optimizing the information on individual consumers through cookies and algorithms that spy on their behaviors and preferences, manipulating their tastes for commercial ends.63 However, commercial success is one thing, but artistic success is quite another—less measurable and less determinable in advance. As I maintained in the previous section, works of art are not generated by algorithmic rules, and the aesthetic judgment of the work cannot function by measuring the degree to which a goal was reached by following a pre-established normative routine. In fact, as creative performance, the work of art itself constitutes the norm on whose basis it is evaluated, in the field of a context of preferences and expectations to which the artwork relates in a responsive and transformative way. In this regard, a reference to Kant seems relevant and beneficial. Kant distinguished between “determinative judgment,” which is valid in the cognitive realm, and “reflective judgment,” which is valid in the sphere of aesthetic 63

The theme is undoubtedly much more complex. For an introduction cf. Arielli, “Taste and the Algorithm,” op. cit.

An Aesthetics of Success

141

experience.64 The first type of judgment is activated to determine the characteristics of objects or concepts by attributing determinate properties to them. The second type of judgment realizes a sense in the absence of pre-established criteria. Aesthetic judgment does not function through the correlation of an individual concrete object to a norm or an abstract and general concept, but is productive: it generates the norm or the concept that the experience of an object, a work of art for example, illustrates concretely. Thus the object that we judge aesthetically is the example of a norm (a concept) that is not given, but rather inventively produced in the individual case. While determinative judgment functions as the non-creative execution of an algorithm, reflective judgment is productive in that it generates something new in accordance with the concrete situation, affectively and emotively connoted, of its exercise.65 The judgment of beauty does not proceed like a logico-theoretical judgment, that is, by applying a rule (a concept: beautiful, ugly, elegant, peaceful, derivative, complex …) to a particular case (this specific intuition, this specific object); on the contrary, when an object is presented to perception, aesthetic judgment (regarding the feeling that I feel in front of the object) is set in motion, not by determining the object through the reference to already given concepts, but instead by grasping the exemplary in compliance with a regularity (of the subjective sort) that does not exist concretely if not beginning from concrete experience (not only of a cognitive kind, but also of an affective, emotive, or expressive tenor) that we make of this specific object. The validity of the norm on the basis of which I require that the others agree with my judgment is therefore not presupposed by it; it is unpredictable and unforeseeable because it is emerging, in a creative way, from an undeterminable lived experience. One can place Wittgenstein’s reflections concerning the judgment about aesthetic “correctness” alongside Kant’s aforementioned ideas. For the Austrian philosopher, aesthetic appreciation is not founded on predetermined rules, but rather on intuitive evaluations rooted in concrete practices. In other terms, aesthetic appreciation is an evaluative doing rooted in specific form of life. Whoever judges is not a passive and detached appreciator who appeals to 64 65

Kant, Critique of Judgment, op. cit., pp. 410 ff. Although Kant does not propose a conception of artistic creativity as the interactive confrontation with materials as devices and affordances, as they will do later, among others, philosophers like Dewey and Pareyson (the latter doing so explicitly with reference to Kant), in Kant’s theoretical system the rule produced by judgment is not an exclusively formal operative structure. By going beyond the letter of Kant’s philosophy, one can indeed argue that the normativity of human practices is as such guided on the basis of the model of aesthetic judgment; cf. Bertinetto and Bertram, “‘We make up the rules as we go along’—Improvisation as an Essential Aspect of Human Practices?,” op. cit., p. 206.

142

Chapter 4

predetermined metrics, but exercises, in a way that today we can call enactive, “linguistic games” of an experiential, appreciative, and evaluative nature: taste is (trans)formed by tasting, that is, testing, exploring, manipulating, recalibrating one’s own expectations, one’s own categories, one’s own affects and even one’s own perception. The judgment of taste is trained practically and situatively: as when a tailor understands that he must cut a piece of clothing in order to fit it to the person who will wear it, or a door must be shortened so that it can be placed into its frame, or the sonic intensity of a bass must be regulated in order to harmonize it to the context of a piece of music. In all of these practical evaluations we use expressions such as “This does not work together” or “This is right,” which do not depend on predetermined norms that are applied mechanically, but on concrete experience.66 Therefore, it is misleading to face the issue of a work of art’s aesthetic judgment in terms of an epistemic justification, or by referring the characteristics of the object (or of the performance) to pre-established and pre-constituted norms, such as artistic categories, genres, stiles, properties, aesthetic concepts and the like, as if they were reasons invoked to support an inference. This would not be an aesthetic judgment of the work of art. In fact, aesthetic appreciation constitutes part of the experience of the work of art (or of other aesthetic objects): it is the result of the concrete negotiation of the aesthetic criteria of evaluation in the context of the specific contingent circumstances of the artwork and of the experience that the appreciator has by encountering it. In this way aesthetic judgment produces and (trans)forms artistic normativity. Recall the example used earlier (chap. 2.2), and taken up again in the first two sections of the present chapter. When we judge a statue as graceful (or an improvisation as funky), we are not simply attributing a predicate with a preestablished meaning (grace; funkiness) to a thing (the statue; an improvisation); instead, we aesthetically interpret the statue (and the improvisation) by further developing the notion of grace (or funkiness) through this particular case. The application of the notion in a concrete situation of the experiential encounter between the appreciator and the work feeds back semantically on the notion, further elaborating it. In this sense, the application—concretely: the work of art; and even more concretely: every single experience of the work—puts the rule back into play again. In this way, every artistic result— and still more specifically: every aesthetic experience of a work—is a contribution to the formation and to the transformation of artistic normativity. 66

L.  Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology, and Religious Belief, Berkeley (CA), University of California Press, 2007, pp. 1-40. For this reference to Wittgenstein I thank Emanuele Arielli.

An Aesthetics of Success

143

At this point one could ask what the difference is between nominalism and the conception that I am defending. According to nominalism, no universal properties exist that are unchanging and applicable to different individual entities; there are only individual entities and for that reason the properties are solely individual. “Red” does not exist, but only the particular reds of the cover of the book I am reading, of the cover on my sofa, etc. Since I am arguing that the aesthetic predicates are evaluative and make sense only by virtue of their specific attribution to individual cases, one might think that I am proposing a nominalist idea of aesthetic normativity: grace does not exist, but only graceful statues. That would be a misleading interpretation. The position that I am defending, which one could define as hermeneutic-WittgensteinianHegelian,67 instead claims that the norms (for example, concepts such as grace) are real because of the applications to concrete cases (individual, graceful statues) that, by exemplifying them, realize them in a transformative way. If we want to identify a juridical model of reference, we should turn not to one of Roman origin, passed down in Italian and German law, but to the British model. As it is in British law, where the judge’s praxis determines the norm (the law) on the basis of individual cases, so too in aesthetic judgment we are not dealing, abstractly, with aesthetic predicates as ideal universal entities instantiated by the works as real individual objects; rather, we are dealing concretely with dynamic relations through which the real objects (the works), while embodying aesthetic categories, further shape them. In conclusion, the fact that the norm varies according to circumstances does not mean that it does not exist, but rather that its existence is variation: the existence of an aesthetic predicate is its variation through the cases that exemplify it. 4.5.2 The Work of Art Artistic norms and aesthetic concepts are generated in a transformative way through concrete artistic and aesthetic practices. The aesthetic norm (such as the artistic plan, on the level of production) forms part of the work of art: it emerges through the work and the individual experiences that the appreciators make of it. For that reason aesthetic judgment is not the evaluation of the measure by which a work of art realizes the qualities that are standard for a 67

Hermeneutic, for the decisive role attributed to the application of the norm (cf. Gadamer, Truth and Method, op. cit., pp. 307-340); Wittgensteinian, by virtue of the thesis that normativity is articulated in praxis; Hegelian, for the idea, clarified in an exemplary way in the Lectures on Fine Art, that art does not depend on abstract rules, that is, not operative in concrete reality, but produces its own rules in its works: the rules are real only in the works that, by obeying them, constitute them (cf. Hegel, Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, vol. 1., op. cit., pp. 26 ff.).

144

Chapter 4

certain artistic genre, or instead, constitutes a non-standard deviation from that genre.68 Aesthetic judgment contributes to the (trans)formation of artistic normativity set in motion by the work of art itself. It does not function by classifying works on the basis of pre-packaged artistic categories but by basing itself on the appreciators’ concrete emotional and cognitive experiences. It is a participatory performance that contributes to the generation of (the criterion of) taste through the continuation of the work of art—by which I intend: not only the work of art as object, but also the work of art as a creative working.69 The criteria for success that relate a work of art to general artistic norms are not established prior to the performance or to the artistic object, or to the experiences of them, but are articulated through the artistic practice, which holds together the work of the artist and the aesthetic experience (affective, emotive, cognitive, interpretative, evaluative and critical) of the appreciators.70 By forming the work (or the performance) that will give rise to aesthetic experience, it contributes to (trans)forming the specific criteria of its success. For that reason artistic practices are insecure, and not guaranteed, practices, since they do not have access to rules whose application is an absolute guarantee of success. The imperfectionist model has been previously explained as a consequence of the idea that the perfection of a work consists in how well the material execution conforms to an ideal structural planning. We can now see why this model is misleading. Aesthetic normativity is not based on pre-established criteria or precepts imbued with a validity and meaning prior to their application in the realization of the work and in aesthetic judgment. The rule for success is not established outside of practice; it is not an abstractly valid concept, norm, or precept, but emerges through the aesthetic appreciation of the individual work that realizes the rule by exemplifying it. 4.5.3 The ‘Enactment’ of Aesthetic Judgment Taking another step forward, we can then say that aesthetic normativity is recursive (in Luhmann’s sense of the term),71 namely, that it is self-programming: in the production and in the interpretative and evaluative aesthetic experience of works of art, it is generated thanks to the concrete exercise of the imagination and of aesthetic judgment. What happens in the sphere of practice and of 68 69 70 71

This would seem to be the consequence of Walton’s proposal at the level of aesthetic judgment. Dewey, Art as Experience, cit., p. 145. Cf. Noë, Strange Tools, op. cit. Cf. Bertram, Art as Human Practice, op. cit., in particular pp. 159-220. Cf. N. Luhmann, Art as a Social System, Paolo Alto (CA), Stanford University Press, 2000.

An Aesthetics of Success

145

artistic experience (works of art, artistic performances, aesthetic interpretations and evaluations) reflects back on the practice, nourishing it and reconfiguring it. As we now know,72 recursivity is the mode in which normativity configures itself in improvisation. Improvisation is an open autopoietic system: the outputs (the results of the performance) are reintegrated as inputs that feed back onto the process. The meaning of each event is not predetermined by prefixed criteria, but emerges through the interactions that constitute the process, whose sense (or whose normativity) is shaped through the grammar articulated in the confrontation with contingency. From the discussion of the aesthetic normativity and the recursive dynamic of improvisation it then follows that improvisation is not characterized constitutively as the violation of the aesthetic canon (moreover, the violations of aesthetic norms can very well be thought out and planned). On the contrary, as the practice of performative invention through the confrontation with contingency, improvisation proves to be paradigmatic of the aesthetics of success that characterizes the experience of art. In addition, improvisation embodies the constitutive bond between aesthetic judgment and artistic realization; improvisation is the performance of aesthetic judgment or aesthetic judgment as performance: it is “the enactment of aesthetic judgment.”73 Improvisation mobilizes aesthetic judgment in each specific performative situation, since each individual event of the improvised performance is a contribution to the specific aesthetic normativity for that concrete situation. Improvisation, in other words, has, or better, makes sense in the same way that aesthetic judgment invents its normativity through each individual case. If improvisation is the performance of aesthetic judgment, or aesthetic judgment as performance, aesthetic judgment itself functions in an improvisational way, since it invents the norm of evaluation for each individual case in an abductive manner.74 Therefore, due precisely to its character as a fragile and risky practice of confrontation with contingency, the art of improvisation exhibits an aesthetic judgment performed not on the basis of norms, but by generating them case by case. Like improvisation, the experience of art succeeds if it transforms contingency into a sort of “necessity.” Not a logical necessity, but rather the “exemplary necessity” Kant discusses:75 the specific moment of an improvisation or a concrete work requires a normativity that emerges from the individual case. Imagination and aesthetic judgment are thus structurally analogous: 72 73 74 75

I explained this in chap. 3.2, above all in reference to improvisation in the performing arts. Peters, Improvising Improvisation, op. cit., p. 40. Cf. supra, chap. 2.4. Cf. Kant, Critique of Judgment, op. cit., §18, p. 85.

146

Chapter 4

the creative action and evaluative interpretation do not depend on rules and criteria independent of the practice of aesthetic experience; while operating within a horizon of expectations, the results of their exercise emerge unexpectedly as innovations introduced by aesthetic praxis.76 In summary, neither artistic creativity nor aesthetic appreciation depend on the connection between an already articulated project or a general abstract norm and a particular object to be produced or evaluated: rather, the production and the reception reconfigure projects and norms so that the project is structured by realizing the object, and the norm is realized thanks to its application to the object. Perfection is renegotiated each time; thus, it cannot be the ultimate criterion of artistic value external the practices that it governs and independent of their development. It is success in a concrete situation that characterizes the specificity of the artistic value of the creative imagination and of aesthetic judgment. This being the case, improvisation is not a minor or deviant artistic practice for which a specific aesthetics of imperfection should be reserved. The specific trait of improvisation, as the performative negotiation of the sense of the practice in its very exercise in the artistic confrontation with contingency, is rather that it shows the dynamic of aesthetic normativity in action by producing it, according to which every concrete artistic experience retroactively shapes artistic projects and aesthetic norms, (co)responding to them and (trans)forming them as they develop. The improvisers are constantly devoted to the (provisional, contingent, and fallible) process of giving a sense to emerging and unforeseen situations, articulating norms that emerge through the interactions that happen in the course of the creative exercise. This articulation occurs in a performative way, mostly unintentional, and does not require the explicit formulation of judgments; and yet, the performative reactions to what happens in the performance, due also to their emotional and expressive valence, have an implicitly evaluative charge and impact. Therefore, practical improvisation exhibits, on stage and in the spur of the moment, not only artistic creativity but also the productive activity of aesthetic judgment, that is, the dynamics of evaluative interpretation thanks to which the sense and cultural identity of the works are, over the course of time, (trans)formed. The aesthetics of improvisation, I would hazard to write, is thus the (practice of the) philosophy of art, in the double sense of the genitive: objective, because the reflection on the aesthetics of improvisation leads to a general 76

A.  Bertinetto, “Ex Improviso, Trans-Formation als Modell künstlerischer Praxis,” in K.  Maar, F.  Ruda and J.  Völker (eds.), Generische Formen. Dynamische Konstellationen zwischen den Künsten, München, Fink, 2017, pp. 143-158.

An Aesthetics of Success

147

philosophy of art; subjective, because art, in improvisation, puts into play its philosophical dynamics, thematizing is own normativity in fieri. Among these dynamics, improvisation realizes and exhibits with particular efficacy one crucial aspect: the (e)utopian (con)sensus of aesthetic success. 4.6

Waiting for an Agreement

In improvisational interaction, the values, meanings, and aesthetic objectives of the process are negotiated intersubjectively and (trans)formed in the course of the performative process.77 As the exercise of the (trans)formation of aesthetic normativity through the creative confrontation with contingency, and as the artistic expression able to involve those who experience it in a (trans)formative way, improvisation is the exercise of a con-sensing through which they can develop values and share meanings: it regards the generation of aesthetic possibilities of communication, and communicability plays a key role as the condition of its artistic value. The aesthetic appreciation of improvisation, which the practice of the ongoing work requests from its participants— artists and appreciators—in diverse forms, requires assigning an aesthetic and artistic sense to what is happening, a sense that prefigures its own communicability. In fact, this sense is the very condition of communicability, that is, the possibility of forming community. Such a possibility can be realized, but it can also not be realized, which is a symptom of aesthetic failure. In other words, the aesthetic dimension of the experience of improvisation as the performative and experiential confrontation with contingency is not detached from its communicative, communitarian, and social dimension. Improvisation shapes the field of possibility of a sense for community in fieri, showing the constitutive interconnection between aesthetic experience and sociability at work. The negotiations of a (con)sensus based on a requirement of communication are not, however, internal to individual improvisations alone and, more importantly, regard more than improvisation; more generally, they model aesthetic practices as interpretative and evaluative interactions, thanks to which communities of sense are formed.78 Aesthetic judgment, through which taste forms and transforms itself, is the root of intersubjectivity because communities are generated when communication is made possible through the 77 78

Cf. Bertram, “Improvisation und Normativität,” op. cit. In reference to contemporary art it has also been highlighted by Nicolas Bourriaud with his proposal of a relational aesthetics: N. Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics (1998), Dijon, Les presses du réel, 1998.

148

Chapter 4

inventive development of a shared normativity which does not exclude contrasts, disagreements, and conflicts, as it also depends on diverse, aesthetic sensibilities.79 In short: taste bears witness to the intersubjective rooting of the subject, since it expresses and constructs itself in practices and in behaviors, that is, in acting, which is always an interacting and a corresponding.80 That can be clarified by resorting again to a well-known Kantian argument. The judgment of taste is not universal in a logical sense, because it is independent of objective criteria, rules, and canons; nevertheless, its validity must be universalizable, otherwise it would remain a private opinion. The universality of judgment has an intersubjective and pragmatic character. I give a sense to my aesthetic appreciation if it aspires to be shared by others, that is, if it also has sense for others. In other words: only when others recognize the sense of my evaluation can I be aware of the sense of my own taste, of my sense of aesthetic value. This is why Kant defines taste as sensus communis: it is the condition for the communicability of aesthetic experience that is the object of aesthetic judgment.81 Aesthetic judgment, although subjective, aspires to be shared intersubjectively. Indeed, it is precisely this search for possibilities of sharing. In the absence of predictive and prescriptive norms, it is the demand for agreement: the future projection of an ideal consensus rooted in a felicitous con-sensing. Thanks to the teleological anticipation that characterizes it, aesthetic experience is in itself the “exercise of sociality”: aesthetic pleasure “which derives from the recognition of belonging to a group,”82 that is, by recognizing that the dimension of intersubjectivity, always under construction and articulated in a plural, heterotopic sense, is the condition of the subject. The communities of taste—understood not as stable entities, but rather as processes of (self) construction—are the basis of social sense from which political communities

79 80 81 82

On this question cf. F. Vercellone, Il futuro dell’immagine, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2017. Cf. supra, chap. 2.2. Cf. N. Perullo, Estetica ecologica, op. cit. Kant, Critique of Judgment, op. cit., §§20-22, pp. 97-90. G.  Vattimo, “Aesthetics and Hermeneutics,” (1979), in Id., Art’s Claim to Truth, New York, Columbia University Press, 2009, pp. 125-138, here p. 131; Id., “The Death or Decline of Art,” in Id., The End of Modernity, op. cit., pp. 51-64, here p. 56. Cf. Id., The Transparent Society, Baltimore (MD), Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992, pp. 66-71. The Kantian solution to the question of aesthetic normativity and the universality of the judgment of taste is also explained by S. Feloj, Il dovere estetico, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2018. In reference to improvisation, cf. A. Bertinetto and S. Marino, “Kant’s Concept of Power of Judgment and the Logic of Improvisation,” in S. Marino and P. Terzi (eds.), Kant’s “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment” in the 20th Century: A Companion to Its Main Interpretations, Berlin, De Gruyter, 2020, pp. 315-337.

An Aesthetics of Success

149

arise.83 Aesthetic experience and aesthetic judgment are, in conclusion, the concrete exercise of the conditions of possibility of sociality. The paradigmatic importance of improvisation for the aesthetic dimension of experience and for artistic practices, from a different perspective, reveals itself in a new way. Aesthetic appreciation requires and promotes the (trans)formation of a common sense, that is, of meanings and values shared intersubjectively. The aesthetic dimension of art urges intersubjective recognition and promotes sociality. Now, interaction with the end of producing aesthetically successful art in the course of a creative confrontation with contingency signifies an interacting that generates possibilities of intersubjective communication, that is, of sociability, thanks to the encounter. As a result, the improvisational interaction is exemplary for aesthetic experience, since here common sense is exhibited as under construction, in fieri, through the unforeseeable elaboration of the grammar of contingency in the forming of the work. In other words, improvisation shows that common sense is in play, while common sense—as the condition of the intersubjective validity of judgment (a validity that is always fragile and exposed to the risk of failure)—consists on its part in that production and re-production of sociability that the improvisational interactions practice hic et nunc. I am not only referring to the communicability exercised in “real time” in the performing arts, but also to the confrontation with contingency constituted by the interaction with the forms and the materials required by the non-performing arts, as well as to the invitation for a creative response that improvised works direct to their appreciators. The thesis that I want to argue at the end of this reflection on the aesthetics of improvisation is therefore the following: as the performative exercise of aesthetic judgment that is concretized in the elaboration of an artistic grammar of contingency, improvisation exhibits hic et nunc the constitutive contingency of aesthetic experience itself and, as the “place” favorable to the flourishing of common sense “that expresses the demand of a community to be realized,”84 the eu-topic and hetero-topic dimension of its normativity. When it succeeds—perhaps to the point of appearing paradoxically as the result of a carefully pre-established plan85—, improvisation embodies the “fortunate place” of con-sensing as the practice of sociability and the felicitous dynamic integration between the individual and the environment that defines an experience as aesthetic. A fragile, contingent, and insecure practice, improvisation

83 84 85

Arendt, The Life of the Mind, op. cit., pp. 207-217. L. Amoroso, Senso e consenso. Uno studio kantiano, Napoli, Guida, 1984, p. 177. Cf. supra, chap. 2.4.

150

Chapter 4

also exemplifies the unavailability of laws that ensure the emergence, the realization, and the success of the aesthetic experience. The pleasure of aesthetic experience, as Kant already observed, is a “glücklicher Zufall,” a “happy accident,”86 a fortunate contingency. Nevertheless, anyone who is involved in aesthetic enjoyment or in the production of aesthetic and artistic artifacts expects that their experience can be shared. As the expression of a free play, the evaluation of the individual regarding her own experience does not prescribe norms to follow in order to place oneself correctly in the field of the aesthetic, but invites others to this consensing, that is, to participate in the (trans)formation of a common sense. The aesthetic emotion embodied in the work, lived by the appreciator and expressed in its evaluation, anticipates an ideal intersubjective agreement, sparking real negotiations thanks to which a plural and in fieri common sense emerges: plural, because its universal validity concerns diverse and plural communities, the aesthetic niches in which the practices of taste are exercised;87 in fieri, because a completely realized and automatized common sense would become a prescriptive mechanism, a machine for managing desire and administering aesthetic emotions. As Adorno in particular had denounced with insistence, this is the result of the oppressive and standardizing uniformity which the cultural industry, interested in commercial success rather than aesthetic success (which, if anything, is made instrumental to that), uses to control the aesthetic sphere. That does not exclude, contra Adorno—whose aesthetic theory was (not incorrectly) branded as overly dedicated to an austere asceticism incapable of recognizing the potentially liberating dimension of pleasure88—, that in the realm of praxis, subjected to the organization of the cultural industry, works can still emerge that are able to give life to genuine aesthetic experiences.89 The unforeseen event of an experience, lived as participatory 86 87 88

89

Kant, Critique of Judgment, op. cit., pp. 23-24. For the plural declination of the universality of Kantian common sense cf. Vattimo, The Transparent Society, op. cit., pp.  105-120. On the notion of an “aesthetic niche,” cf. Matteucci, Estetica e natura umana, op. cit., pp. 86-91. Paradigmatic is the judgment of H.R. Jauss, Kleine Apologie der ästhetischen Erfahrung, Konstanz, Universitätsverlag, 1972. Also, the contemporary exponents of “negative aesthetics” (cf. C.  Menke, “Umrisse einer Ästhetik der Negativität,” in F. Koppe (ed.), Perspektiven der Kunstphilosophie, Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp, 1991, pp.  191-216) understand as authentic exclusively the art that provokes the interruption of ordinary experience, and for this reason they ignore the contribution of sense that authentic art has for human practices thanks to (not in spite of) its (e)utopian dimension. One among the many possible examples is the music of Frank Zappa that Stefano Marino has brilliantly discussed, contra Adorno, in an Adornian key: S.  Marino, La filosofia di Frank Zappa. Un’interpretazione adorniana, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2014;

An Aesthetics of Success

151

con-sensing, forms the communities of taste that concretely realize the ideal, as such constitutively to come, of the consensus that is prefigured as the condition of the shareability of judgment rooted in that situated experience. This standing in the threshold between real con-sent and ideal consensus is constitutive of the aesthetic as the field of expression for the human being and its creative, free, critical, and at the same time contingent, fragile, insecure, and fallible practices. In this sense authentic art, embodying in works and performances the need for an ideal commonality [comunanza] of sense that springs forth from the contingency of aesthetic experience, has an improvisational and utopic character. 4.7

It Makes Sense. A Wonderful Eutopia

The utopia in question is not the totalitarian one (“Platonic” according to Popper’s controversial interpretation)90 that regards the prefiguration of an idea of society that the existing ought to give to itself as a goal to be achieved. It is not the utopianism that claims to realize a pre-formed ideal in reality. In this case, in fact, art would be understood as the anticipatory shaping of a ‘readymade’ normative model of reality, not as the creative articulation of consensing as the expression of a human condition that is free not just although, but also since, it is fragile, uncertain, and contingent. On the other hand, the utopia in question is not at all the escape into daydreams that lacks a connection with the real humus from which the aesthetic experience arises and whose final result is not the opening of a shareability of feeling, but instead the closing between the intrasubjective walls of an illusory happiness.91 What is the utopian character of the work of art and what does improvisation have to do with it? In order to respond to this question, in the final pages of this book I will adopt a philosophical register whose tenor is a bit more speculative. I intend to suggest, rather than demonstrate, a possibility for reflection on the constitutive role that improvisation plays in aesthetic experience as the experience of freedom.

90 91

cf. also C.G.  Campbell, S.  Gandesha and S.  Marino (eds.), Adorno and Popular Music, Milano-Udine, Mimesis International, 2019. K.R.  Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2020. On the discussion over the diverse meanings of the concept of utopia in the thought of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, cf. P. Furia, Rifiuto, Altrove, Utopia, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2019, pp. 196-263.

152

Chapter 4

In the wake of Ernst Bloch, one can single out the utopian character of authentic art in the expressive articulation of the “future,” that is, of the “not yet”92 of (con)sensus that, as the waiting for an agreement, is the condition of possibility for (the experience of) its aesthetic reality: authentic art is that which—through the situated experiences that the appreciator has of it— exhibits the implication of the future, as the not-yet, in the present interaction, curious, explorative, collusive and (trans)formative, with reality.93 By understanding the ou-topia as the expression of an imagination aware of the empirical impossibility of its realization,94 this perspective explains the contingent gratuity of aesthetic success as an eu-topia or a “good place.” By welcoming it, one can dialectically dissolve the aporia that seems to make authentic art–that is: art that is authentically free–impossible: an aporia revealed by Friedrich Schiller, taken up by Herbert Marcuse, and more recently re-discussed by Jacques Rancière.95 The aporia is due to the apparently vicious circle between freedom as the condition of the beautiful—or, more generally, of aesthetic success—and beauty as the condition of freedom. On the one hand, only as politically free, that is, not subservient to the power or to the interests of any side, art is the “beautiful appearance.” On the other hand, however, only as the “beautiful appearance” (that is, paradigmatically, as not subservient to propagandistic functions and not reduced to mere merchandise) can art be politically free 92 93

94

95

Cf. E. Bloch, The Principle of Hope (1959), Cambridge (MA), MIT Press, 1995. Allow me to refer the reader, on this topic, to A. Bertinetto, “Arte è futuro. Il ‘non ancora’ e l’estetica dei mondi possibili,” in E. Antonelli and A. Martinengo (eds.), Confini dell’estetica, Roma, Aracne, 2014, pp. 189-204, where, taking up Manfred Frank’s argument on the convergence of the theses of Bloch and the Hölderlinian and Romantic utopia of the “God to come,” I have argued for the structurally futural dimension of authentic art. Cf. M. Frank, Der kommende Gott, Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp, 1982. In this sense, since it attributes to both the character of a permanent self-critique, of a constitutive dissatisfaction with respect to its own partial outcomes, it is significant that Derrida understands both improvisation and also utopia as empirical impossibilities towards which we nevertheless dedicate ourselves practically. Cf. J. Derrida, Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, Paolo Alto (CA), Stanford University Press, 2005; Furia, Rifiuto, Altrove, Utopia, op. cit., p. 234. Cf. F.  Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795), New York, Penguin Publishing Group, 2016; H. Marcuse, The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics (1978), Boston, Beacon Press, 1978; J.  Rancière, Aesthetics and its Discontents (2004), Malden (MA), Polity Press, 2009. Cf. A.  Bertinetto, “Arte, experiencia estética y liberación,” in A. Rivera Garcia (ed.), Schiller, Arte y política, Murcia, edit.um, 2010, pp. 109124 and A. Bertinetto, “Imagination et émergence. L’utopie de l’imprévu entre politique et esthétique,” in A. Dumont (eds.), Repenser le possible: l’imagination, l’histoire, l’utopie, Paris, Kimé, 2019, pp. 229-245.

An Aesthetics of Success

153

and liberating—that is, offer a creative contribution to the (trans)formation of common sense (and feeling), without becoming absorbed by the mechanisms of existence (which are the recipes for happiness, commercial success, but also service to a political cause, however noble and just). The aporia is irresolvable if the aesthetic sphere and the political sphere are counterposed abstractly. However, if freedom is not understood as the indeterminate and abstract presupposition of the aesthetic success of art—but instead as the concrete effect of its very own practice in a game that is free because it invents the modality of its doing by doing, entrusting itself to the encounter and to the confrontation with contingency, and offering itself to the interaction with the appreciator by generating in this encounter, unexpectedly and unforeseeably, its (con)sensus, its (fallible and fragile) normativity—, then the eutopian solidarity of aesthetic success and freedom becomes the key to creative imagination, as well as to every authentically imaginative action: it is the political essence of authentic art as the expressive concrete realization of a free play (in the sense of Schiller). Art is authentic and political, if and because it succeeds aesthetically, by producing freedom and by promoting, in the real time of lived con-sensing, an agreement, actually fragile, uncertain, and contingent and ideally always to come.96 Improvisation condenses this utopian—eutopian—dimension of art and aesthetic experience in the present instant, or better, in the presence of an opportune moment. It is the presence of the future, since it anticipates— without fore-seeing—the possibility of the future, performatively exercising imaginative creativity and presenting here and now, in the contingency to which it corresponds, the playful formation of a sensus communis to come. As we know, it is reasonable to argue that improvisation is the model of creative 96

One could object, and thanks to Paolo Furia for having done so, that it is right to maintain a qualitative distinction between improvisation and art. In fact, art tends to become ideological code and this is not solely “to-come,” but also able to guarantee, on the basis of an instituted common sense, an order here and now, a relation with the past and the relative foreseeability of the future, also by tending towards reification. To this objection one can reply that the improvisation itself, while placing itself in the here and now, presupposes past experience and discloses a preview of the future. Moreover, like art, improvisation also tends to become code, style, habit. And yet, as often emerges from the personal lack of satisfaction of artists with respect to the outcome of their own performance, the problem of the possibility of improvisation resides precisely in the difficulty of realizing freedom in the artistic confrontation with contingency without mechanically repeating already known plans. I maintain that improvisation is paradigmatic for art precisely due to its attempt, whose outcome is fragile and uncertain, to execute the unexpected (in the) present, by realizing, for an instant (that unforeseen of aesthetic experience), the eutopia of the awaited agreement.

154

Chapter 4

action, which should be conceived of as initiative and beginning: the continual beginning of sense, of normativity.97 If we now move this idea closer to Ernst Bloch’s thesis, according to which the primary category of utopia is the “Here and Now, what is repeatedly beginning in nearness,”98 we can argue for the genuinely (e)utopian character of artistic improvisation. In fact, absolute improvisation is impossible:99 to be able to perform it requires its other (habits, abilities, resources, conventions …) and as freedom it is always in fieri—it exists only through its becoming in the continual interaction between the contingency of the unforeseen situation and the preconditions of its exercise. On closer inspection, improvisation is never free, that is, absolute (or, unconstrained by conditions). Rather, its beauty consists in becoming free, or in becoming freedom. Artistic improvisation presents, hic et nunc, the performative becoming of imaginative freedom in the confrontation with contingency, that is, in the interaction with the environment (cultural and natural) that it helps to configure. And through this creative exercise of freedom, improvisation frees whomever experiences it. Utopia is a no-place, accessible only through the imagination, which nevertheless, as an aspirational ideal, has the potential to become a happy place and whose formulation takes shape in actual political, social, technological, and media-based circumstances. “The scene of the utopian imagination is part of the topology of the world”100 (and, en passant, the forgetting of this enmeshing of utopia in reality is the reason for Marx and Engels’ critiques of utopian socialism presented in the Communist Manifesto of 1848101). In the realm of art, the rooting of the utopian expectation in reality is expressed as the “hope that one’s project of discovering or constructing the true self will be successful and socially recognized.”102 Waiting for an agreement is therefore the (e)utopian demand that artists and works entrust to the sense of their own enterprise and their own commitment in their specific circumstances. The (e)utopian affirmation of aesthetic common sense is a function of artistic authenticity as the ability of the work to be at the height of the situation, (trans)forming whomever experiences it—an ability verified on the occasion of every one of its aesthetic experiences that can also be activated in epochs and conditions following the 97

Cf. supra, chap. 1.4. Cf. Arendt, The Human Condition, op. cit., pp.  139-149, 171 ff.; Jankélévitch, La Rhapsodie, op. cit., pp. 27, 41. 98 Bloch, The Principle of Hope, op. cit., p. 12. 99 Derrida, “Unpublished Interview,” op. cit. 100 B. Groys, In the Flow, London, Verso, 2016, p. 66. 101 K. Marx and F. Engels, The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), New York, Bedford-St. Martin’s Press, 1999; cf. Furia, Rifiuto, altrove, utopia, op. cit., pp. 208 ff. 102 Groys, In the Flow, op. cit., p. 146.

An Aesthetics of Success

155

production of a work (thus the moment of the work, that to which the work remains faithful, cannot be the same in which it was realized and enjoyed for the first time). In improvisation, artistic authenticity is modulated as a kairological faithfulness to the moment.103 That means that improvisation practices (e)utopia here and now. It shapes the place and the real time for practicing a utopia where the sense of the self, and the waiting for the intersubjective agreement that constitutes it, is configured. Thus, improvisation exhibits performatively not only the developing character of aesthetic normativity, but also the efficacy of common sense as the eutopia of a felicitous encounter with contingency that is shared with others. One can then extend to artistic improvisation as such what Marion Froger writes regarding cinematographic improvisation: “the creative dimension of improvisation appears to guarantee the formation of an ideal community; it points in the direction of utopia.”104 In this sense one can also accept the implicit ethical and political valence of the aesthetic dimension of improvisation that arises from its capacity to intensify humanity, “by intensifying acts of communication, by demanding that the choices that go into building communities be confronted.”105 In fact, the elements of improvisational action imaginatively anticipate the sense of the improvisational process; but, this sense is in fact configured in unforeseen ways, which surprise the anticipatory imagination itself in the course of production and reception (which in the case of performative improvisation are simultaneous). Every contribution to improvisational interaction manifests the waiting for an agreement or an accord (also in the harmonic-musical sense of the term) that is, as such, unpredictable and unforeseen, and manifests as research rather than as acquired datum. The experience of improvisation, given its existential dimension of accepting what happens and its responsive participation in an uncertain and playfully adventurous situation, inspires the formation of mobile and living communities animated by the (e)utopia—an aesthetically rooted political (e)utopia— of sharing the sense of an experience under construction (a consensing). If and when it happens, by realizing the unforeseen (con)sensus, improvisation exhibits hic et nunc the fragile and powerful emergence of aesthetic experience. This is signaled, on the emotive side, by producing a feeling of wonder106—that “presentiment of the absolute in the immediate” that 103 Cf. supra, chap. 2.3.4 and chap. 3.2.3 104 M. Froger, “Improvisation in New Wave Cinema. Beyond the Myth the Social,” in Born et al. (eds.), Improvisation and Social Aesthetics, op. cit., pp. 233-251, here p. 242. 105 Fischlin and Heble (eds.), The Other Side of Nowhere, op. cit., p. 23. 106 J. Fingerhut and J. Prinz, “Wonder, Appreciation and the Value of Art,” in J. Christensen and A. Gomila (eds.), The Arts and the Brain, Amsterdam, Elsevier, 2018, pp. 107-126.

156

Chapter 4

constitutes the “the first beginning of art”107 and which corresponds, on the affective side, to “the capacity to shudder, as if goose bumps were the first aesthetic image”:108 both characterize the unexpected success. The experience of improvisation expresses the unexpected solidarity between the freedom of the initiative and the creative imagination that characterizes the aesthetic dimension of art as free play (or: the putting into play, and to work, of freedom) and prefigures political action, as the unexpected production of the new:109 production of the new always exposed to the risk of failure, since it does not use pre-established criteria to ensure its success. Here again, therefore, is the birth of art from the spirit of improvisation and here too, finally, an answer to the question about the sense of improvisation sought by this essay:110 improvisation presents the beginning of art as the manifestation of the human being to itself, of its (desire and attempt to) make agreements, consensing and corresponding in a welcoming way, to itself, to others, and to the environment. The specificity of improvisation is the converging hic et nunc of imagination and action, of eminently artistic imagination and of radically political action, as the opening of spaces and times of sharing in the emotional realm of aesthetic consent: it is imagination in (inter)action. The flickering of the unforeseen as unforeseen, the ephemeral “firework”111 that generates that thrill when beauty announces itself as the “manifestation of utopia”112 or as (e)utopia: the unforeseen re-creation and liberation of life.113 The performative manifestation of the intimate connection of aesthetics and politics, improvisation realizes the dynamic bond between free play and common sense (or communities of/in feeling), welcoming the (e)utopian possibility of the solidarity of beauty and freedom (freedom from, for, and with)114 into the reality of interaction. By practicing art as situated action and activating the imagination, it exercises the creativity of acting and the collusion of art and life. It is the (trans)formation, contingent, fallible, and ephemeral, of an emerging, unforeseen, (e)utopian consensing: a fragile and surprising felicitous experience that welcomes thrills 107 G.W.F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst (1823), Hamburg, Meiner 2003, cit., p. 125.; cf. Id., Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, op. cit., pp. 314-315. 108 Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, op. cit., p. 331 (my italics). 109 On the political relevance of improvisation, cf. M. Rampazzo Bazzan, “Sovversione come improvvisazione politica?,” in Itinera, 10, 2015, pp. 500-519. 110 Cf. supra, chap. 1.5 and chap. 2. 111 Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, op. cit., p. 81. 112 T.W. Adorno, Ästhetik (1958/59), Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp, 2009, p. 162; cit. in G. Matteucci, “L’utopia dell’estetico in Adorno,” Rivoluzioni Molecolari, n.1, 2017, 1. pp. 1-9, here p. 9. 113 Goldoni, “Liberazione della vita,” op. cit., pp. 331-350. 114 On the convergence of beauty and freedom, cf. G.  Garelli, La questione della bellezza, Torino, Einaudi, 2016.

An Aesthetics of Success

157

and arouses wonderment, exhibiting to human beings, in a playful way, the contingency and the creative potentialities of its existing and coexisting. Improvisation is the aesthetic and ecstatic experience of the instant that transforms whomever lives through it, expressed by Plato with the adverbial substantive form exáiphnes (suddenness)—where this book began in its opening pages: the unforeseen flickering, in a time outside of time, of beauty— which is this flickering. Wonderfully, an unexpected flash, improvisation makes sense; or better, it makes a common sense, a feeling (in) common, a con-sensing.

Index of Names Abramović, M. 61, 77, 79n, 80 Adorno, T.W. x, 10, 24, 25n, 53, 54, 150, 156n Agamennone, M. 61n, 81n Alloa, E. viii Alperson, P. 26n Altarriba, A. 15n Altman, R. 100 Amoroso, L. 149n Anderson, J.E. 4n Andrzejewski, A. 22n Angerame, N.D. 94n Antonelli, E. 152n Arbo, A. 60n Arendt, H. x, 7, 8, 10, 83, 88, 99n, 134, 135, 139n, 149n, 154n Arielli, E. 13n, 37n, 80n, 101n, 140n, 142n Aristotle 1 Arnheim, R. 106n Asma, S. 3n, 135n Attisani, A. 45n Auslander, P. 58n, 59n Ax, W. 44n, 61n Bailey, D. 69n Baldini, A. 95n Barba, E. 45 Bardsley, K. 136n Barney, M. 95 Barthes, R. 107 Bateson, G. 11n Baugh, B. 44n Bauman, Z. 15 Bausch, P. 45 Bavčar, E. 110n Becker, H.S. 36n Beethoven, L. van 27 Belgrad, D. 59n Benjamin, W. vii, 5, 10, 108, 119 Benson, B.E. 64n, 69 Berkowitz, A. 4 Bernhard, T. 98 Bertinetto, A. ix n, 4n, 5n, 11n, 14n, 17n, 21n, 22n, 24n, 25n, 26n, 38n, 39n, 40n, 43n, 46n, 52n, 53n, 57n, 58n, 60n, 61n, 63n, 65n, 67n, 69n, 70n, 71n, 72n, 73n, 74n, 78n, 82n, 83n, 84n, 89n, 90n, 92n, 95n,

96n, 105n, 109n, 114n, 123n, 126n, 131n, 134n, 141n, 146n, 148n, 152n Bertram, G. ix n, 11n, 16n, 17n, 20n, 29, 57n, 69n, 118n, 123n, 141n, 144n, 147n Besana, B. 23n Béthune, C. 23n Beuys, J. 61, 96 Bies, M. 116n Blackwell, T. 88n, 89n Bloch, E. 152, 154n Blom, L.A. 30n Blum, S. 2n Boden, M. 131n, 136n Böhme, G. 34n Boissière, A. 64n, 75n, 77n Bollani, S. 80n Borges, J.L. 39 Bormann, H.-F. 45n, 69n Born, G. 41n, 90n, 155n Bourdieu, P. 11n Bourriaud, N. 147n Brahms, J. 72n Brandes, U. 116n Brandi, C. 66n Brandstetter, G. 5n, 45n, 68n, 69n Bratman, M. 3n Bray, J. 88n Bredekamp, H.H. 95n Breton, A. 98 Brown, D.P. 112, 113 Brown, E. 72 Brown, G. 40n Brown, J.L. 132n Brown, L.B. 120n, 122n, 123, 132n Brown, T. 76 Brunk, C.G. 40n Bures Miller, G. 84 Bürger, P. 17n Burroughs, W. 98 Burrows, J. 76 Cafaro, A.G. 64, 78n Cage, J. 24, 126n Caldarola, E. 84n Campbell, C.G. 151n Campbell, D. 132n

160 Canonne, C. 41n, 74n, 78n, 89n Caporaletti, V. 2, 71 Cardiff, J. 84 Carrà, C. 121 Carroll, N. 59n Carruthers, P. 136n Cartier-Bresson, H. 107 Casati, R. 60n Casini, L. 88n Cassavetes, J. 100, 102 Castiglione, B. 27 Castro, S. 105n Cavallotti, P. 73n Cecchi, D. 49n Cézanne, P. 96, 130 Chaplin, L.T. 30n Chiodo, S. 107n Chiurazzi, G. 89n Chomsky, N. 30n, 136n Christensen, J. 155n Chung, S. 89n Ciancio, C. 14n Cicero, Marcus Tullius 1 Cifariello Ciardi, F. 131n Clarke, B. 134n Clarke, E.F. 41n Clément, G. 117, 118n Clouzot, H.-G. 92 Cohen, T. 48n Coleridge, S.T. 98 Collins, D. 100n, 101n Condello, A. 129n Cook, N. 71n Coplan, A. 47n Cosottini, M. 9n, 31n, 74n, 138n Costello, D. 105n, 110n Cozens, A. 55, 94 Croce, B. x, 81, 82 Crohn Schmitt, N. 21n, 78n Cruijff, J. 137 Csíkszentmihályi, M. 48n Cuozzo, G. 8n Currie, G. 102n Czerny, C. 30n Dal Lago, A. 43n D’Angelo, P. 16n, 17n, 42n, 98n, 124n Danto, A.C. 16n, 39, 102n, 105n

Index of Names Dartnall, T. 132n Davies, D. x, 25n, 60n, 74n, 102n Davis, M. 39, 88 Dean, R. 21n, 29n, 59n, 62n, 78n, 89n, 117n De Certeau, M. x, 12, 13n, 113n, 126n Dell, C. 28n, 116n, 120n Derrida, J. x, 52, 152n, 154n Des-in 116 Detienne, M. 13n Dewey, J. 132, 133n, 141n, 144n Dick, K. 52n Diderot, D. 59n, 63n DiPiero, D. 24n Dodd, J. 120n Doffman, M. 41n Döhl, F. 40n Donatello (D. Bardi) 27 Dreon, R. 129n Drinko, C.D. 9n, 78n Droog 116 Dubois, P. 106n, 108n Duchamp, M. 16, 17n, 105, 126n Duck, K. 77 Dumont, A. 152n Dutton, D. 39n, 136n Eastwood, C. 6 Eco, U. x, 46n, 102n, 108n, 126n Eldridge, A. 89n Eliot, T.S. 129n Elliott, D.J. 9n Elster, J. 136 Engels, F. 154 Erasmus of Rotterdam (Desiderius Erasmus)  98 Esterhammer, A. 80n Ethernet Orchestra 86 Evangelisti, F. 9n Fabbri, V. 75n Fähndrich, W. 89n, 93n Farina, M. 25 Feige, D.M. 83n, 122n Fele, G. 131n Feloj, S. 148n Ferand, E. 2n, 69 Fernow, C.L. 81 Ferrando, F. 118

161

Index of Names Ferraris, M. 60n Ferreccio, G. 5n, 45n Fertel, R. 98n, 138 Fingerhut, J. 155 Fischer-Lichte, E. 33n, 34n, 58n, 61n, 79n, 85n Fischlin, D. 138n, 155n Flanagan, O. 42n Fontana, L. 94 Forsythe, W. 75 Foucault, M. 15 Fox Talbot, H. 194n Fraleigh, S. 77n Franciosini, L. 1 Frank, M. 152n Freud, S. 12n Fritz, E. 101n Froger, M. 155 Fromm, E. 15 Fronzi, G. 85n Frye, A. 116n Furia, P. 151n, 152n, 153n, 154n Gadamer, H.-G. 4n, 32n, 48n, 63n, 126, 133, 143n Gagel, R. 97n Gaillard, J. 77n Gamba, E. 40n Gandesha, S. 151n Garelli, G. 123n, 156n Garnett, G.E. 91n Garrity, S. 100 Garroni, E. 136n Gatti, C. 39n Gaut, B. 48n, 131, 132 Gephart, W. 129n Gianattanasio, F. 61n Gibson, J.J. 68n Gilmour, J. 96 Ginsberg, A. 98 Gioia, T. 69n, 120n, 123 Giombini, L. 39n, 84n, 118n, 128n Giordano, S. 43n Gladwell, M. 5n Gleiter, J. 57n Globokar, V. 73n Glowinsky, D. 70n Godard, J.-L. 100

Goehr, L. x, 22n, 66n Goffman, E. 10n Goldblatt, D. 141n, 122n, 123 Goldie, P. 47n Goldoni, C. 1 Goldoni, D. 33n, 42n, 73n, 156n Goldsworthy, A. 117 Gombrich, E. 93n Gomila, A. 156m Goodman, N. 30n, 112n Gould, C.S. 64n Gracyk, T. 122n, 123 Griffero, T. 33n, 34n, 43n Gröne, M. 5n, 44n Grotowski, J. 45, 78 Groys, B. 154n Grüneberg, P. 89n Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza 9n, 86 Guerri, M. 104n Guido, M. 2n Gumbrecht, H.U. 34n Günther, H.C. 43n Gutaj 94 Haas, A. 1n Hadid, Z. 112 Hagberg, G. 133n Hallam, E. 13n, 40n Hamilton, A. x, 120n, 123 Hampton, T. 42n Hanks, T. 6 Hansen, M.B.N. 134n Heble, A. 138n, 155n Hegel, G.W.F. vii, x, 17n, 143n, 156n Heidegger, M. 15n, 23n, 36n, 37n, 44 Heine, S. 98n Herder, J.G. 29 Hesmondhalgh, D. 40n Hilmes, C. 24n Hisama, E.M. 61n Høffding, S. ix n, 48n Hoffman, G. 88n Hughes, L. 98n, 99n Huizinga, J. 13n Huovinen, E. 133n Huron, D. 37n Hutchinson, A. 11n

162 Iacobone, A. 96n Iannilli, G.L. 13n Illetterati, L. 12 Imhof, A. 80 Ingold, T. x, 13n, 40n Janecke, C. 24n Jankélévitch, V. x, 7, 52n, 67n, 154n Jansen, T. 96 Jarrett, K. 36 Jastrow, J. 79 Jauss, H.R. 150n Jencks, C. 115n Johnstone, K. 30n, 46n Julien, F. 43 Kandinskij, V.V. 55, 96 Kanellopoulos, P.A. 7n Kant, I. 30n, 117, 122n, 134n, 135n, 139n, 140, 141, 145, 148, 150 Kaufman, S.B. 42n, 136n Keaton, K. 64n Kerouac, J.-L. 98 Kiefer, S. 96n Kintzler, C. 64n, 75n, 77n Klein, F. 94 Knaller, S. 106n Knauer, W. 28n, 68n Koch, H.C. 2 Koelsch, S. 37n Kooning, W. de 94 Krasner, D. 59n Krauss, R. 105n Krausz, M. 136n Kuhn, T. 136n Kwastek, K. 84n Lamarque, P. 127 Lambart, E. 100 Lampert, F. 46n, 61n, 68n, 76n Landgraf, E. 51n, 84n, 96n, 118n, 134n Langenschwarz, M. 82 Latour, B. 116n Lavecchia, S. 1n Lebord, D. 81n Lee, B. 99n Legrenzi, P. 94n Lehman, S. 72

Index of Names Lehne, M. 37n Lehrer, K. 35n Leko, J. 129n Leonardo da Vinci 95 Lephay, P.E. 60n Lessig, L. 40n Lessing, A. 39n Levinson, J. 35n, 102n Lévi-Strauss, C. 115n Lewis, G.E. 22n, 42n, 44n, 52n, 61n, 83n, 85n, 88n, 89n, 90, 103n, 116n Linke, K. 116 Livingston, P. 132n London, J. 60n, 126n Long, R. 117 Lösel, G. 26n, 45n, 46n, 50n, 61n, 63n, 78n, 79n, 88n, 90n Lotti, H. 93n Luhmann, N. 30n, 34n, 144 Maar, K. 146n Malloch, S. 69n McCall, C. 37n McDonough, R. 132n McIver Lopes, D. 48n, 110n Mackenzie, I. 81n McLaren, N. 100n McLean, B. 117 Majetschak, S. 24n Malafouris, L. 3n Marcuse, H. 152 Margolis, J. x, 127n, 128, 129n, 130 Mariani, A. 2n Marino, S. 148n, 150n Marquard, O. 23n Marra, C. 104n, 105n, 107n, 108n Martinengo, A. 152n Marx, K. 154 Massecar, A. 11n Mathieu, G. 94 Mathy, D. 24n Matteucci, G. 13, 20n, 25n, 30n, 68n, 124n, 134, 136, 137n, 15on, 156n Matton, T. 116n Maturana, H.R. 34n Matzke, A. 45n, 62n, 63n, 69n McGuirk, J. ix n Mele, A. 3n

163

Index of Names Mellos, D. 107n Menke, C. 29, 150n Menna, F. 105n Menon, W. 110n Merleau-Ponty, M. 80 Mersch, D. 43n, 65n Midgelow, V.L. 37n, 75n Miles Davis Quintet 39 Mills, R. viii n, 86n Milton, J. 98 Monet, C. 93, 137 Monk, T. 122n Monson 74n Montaigne, M. de 15, 98 Montani, P. 84n More, T. 98 Morris, R. 95, 110n Moruzzi, C. 89n Mostly Other People Do the Killings 39 Mouëllic, G. 103n Mozart, W.A. 88, 137 Musica Elettronica Viva 86 Nachmanovitch, S. 19n, 69 Nagrin, D. 92 Namuth, H. 92 Nancy, J.-L. 7n Nash, D. 117 Nehamas, A. 15n Neto, E. 84 Nettl, B. 2n, 71n, 75n New Phonic Art 73n Nguyen, C.T. 83n Nietzsche, F. ix, 15, 17, 29, 42n, 128 Noë, A. 16n, 144n Norton, G.P. 44n Novitz, D. 132n Odoevskij, V. 82n O’Hara, F. 98 Ophälders, M. 54n Pagano, M. 14n Pareyson, L. x, 14, 15n, 30n, 38n, 68n, 122, 133n, 139, 141n Parisi, F. 104n Parsons, G. 114n Paul, E.S. 42n, 136n

Paxton, S. 76 Pearce, C. 83n Pei-Ming, Y. 94 Peirce, C.S. 28, 46n Pelgreffi, I. 7n, 11n, 13n, 33n, 52n, 77n, 78n, 110n, 135n Pérez Carreño, F. 95n, 105n Perullo, N. 11n, 25n, 50n, 83n, 148n Petard, A. 21n Peters, G. xi, 11n, 24n, 37n, 40n, 106n, 145n Peterson, O. 101 Piazzesi, C. 11n Picasso, P. Ruiz y 22, 91, 92, 130 Picciuto, E. 136n Piekut, B. 22n, 42n, 44n, 52n, 61n, 83n, 85n, 88n, 103n, 116n Pietropaolo, D. 1n, 21n, 45n, 46n, 61n, 78n Pinotti, A. 47n Plato 1, 29, 89n, 157 Pliniy called the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus) 22n Pollock, J. 91, 92 Popper, K.R. 151 Portera, M. 11n Pouillaude, F. 64n Pound, E. 99n Preston, B. 2, 3n, 45n, 135 Prinz, J. 155n Privitera, P. 111 Protogenes 22 Puškin, A. 82n Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus) 1n Racca, D. 5n, 45n Racy, A. J. 75 Raphael (R. Sanzio) 27 Rampazzo Bazzan, M. 156n Ramshaw, S. 52n Rancière, J. 152 Rataj, A. 107n Ravaisson, F. 11n Ravn, S. ix n Rembrandt (R.H. van Rijn) 38, 39 Remy, T. 116 Renoir, J. 103 Richter, G. 96 Riethmüller, A. 40n

164 Rivera García, A. 152n Rivette, J. 100, 101, 103 Roccetti, M. 88n Rocha, G. 25n Rosa, H. 40 Rossellini, R. 103 Rosso, M. 94 Rostagno, A. 9n, 33n, 36n, 67n Rousselot, M. 4n Ruda, F. 146n Rudofsky, B. 114n Russell, M. 2n, 71n, 75n Russo, M. 131n Ruta, M. ix, 25n, 47n, 57n, 58n, 65n, 71n, 73n, 74n, 78n, 83n, 84n, 89n, 95n, 96n, 98n, 106n, 123n Rüsenberg, M. ix n Ryle, G. 4n, 9n Saint-Germier, P. 74n, 89n Sala, R. 100n Saltz, D.Z. 59n Santarcangelo, V. 9n Sartre, J.-P. 10, 15n Sasse, S. 82n, 95n Sawyer, R.K. 10n, 26n, 32n, 34n, 67n, 79n, 132n, 133n Sbordoni, A. 9n, 33n, 36n, 67n Scelsi, G. 45, 93 Schiller, F. 152, 153 Schönberg, A. 72n, 137 Schopenhauer, A. 15 Schumacher, E. 97 Schwarte, L. 57n Scruton, R. 35n, 104n Scurti, G. 110 Seel, M. 49n Sehgal, T. 80 Sennett, R. 3n, 8, 14n, 114, 115, 135 Shiner, L. 16n Shumann, F. 51n Shusterman, R. 10n Sibley, F. 132n Siegfried, W. 76 Silver, N. 115n Simpson, E. 52n Sisto, D. 40n Smith, H. 21n, 29n, 59n, 62n, 78n , 85n

Index of Names Smithson, R. 117 Socrates 15 Sohn-Rethel, A. 6n Solis, G. 71n Sontag, S. 129n Sottsass, E. 116 Sparrow, T. 11n Sparti, D. 5n, 42n, 75n Spolin, V. 30n Stäel, Madame de (A.-L.G. Necker) 52 Stapleton, M. 51n Stein, G. 99n Stevens, W. 99n Stich, S. 116n Stockhausen, K. 73n Sullenberger, C. 6 Suzuki, K. 89n Tarasti, E. 28n, 106n Tavani, E. 53n Taylor, C. 43 Terrone, E. 129n Terzi, P. 148n Tessari, R. 78n Thériault, M. 39n Thompson, E. 51n Thülermann, F. 127n Tinctoris, J. 2 Tintoretto (J. Robusti) 94 Torrance, S. 51n Treitler, L. 8n Trevarthen, C. 69n Tsabary, E. 86n Twain, M. (S.L. Clemens) 98 Ullrich, W. 109n Ungaretti, G. 99 Vaccari, F. 105n, 109n Valéry, P. 64 Van der Schyff, D. 9n Van Gogh, V. 94, 121 Varela, F.J. 34n Varzi, A.C. 60n Vasari, G. 27n Vattimo, G. x, 136n, 148n, 150n Vercellone, F. 14n, 148n Vernant, J.P. 13n

165

Index of Names Villa, S. 103n Virno, P. 48n Vitale, F. 108n Vitali, M. 31n Völker, J. 146n

Wesely, M. 109 Wiesing, L. 105n Winnewisser, R. 93 Wittgenstein, L. 4n, 23n, 30n, 79n, 138n, 141, 142n

Wachtangow, J. 45 Wallace, R. 97, 99n Walser, R. 100 Walt, C. 100n Walton, K. 121, 122, 127n, 144n Warhol, A. (A. Warhola Jr.)  17n Weinberg, G. 88n Welling, J. 110n Weltzien, F. 94n Wender, M. 116n

Young, J.O. 40n Young, M. 88n, 89n Zalta, E.N. 60n Zanetti, S. 82n, 94n, 95n, 98n, 100n, 116n Zappa, F. 150n Zemak, E. 127n Ziering Kofman, A. 52n Zumthor, P. 115n