EMORY IMPROVISATIONS Home Page

IMPRONET (Improvisational Network) is a system of Web pages devoted tothe art of intellectual improvisation and to the experiments in the communicativegeneration of new ideas.

These pages are set up and maintained by
Mikhail Epstein(EmoryUniversity).


MATERIALS OF IMPROVISATIONS:

Water,Emory, April 2004

Belts, Universityof Rhode Island (Providence). March 2003

Arranging andArrangments, Emory University. March 2001


 Frogs,Emory University (Atlanta, GA). February 1998
Strings andBorders, the international conference:
The Future of the Humanities in Europe and the USA, Santiago de CompostelaUniversity. August 1997

The Possibilitiesand Limitations of Technology, Bowling Green State University (OH).October 1996

Experiments in collective improvisations began in Moscow (Russia) in1982 and continued in the USA since 1996.

Typical invitation to a session of Collective Improvisation:

We are seeking between 5 and 12 participants willing to devote severalhours to the following exercise. Each member of the group will proposea topic, out of which one will be chosen by negotiation. An hour or sowill be devoted to individual writing on the chosen topic, followed byindividual reading and group discussion of each essay. Participants shouldbe prepared to improvise on any topic, including the trivia of everydaylife, from the angles of their professional discipline, personal experienceor philosophical world view. They are also invited to become specialistsin alternative, virtual or non-existent disciplines.

 This improvisational session is what might be called a metaphysicalassault on everyday things. It can also be identified with the taskRichard Rorty has set for thinkers of the future: to be "all purpose intellectuals. . . ready to offer a view on pretty much anything, in the hope of makingit hang together with everything else."

The most regular kind of improvisation includes 5 stages:

 1) each participant suggests a topic for the improvisation.
 2) discussion of these topics, choice of one of them, and distributionof its various aspects among participants (each chooses his own personaland professional angle on the subject);
 3) writing individual essays (1 hour);
 4) reading and discussion of essays;
 5) collection of all written materials into a coherent whole,a  micro-encyclopedia of the given topic.

On the theory and history of Collective Improvisations:

CollectiveImprovisations and the Realm of the Ordinary

ImprovisationalCommunity: Creativity and Communication