Why improvisation?
When the author of an artwork is asked (the necessary and valid question) "Why did you make it like that?" the question has two meanings. On the one hand, it is a question aimed at the result: "Why did you make it to be the way it is?" That is not really a question, but a (valid and necessary) judgment: "It is (not) good the way that you made it." This judgment is simultaneously the goal, the end of the discussion: The author is someone who -just as the recipient of the work- has made an aesthetic decision. He/she autonomously deems something to be "beautiful" , an act that is incomprehensible and must be so. But authors, by making their decisions public, expose themselves to the critical assessment of recipients, appointed as judges by the author to rule on the value of his/her decision.
The other possible meaning of the question initiates a different line of inquiry about art: "By what means did you make that and why did you use these means specifically?" To inquire about the manner of production signifies: The desire to understand the author, to put oneself in the author's shoes. From this vantage point the hierarchy of the interrogative process is also changed: The coordinates are no longer" self-exhibitionist artist vis- value judging consumer" , but"initiator of a communication process paired with participating recipient" . In our particular case the question pertinent to this line of inquiry would be: "Why improvise?"
I'd like to put forward a theory in answer to this question: Improvisation (as an artistic method) is a political model, because it seeks to establish a prerequisite for free cooperation: The non-hierarchical communication between autonomous subjects. In other words, every time authors make their aesthetic decisions public by introducing them into a common space (in the privileged position of non-functionality), they produce an image analogous to a political process: Autonomous decisions encounter each other freely. This promotes discovery.
For example, the discovery can be made that the issues, the problems, are not laid down externally; rather, they arise from (and through) the communication. The issue "at hand" is always whatever comes into common focus.
Needs do not require justification. They are inexplicable. The "bylaws" governing the way these needs are perceived and treated must be "drawn up" together, in response to requirements. The authors ascertain that the procedure they have created together does not eliminate problems; on the contrary, problems reappear regularly in a sort of spiral pattern. One encounters the same issue again, but it seems to pertain to another parameter, another level.
From all of these observations, rules can be derived. All participants are free, therefore: carry out interventions independently. Do not plan the actions of others. Be open for the possibility of collaboration, but do not try to force it.
Such rules can recur at another point on the spiral as problems, needs or procedure to be further developed accordingly.
Improvisation is an everyday activity. In art, it becomes a form of play (a game?). Emerging from of the realm of art, improvisation offers possibilities (infinite, non-utilitarian) for collaborative work.