Bricolage Programming in the Creative Arts

In this paper we consider artists who create their work by writing algorithms, which when interpreted by a computer generates their plotted drawings, synthesised music, animated digital video, or whatever target medium they have chosen. We examine the demands that such artists place upon their environments, the relationships between concepts and algorithms, and of cognition and computation. We begin by considering an artist’s creative process, and situating it within the bricolage style of programming. An embodied view of bricolage programming is related, underpinned by theories of cognitive metaphor and computational creativity, and finally with consideration of the bricolage programmer’s relation to time.