Bricolage: Our Tools — the second meeting within the "Shumi" laboratory

Bricolage: Our Tools — the second meeting within the "Shumi" laboratory

The bricolage method (from French bricolage — “to tinker with whatever is at hand”) is a way of creating objects, systems, or artworks from already existing materials, often not originally intended for that purpose. In the context of homemade instruments, especially in art and sound, bricolage becomes a powerful gesture — simultaneously aesthetic, political, and poetic.

Instead of using “professional” musical instruments, artists and experimenters assemble their own from everyday objects, found or discarded materials, electronics from old devices, and natural elements.

Bricolage opposes the idea of “high” art, which demands expensive equipment and academic knowledge.
It says: you can create from what you have. It is a gesture of autonomy and freedom.

Homemade instruments sound different from the usual. They do not fit into traditional systems (scales, modes, meters). This opens the way to new ways of listening and playing.

Using waste, cheap and “unsuitable” materials becomes a political act — a refusal of industrialization, consumerism, and norms.