According to physicist and science and technology scholar Andrew Pickering, research is a dance of agency: activities of trying to grasp dynamic processes unfolding between entities that are related and affect each other in more than causal ways. This entails going along in responsive, emergent and unpredictable processes of knowing.

But how do you do it?

Improvisational Knowledge Performances are strategies and tactics for working with improvisation, unpredictability and emergence in research. This can entail standing at the edge of the cliff of the conceptual, looking into the deep abyss from where all sorts of monsters may stare back. Improvisatoriske videns-performances is also the title of a chapter, I have written for the Nordic research volume “Improvisasjon Byliv mellom Plan og Planløshet”, edited by John Pløger, Anniken Førde og Anne-Lene Sand and published by Spartacus in 2021. You can find the chapter on page 41. It is great to be part of a community of creative and courageous researchers, practitioners and publishers.

The text is a continuation of my performative schizoid method, which you can read more about here: Performative Schizoid Method – Performance as Research.

Related post: Monster in Abyss with Falling Feather.