Improvisation Hypermedia and the Arts Since 1945

by Hazel Smith, Roger T. Dean

In presenting their comprehensive definition of improvisation, the authors consider developments in improvisation in the arts since 1945 by particularly emphasizing process and technique and by featuring artists in all media, from Grotowski and Laurie Anderson to Goldsworthy. Their approach is analytical and theoretical, but it is also relevant to practitioners and their audience. For Smith and Dean, improvisation has been of great importance and value in the contemporary arts because of its potential to develop new forms, often by breaking existing definitions: they see hypermedia and interactive technologies as playing a key role in dissolving the audience/creator separation which exists especially in Western society, though often less in other cultures.

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Hazel Smith is Senior Research Fellow in the School of Creative Communication, University of Canberra, Co-leader of the Sonic Communications Research Group and Deputy Director of the University of Canberra Centre for Writing. She founded the creative writing program at the University of New South Wales. She is author of Hyperscapes in the Poetry of Frank O'Hara and co-author of Improvisation, Hypermedia and the Arts Since 1945. She has published two books of poetry, two CDs of performance work and numerous multimedia and hypermedia works