play it first
My graduate thesis investigated the concept of improvisation in design, using jazz as a case study to uncover the conditions that enable or foreclose it. The thesis argues that automation, efficiency-driven workflows, and digital tooling systematically remove the conditions improvisation requires, including physical engagement with materials, tolerance for productive failure, and the slow accumulation of embodied skill. Through analog processes and material-based exercises, the project tests whether these conditions can be deliberately reintroduced into design practice, and what capacities result from doing so, particularly comfort with ambiguity and responsiveness to emergent conditions.