Unit Model: An agential improvisatory performer-camera practice
This research entails the formulation of a new improvisational filmmaking practice that elaborates a co-constituted interdisciplinary ensemble practice using spontaneous dynamic relations between performer, camera and sound roles. This ‘Unit Model’ practice instigates and enables dynamic structures for improvisation (Landgraf 2014, 2019), realising in practice Baradian (2007) concepts of agential realism, distributed agency and ensemble intra-action.
The research is located in the emerging field of ‘improvisational filmmaking’ (Vilč, 2015) and related discourses (Mouëllic 2014, Murphy 2019, Wexman 1980, Collins, 2019), alongside selected improvisatory frameworks as seen across disciplines. Methodologically the practice-research enquiry instigated six ensemble improvisation workshops as a research framework. These developed a ‘repertoire of examples’ (Schon, 1983) resulting in the identification and application of a set of shared modes through which ensemble improvisatory filmmaking can operate.
This research manifests in a portfolio of: video essays that explicate the context, development and theorisation of the model and the resulting ensemble workshop-films; a schematic that visualises the model as a set of relations and modes for practice; a collection of improvisatory games which develop group awareness and dynamic relations for interdisciplinary roles within an ensemble, enabling assimilation and dissemination of the practice.