Addressing a wide range of improvised art and music forms—from jazz and cinema to dance and literature—this volume's contributors locate improvisation as a key site of mediation between the social and the aesthetic. As a catalyst for social experiment and political practice, improvisation aids in the creation, contestation, and codification of social realities and identities. Among other topics, the contributors discuss the social aesthetics of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the Feminist Improvising Group, and contemporary Malian music, as well as the virtual sociality of interactive computer music, the significance of "uncreative" improvisation, responses to French New Wave cinema, and the work of figures ranging from bell hooks and Billy Strayhorn to Kenneth Goldsmith. Across its diverse chapters, Improvisation and Social Aesthetics argues that ensemble improvisation is not inherently egalitarian or emancipatory, but offers a potential site for the cultivation of new forms of social relations. It sets out a new conceptualization of the aesthetic as immanently social and political, proposing a new paradigm of improvisation studies that will have reverberations throughout the humanities. Contributors. Lisa Barg, Georgina Born, David Brackett, Nicholas Cook, Marion Froger, Susan Kozel, Eric Lewis, George E. Lewis, Ingrid Monson, Tracey Nicholls, Winfried Siemerling, Will Straw, Zoë Svendsen, Darren Wershler "An indispensable collection that cracks open a site for more rich and interdisciplinary work." -- Dan DiPiero ― boundary 2 "[Readers] will be more than rewarded by the insight it offers into the social aesthetics of improvisation, issues you will no longer be able to ignore as you listen to your next improv recording or attend your next improv concert." -- Lawrence Joseph ― Musicworks "Through both their rigorous theoretical grounding and curation of such a brilliant array of cross-disciplinary contributions, Born, Lewis and Straw offer a thoroughly inspiring set of tools for the academy to begin theorizing where, how and for whom art’s social mediations are occurring. I cannot recommend it highly enough." -- Toby Young ― Visual Studies "This groundbreaking collection brings together disparate fields, from ethnomusicology and art history to queer theory and philosophy, drawing them into a productive and at times heated conversation. Putting forward a whole set of new paradigms for considering music, improvisation, contemporary art, time-arts, new media, and aesthetics, the contributors advance the discourse on the improvised arts, potentially shaking up a number of disciplines in the process." -- John Corbett, author of ― Vinyl Freak Georgina Born is Professor of Music and Anthropology at the University of Oxford and the editor of Music, Sound, and Space: Transformations of Public and Private Experience . Eric Lewis is Associate Professor of Philosophy at McGill University and the author of The Video Art of Sylvia Safdie . Will Straw is Professor of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University and the coeditor of The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock . Improvisation And Social Aesthetics By Georgina Born, Eric Lewis, Will Straw Duke University Press Copyright © 2017 Duke University Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8223-6194-7 Contents Acknowledgments, INTRODUCTION What Is Social Aesthetics? Georgina Born, Eric Lewis, and Will Straw, CHAPTER 1 After Relational Aesthetics: Improvised Music, the Social, and (Re)Theorizing the Aesthetic Georgina Born, CHAPTER 2 Scripting Social Interaction: Improvisation, Performance, and Western "Art" Music Nicholas Cook, CHAPTER 3 From the American Civil Rights Movement to Mali: Reflections on Social Aesthetics and Improvisation Ingrid Monson, CHAPTER 4 From Network Bands to Ubiquitous Computing: Rich Gold and the Social Aesthetics of Interactivity George E. Lewis, CHAPTER 5 The Social Aesthetics of Swing in the 1940s: Or the Distribution of the Non-Sensible David Brackett, CHAPTER 6 What Is "Great Black Music"? The Social Aesthetics of the AACM in Paris Eric Lewis, CHAPTER 7 Kenneth Goldsmith and Uncreative Improvisation Darren Wershler, CHAPTER 8 Strayhorn's Queer Arrangements Lisa Barg, CHAPTER 9 What's Love Got to Do with It? Creating Art, Creating Community, Creating a Better World Tracey Nicholls, CHAPTER 10 Improvisation in New Wave Cinema: Beneath the Myth, the Social Marion Froger, translated by Will Straw, CHAPTER 11 Social Aesthetics and Transcultural Improvisation: Wayde Compton and the Performance of Black Time Winfried Siemerling, CHAPTER 12 Devices of Existence: Contact Improvisation, Mobile Performances, and Dancing through Twitter Susan Kozel, CHAPTER 13 The Dramaturgy of Spontaneity: Improvising the Social in Theater Zoë Svendsen, References, Contributors' Biographies, Index, CHAPTER 1 AFTER RELATIONAL AESTHETICS Improvised Music, the Socia