My time-related work explores the relationship between the use of systems and the contents they generate - whether desired or not. Now I designed an unscripted TV- show based on jazz-like improvisation systems. Thank you Thelonious Monk.
Except that each episode has two directors plus time as important constructional elements, one defining system is repetition. Duplicating problematic parts and continuing differently as before creates a bewildering abundance of facets, simultaneously giving a sequence cohesion and a theme. This approach is as modern as Monk: actually extracting a contents from malfunction - as might be appropriate for a contemporary narrative: There's always a sense of highly developed structures in the process of disintegration .... it's a condition that's irreversible, it's a condition that's moving towards a gradual equilibrium (Robert Smithson).
This concept also has the potential to generate a new type of fiction/documentary. Improvisation-systems draw and build upon an anthropological approach. They allow the participants to foster a kind of self-representation, giving them the means to consciously and unconsciously induce and elaborate upon their own myths and legends. This ability to create one's own story serves as a kind of relief from a landscape of describing and classifying media. Exempting from bias other than their own.
Another exciting feature of this unscripted TV-series is that it can only improve in time. Why? The stories depend on inexhaustible systems rather than on writers that sooner or later inevitably run on empty. In addition, the reproduction system of the TV-show operates by replacing one of the two collaborators with another one in the next sequel, a new director/actor or participants that already appeared before. Only the most interesting performers will return in new episodes - creating an ever- increasing density of riveting characters.