This thesis describes how I took part in a series of collaborations with dancers Danai Pappa and Katie Hall, musician George Williams and video artist Julie Kuzminska. To realise our collaborations, I built electronic sculptural instruments from junk using bricolage, the act of subversion, skip diving and appropriation. From an auto-ethnographic viewpoint, I explored how collaborations began, how relationships developed and how various levels of expertise across different disciplines were negotiated. I examined how the documentation of the performances related to, and could be realised as, video art in their own right. I investigated the themes of work, labour and effort that are used in the process of producing and documenting these works in order to better understand how to ‘create’. I analysed the gender dynamics that existed between my collaborators and myself, which led to the exploration of issues around interaction and intimacy, democratic roles and live art. The resulting works challenged gender stereotypes, the notion of what a musical instrument can be and how sound is produced through action/interaction. I found that reflective time was imperative; serendipity, constant awareness of one’s environment, community and intimate relationships greatly enhanced the success of the collaborations. Instruments became conduits and instigators with shifting implied genders based on their context or creative use. As well as sound being a product of movement, effort and interaction, I realised it was also an artefact of the instruments.

My thesis concentrates on the game, the playfulness and the toy. At first, I was searching for where these topics were most common and how they effected our lives generally. I presented some of the definitions. Then I worked more with these definitions and I put them into a connection with the art and the padegogy. Later I made a separated point of the role of the game, the playfulness and the toy in the visual art. I introduced some artist, who have been using the topics of mainly the game and the playfulness in their art work. The toy was presented more like the theme of the art works. The final part concentrates on the visual art project, which is prepared for children at age eight to ten years. One of the range was introduced deeply. n this range present individual lessons, one of them is showed in detail. This lesson is named The painting by the soap bubbles and I had been taught it at The basic art school Na Proseku. After this lesson I wrote reflection of it. Whole thesis is ilustrated by the pictures. In the conclusion I try to summarize knowledge I reached.