The question of agency is immediately both practical and political, given that it is ultimately a question of responsibility, and the exigence of establishing just who or what might be held accountable for a particular process or event. As such, far from an obscure problem of metaphysics, the question of agency is thus encountered quite directly in law, ethics and psychology, where it becomes synonymous with the need to distinguish voluntary action from all the other kinds of events. Given the combination of rational intentionality with a productive openness to the unpredictability of particular situations and materials, artistic and creative practices that strive to bring about the new resist explanation by standard accounts of action and agency. Drawing on contemporary French philosophy, this collection finds that the ethical and political significance of artistic agency lies in this combination of purposive behaviour and its openness to the unforeseen.