Place and culture-making: Geographic clumping in the emergence of artistic schools

Socio-material network analysis: A mixed method study of five European artistic collectives

“…Although the relation between the social and the material is clearly not limited to small groups of visual artists sharing spaces which I analyze, such a setting allows a close ethnographic examination of how social structure molds materiality within a reasonable 5 amount of resources. Firstly, the role of space and materiality for artists, despite the technological changes of the 20th century in communication and transportation, is widely recognized (Carlozzi et al, 1995;Griswold et al, 2013;Oberlin and Gieryn, 2015;Peter, 2009) and we can expect artists to be explicit in their material activities. Secondly, in the artistic setting, the social and the material are not constrained much by the formal regulations, and hence are less dependent on organizational contexts.…”

Placing Collaborative Circles in Strategic Action Fields: Explaining Differences between Highly Creative Groups*

“…These small, intensely interacting research groups collaborate in transforming scientific thought and practice and spearheading scientific social movements (Frickel and Gross 2005; Griffith and Mullins 1972; Parker and Hackett 2012, 2014). Art groups are collaborative circles that develop new artistic techniques, ideas, and forms that oppose current practice and launch artistic movements (Becker 1982; Mercer 1994; Oberlin and Gieryn 2015). Critical communities are collaborative circles in politics that conceptualize new social problems and conduct the ideological work of new civic social movements (Rochon 1998; Schurman and Munro 2006).…”

“…Corte (2013) synthesized CCT with resource mobilization theory to analyze a circle in a lifestyle sport, refining Farrell’s concept of “magnet place” and demonstrating how circles are shaped by distinct arrangements of material, moral, and “locational” resources that facilitate and constrain creativity over time. Oberlin and Gieryn (2015), in their analysis of painting schools as collaborative circles, also emphasized the importance of place and co-presence for creative outcomes. In almost every one of the 49 schools they examined, artists lived in the same place because propinquity facilitates the kinds of social interactions that propagate distinct artistic cultures and styles and because certain locations provide social, institutional, and material affordances that enable and influence artistic work.…”

SOCIO-MATERIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS: A Mixed Method Study of Five European Artistic Collectives. Social Networks

“…Although the relation between the social and the material is clearly not limited to small groups of visual artists sharing spaces which I analyze, such a setting allows a close ethnographic examination of how social structure molds materiality within a reasonable amount of resources. Firstly, the role of space and materiality for artists, despite the technological changes of the 20th century in communication and transportation, is widely recognized (Carlozzi et al, 1995;Griswold et al, 2013;Oberlin and Gieryn, 2015;Peter, 2009) and we can expect artists to be explicit in their material activities. Secondly, in the artistic setting, the social and the material are not constrained much by the formal regulations, and hence are less dependent on organizational contexts.…”