Fragile Sector, Robust Practice: Project Ecologies in New Media

Abstract

Unfinished' defines the aesthetic of new media. Internet sites, for example, the emblematic genre of new media, never solidify into a definitive form, they remain ephemeral, patchy,``permanently beta'' (Neff and Stark, 2003, page 3): (1) versions change, systems evolve, applications die. This aesthetic logic of the provisional and transient is also reflected in the organisational practices of new media. In the dizzyingly fluid environment in which new media evolve, organisational practices are driven by the imperatives of bricolage, improvisation, self-organisation, and adaptability.In this theme issue we delve into these organisational dynamics of new media. We share the view that, despite the en masse depreciation of Internet stocks after April 2000, organisational practices generated in and through new media will have a lasting impact (Schultz et al, 2000;Thrift, 2000;. In other words, although with the drastic end of`t he long summer of corporate love'' (Frank, 2000, page 356) new-media firms might have disappeared spectacularly, new-media practices have not. Studying the practices emerging from this``frenzy of capitalist experiment'' (Thrift, 2001, page 430) from different (disciplinary) angles, in our view, yields insights of more general relevance for understanding organisational forms and processes in turbulent environments.The central organisational arena of these practices is the project (Braczyk et al, 1999a, page 6; Heydebrand, 1999, pages 67^69). Of course, projects as`temporary systems' with`institutionalised termination' (Goodman and Goodman, 1976;Lundin and So« derholm, 1995) are not an organisational innovation of new media. They are a long-established routine in industries organised around`one-off' activities such as construction, engineering, shipbuilding, or`old' media such as film (Faulkner and Anderson, 1987;Lundin and Midler, 1998;Winch, 1986). More recently, project organisation seems to have taken hold in a wide range of industries in which it has not previously been part of the canonical repertoire of organisational forms (Ekstedt et al, 1999;Flores and Gray, 2000). This diffusion has been accelerated by codified formulas and routines of planning, budgeting, and managing projects as distinct organisational units (PMI, 1996) which mostly have been set up unambiguously either within or between organisations (Lundin and Midler, 1998). Economic geographies of this type of`managed project' have been examined in a previous Regional Studies special issue (Grabher, 2002a).Although more conventional forms of`managed projects' have also become an essential vehicle for new-media production,`self-organised projects' reflect the genuine emergent character of this field more specifically. In evolving and self-coordinating projects, neither the division of labour between team members nor the coordination of team activities follows traditional management principles (Heydebrand and Miro¨n, 2002). Because design is not compartmentalised but is generalised and distributed throughout the production process...

The Software Slump?: Digital Music, the Democratisation of Technology, and the Decline of the Recording Studio Sector within the Musical Economy

“…First, recording studios provided dedicated spaces for the recording of music, which vary from large orchestral rooms to smaller and more intimate spaces, but all of them have distinctive acoustic properties that have been created either by their original design or through subsequent iterative acts of tinkering, which make them suitable spaces for the performing and recording of music (Cogan and Clark, 2003;Cunningham, 1998;Simons, 2004). Second, studios sell time in these spaces, and are the sites for project-based work (Christopherson, 2002;Grabher, 2001;2002a;2002b;2002c;Hertel et al, 2003;O'Mahony, 2003;O è Riain, 2000;von Krogh et al, 2003). This mode of work is common across the creative industries more generally (DeFillippi and Arthur, 1998;Jones, 1996), and recording studio projects can last from just a few days to many months.…”

Putting the Agent into Research in Black and Minority Ethnic Entrepreneurship

“…This approach, which is often used to explore entrepreneurial careers more generally (Grabher, 2001(Grabher, , 2002a(Grabher, , 2002bEkinsmyth, 2002;Antcliff, et al 2007;Adams and Demaiter, 2008), suggests successful bricolage depends on the nature of the resources or forms of capital at the disposal of BME entrepreneurs (see Ram et al 2008). Bourdieu extends the term 'capital' to refer to all the material and symbolic goods that are rare and worthy of being sought after in a particular social formation, discriminating between four types of capital: briefly (1) economic capital indicates access to material resources, (2) social capital indicates access to benefits and favours from more or less formal social ties, (3) cultural capital indicates knowledge and skills acquired via education and experiences, and (4) symbolic capital indicates prestige and honour derived from personal attributes, including qualifications and group membership.…”

Sharing knowledge: Performing co-production in collaborative artistic work

“…Such scholarship has highlighted the complexity of spatial relations producing and produced through collaboration that cannot be easily reduced to geographical proximity (Boschma, 2005;Grabher and Ibert, 2014;Müller and Stewart, 2014). Grabher (2002a;2002b; has emphasised the risky and diffuse, yet simultaneously social and connected, nature of learning. Likewise, any straightforward link between clustering, colocation and the creation of knowledge through 'communities of practice' has been questioned (Amin and Roberts, 2008;Halbert, 2012;Malmberg and Power, 2005;Torre, 2008).…”

“…Within economic geography, 'clusters' and 'communities of practice' have been key imaginaries for understanding the complex role of proximities in knowledge production and innovation (Amin and Roberts, 2008;Bathelt et al, 2004;Malmberg and Power, 2005;Wenger, 1999). The fragile nature of these collaborations (Grabher, 2002a;2002b) continues to be of interest, with increasing focus on temporary events (Bathelt and Schuldt, 2008;Müller and Stewart, 2014;Power and Jansson, 2009); 'projects' (Hansen, 2015;Watson, 2012), 'networks' (Bathelt and Turi, 2011;Grabher and Ibert, 2014;Lowe et al, 2012;Müller, 2015) and 'intermediaries' (Jakob and Van Heur 2015). Through the example of creative writers' artistic knowledge, I contend that the vocabulary of co-production builds on and extends understandings of collaboration as temporary, fragile and with multiple spatial forms.…”