Attached by the Product: A Socio-Material Direction in the Sociology of Art

Introduction

In 2006–2007, I conducted a study of development processes in the Danish film industry. The study looked at how film projects are organized in their initial stage, i.e. the period from when an idea for a film is launched until the project is ready to go into pre-production or, as is more often the case, the project is cancelled. Over a 1-year period, I followed the start-up of five film projects in different production companies by observing meetings and interviewing the participants.

My sociological imagination led me to presume that social processes have a determining influence on cultural products. Informed by the production of culture perspective, I supposed that social arrangements such as organizational structures and gatekeepers affect cultural products (Peterson, 1994). Likewise, inspired by Bourdieu, I assumed that the structure of the field of cultural production ‘causes’ works of art (Bourdieu, 1993a). However, for the filmmakers, the film appeared to be as important as the social relations which surrounded it. To my surprise, the film itself did not simply seem to be the outcome of the filmmakers’ work. Moreover, conflicting with my sociological presumptions, the evolving product also seemed to exert an influence on the social processes during production.

Thus in this paper I pursue a conceptualization of the agency of the evolving product. In so doing, I am informed by the work of Antoine Hennion (1989, 1995), who has brought theoretical developments from the field of science and technology and society studies into sociology of art, thereby initiating a socio-material direction in this field of research. However, while Hennion (2001, 2007) demonstrates how the cultural product affects its individual users, I aim to further this perspective by illustrating how the product becomes entangled in the collective process of its making. Thus I subscribe to Howard Becker’s processual view on art as collective action, but aim to widen the scope of this sociological outlook. While Becker proposes to identify all the people who are involved in cultural production processes (1974, 1982, 2003), I set out to take the empirical ambition literally by distributing agency to all actors, humans as well as non-humans (Hennion, 1995, 1997; Hennion and Meadel, 1986).

By means of a single case from my wider study, I wish to illustrate how the product becomes an active participant in the process of its development. As networks are established around the evolving product, it becomes a mediator of the social relations which it is at the same time a product of. In that way, the product and the social relations in the production process are being co-produced. Hence, by calling attention to the social implications of experiences of the evolving product, the article contributes to the development of a socio-material direction in sociology of art.

Sociology of the Artwork

In recent years, cultural sociologists have announced ‘a new sociology of art’, arguing that sociology of art has tended to neglect the artwork (de la Fuente, 2007, 2010; Eyerman and McCormick, 2006; Eyerman and Ring, 1998; cf. Zolberg, 1990). In particular, the production of culture perspective is criticized for portraying artworks as effects that are explained ‘in terms of the social organization of their production and consumption, that is, through contextualization’ (Eyerman and Ring, 1998: 277, e.g. Crane, 1987, 1992; Peterson, 1976, 1994). Proponents of a new sociology of art question this allegedly one-sided attention, asking if something is overlooked when the artwork is reduced to an outcome of social causes: ‘Can the sociological investigation of the arts afford to ignore the artwork and focus primarily upon contextual factors?’ (de la Fuente, 2007: 410). As this question indicates, the initiation of a new sociology of art builds on the suggestion that works of art themselves are highly central to understanding cultural production and should be brought into the sociological picture accordingly.

One proposition for approaching works of art sociologically consists in conceptualizing the artwork as a bearer of meaning (Eyerman and McCormick, 2006; Eyerman and Ring, 1998). For example, the British cultural sociologist Robert Witkin proposes ‘a sociology of the artwork’, which relates content and wider social structures, thus supplementing the analysis of social processes operative behind art with an inspection of the meaning of the artwork (1995, 1997). However, this raises the question if an artwork might do more than contain meaning.

A different approach suggests that the status of the artwork may be altered from a passive container of meaning to an active participant (de la Fuente, 2007, 2010; see also Becker, Faulkner and Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 2006; DeNora, 2000, 2003; Molotch, 2003). To formulate a conceptualization of this proposition, vocabulary taken from the work of Bruno Latour serves as a source. In the introduction to Art from Start to Finish, Becker et al. suggest that the artwork in the ‘language of Bruno Latour, . . . is an actant’ (2003: 6, cited in de la Fuente, 2007: 421). Similarly, Molotch echoes Latour’s terminology when he indicates that objects can be seen as actants (2003), and de la Fuente suggests reconfiguring the sociology of art in light of actor-network theory (2010). However, the implications of these suggestions have not yet been fully clarified, elaborated and discussed.

While de la Fuente, Molotch and Becker et al. set out to change the status of the artwork from passive to active by referring to Latourian ideas, the British music sociologist Tia DeNora furthers the agenda of a new sociology of art by employing the Latourian perspective empirically. DeNora suggests that music has power; it acts, and because of what it does it is both valued and regulated. In empirical studies of various everyday life settings, for instance aerobic classes, DeNora demonstrates how music becomes an active participant (DeNora, 2000). To explicate the active status of the object, DeNora quotes Latour’s claim that artifacts prescribe behavior but do not compel users to behave in pre-scripted ways (Latour, 1992). Moreover, DeNora draws upon the work of Latour’s colleague, the French cultural sociologist Antoine Hennion, who has written extensively on the sociology of art in ways that draw upon Latourian ideas and extend them.

In my analysis of a development process, I am inspired by DeNora’s studies, Latour’s propositions about seeing objects as actants, and Hennion’s suggestions for how artworks may be addressed sociologically. Hence, to outline the position which I subscribe to, the remaining part of this section will introduce the socio-material direction in the sociology of art, which Hennion has initiated. I focus on presenting four key concepts from Hennion’s work, which will be employed in the analysis subsequently. These are the concepts of mediation, attachment, experience and co-production.

Although Hennion does not call his perspective ‘a new sociology of art’, his agenda parallels the ambition of the new sociology of art. Hennion and Line Grenier name their approach to art ‘post-critical’ as they aim to establish ‘a sociology of art, [which is] not against art’ (2000: 345). This proposal is based on the estimation that the dominant critical tradition in the sociology of art, led by Bourdieu, places itself in opposition to its analytical object as it is preoccupied with revealing social causalities lying ‘behind’ art (Bourdieu, 1993a). This type of sociology of art deliberately neglects the artistic product itself, and puts social causes in its place. In opposition to its predecessor, the post-critical sociology of art seeks to shed light on the performativity of artworks. Thus, as Georgina Born suggests, this strand of research may be termed post-Bourdieuian (2009, 2010). Informed by science and technology studies, Hennion and Grenier suggest including the cultural product (i.e. the artwork) in sociological analyses of art by investigating associations between the social and the material. In other words, they propose a socio-material direction in sociology of art. The term socio-material calls attention to the fact that ‘the social’ should be seen as constituted by, and dependent upon, materialities, rather than as an autonomous domain in and of itself (Latour, 2005).

While the socio-material perspective proposes to view artworks as active participants, it does not entail an essentialist understanding of objects. Rather, Hennion suggests that a transgression of the dualistic choice of seeing artworks as either results of social factors or possessing an immanent meaning, represents the main challenge today for the sociology of art:

The dilemma now faced by sociologists is how to incorporate the material character of works produced and devices used, without reverting to autonomous aesthetic commitments, which in the past treated works of art as extractions removed from their social context. (Hennion and Grenier, 2000: 341)

That is, the problem which sociologists are confronted with is how to address the product without essentializing it and without reversing into reductionist social accounts. To move beyond these dichotomous stances, Hennion introduces the concept of mediation, which helps in redefining artworks as simultaneously active and mutable constructs (Hennion, 1989, 1995). Mediation draws attention to the numerous human and non-human participants which are involved in constructing artworks (Hennion, 1997). Hennion argues that all non-human participants involved should be considered active co-producers rather than passive tools, which enables sociologists to describe collective processes of making and consuming art as distributed forms of creation. The concept of mediation is vital in Hennion’s writings, because it provides a tool for transgressing not only the prevailing dualism between aestheticism and sociology, but in addition the dualism between doing subjects and passive objects (1995). In the subsequent analysis, I suggest that the evolving product becomes a mediator of the social relations which it is at the same time a product of. Hence I apply the concept of mediation to highlight the fact that artworks are at the same time outcomes of work and have various productive functions.

To explain the active workings of the product, Hennion uses the concept of attachment that characterizes relations to objects which produce the subject (Gomart and Hennion, 1999). Based on examples with drug users and music lovers, Gomart and Hennion illustrate how objects are employed to affect the subject. Gomart and Hennion describe these attachments as ‘active passion’, which underlines that the subject actively seeks to make the object generate sensations and feelings, thereby in turn producing the subject.

Since attachment depends on feelings, which the product gives rise to, the concept of experience becomes central for understanding how attachments are made. In a study of music lovers, Hennion observes a mixture of activity and passivity in experiencing music (2001). Thus, Hennion defines experiences of art as consisting not in doing something but making something happening: ‘It is an active way of putting oneself in such a state that something may happen to oneself’ (2007: 109, see also 2001). Hennion’s description of how art is experienced can be seen as a parallel to Dewey’s conception of art as experiences (1959). According to Dewey, an experience of art consists in a mixture of doing and undergoing. This means that an experience is not simply something which the subject brings about, it is simultaneously something which can overwhelm the subject.

Dewey emphasizes that experiences of art unites artistic performance and aesthetic perception. Moreover, he states that this is the case for both receivers and makers of cultural products. Receivers of cultural products make responsive acts and are thereby not submissive receptors. On the other hand, makers of cultural products perceive their work while shaping it, and in this sense they not only act as creators but also receivers. Hennion makes a comparable point – when artists discuss their work this is an effect of this work, not its cause (1995). There is a two-way relationship between the product and its user/maker. Hennion calls the mutually constitutive relation between artworks and their users co-production, which underlines that the product is constituted during use, just as users are constituted through using the product (2001).

Introducing the Case Study

Raves, Jungle Dance or Party On: We Were Dancing (the title of the manuscript changed over time) is a film project about the early Danish rave scene. ¹ The project was carried out in Copenhagen over approximately two and a half years before it was cancelled in April 2007. I was in contact with the project during the last half-year of its duration, from November 2006 until June 2007.

Start-up of the Project

As the producer explains the origin of the project, he is approached about making a film by a DJ who played at his daughter’s birthday party. The DJ suggests that the beginning of rave music in Denmark in the early 1990s – an era which he had been part of – should be made into a film by the producer. Based on this encounter, the producer held a meeting where the DJ and a scriptwriter, who had also been a pioneer of the Danish rave scene, presented a proposal for the film. However, their proposal was refused by the producer, because he wanted the idea about portraying a music scene to be transformed into a generally appealing story of relations between youth and adults. Following this order, the scriptwriter went home and made a new synopsis.

The scriptwriter explains that the story in the synopsis is based on his own experiences. Moreover, he had already written a draft of the story for another film project, which had been given up. The story describes a teenage boy’s introduction to the rave scene and becoming a DJ. Besides this, it describes the boy’s troubled relationship with his new family as he is adopted when his mother, whom he has been living with, dies at the beginning of the story. In addition to the family trouble, the boy is confronted with problems and dilemmas regarding drugs, sex, violence and friendship. In the end, he manages to overcome the obstacles, makes a successful performance and is approached by a talent scout from a record company. His new father attends that performance and is proud of his son, which, finally, establishes a bond between them.

The scriptwriter explains, after the project has been terminated, about the synopsis:

It is like very tightly constructed with a happy ending and it includes some of those elements from a usual sport film where you have to achieve [something] and you fight for that and in the end everyone is happy and congratulations and so on, right. And then, those are the elements which I am willing to give at that time: here you are; this is what will sell the tickets. There are some other areas where it is important to me that we like have a certain kind of authenticity towards the background that I have. (Interview with scriptwriter)

According to the scriptwriter, the synopsis of the story represents an effort to meet the producer’s demands as it shows how far he would go in making a widely appealing film.

In the copy of the synopsis, which I have been handed after the project has been terminated, the producer’s comments from his first reading of the synopsis are included. He writes that in general the synopsis is good, the characters work well, and that ‘this can really become a fine “coming of age” story’ (Producer’s comments in the synopsis). Yet, the producer also has some suggestions for revisions. Most of these are incorporated into the first draft of the manuscript, which otherwise follows the storyline of the synopsis. To give an example of the producer’s comments and the scriptwriter’s integration of these, the producer remarks that it is unclear how the boy becomes knowledgeable about music, and so the scriptwriter makes a scene in the manuscript where the dying mother and the boy are discussing music.

During this initial course of events, the scriptwriter and the producer collaborate, which the inclusion of comments demonstrates. Yet this collaboration is mediated by the writing. When the scriptwriter makes a proposal, the producer comments on it, and the scriptwriter then modifies the proposal in adjustment to the comments. By this procedure, interaction takes place via the draft, which positions the evolving product in the middle of the collaboration as a mediator. Thus, rather than solely being considered an outcome of the screenwriter’s and the producer’s interests and visions, the evolving product can also be seen as having effects on the process, deriving from the participants’ experiences of the writing.

By having experiences of the evolving product, the participants link themselves to the project. In that way, the script offers a substance which keeps the project together. In other words, the evolving product has the effect of attaching the participants. Following the socio-material form of analysis, laid out by Hennion, the script and the formation of the social interaction around the script may be said to be co-produced, that is, simultaneously constituted. Hence, as the product is progressed, the process of its making also forms and changes.

On the basis of the synopsis for the film, the producer starts approaching investors about the project. The Danish Film Institute, a state institution which is the major investor in Danish film, responds during this phase of development that the idea has potential and the storyline is fine, although it lacks depth in its account of the troubles which the boy goes through. The producer and the scriptwriter enter a dialogue with a film consultant at the Film Institute and they receive a subsidy grant to pay the scriptwriter to write the manuscript. After having read the first and second drafts of the script, the film consultant replies that the story now seems to consist of a well-functioning coming- of-age story about the boy’s relationship to the rave scene, along with a clichéd story about the family relations.

As well as the writing becoming a mediator in the interaction between the participants inside the project group, the synopsis mediates the relations to external stakeholders. Thus, the evolving product now takes on the role of making further attachments. Similar to the participants in the project group, participants from outside become involved by means of experiencing the writing, whereby the development of the product and the assemblage of an interest group around it are being co-produced once more. When, for instance, the film consultant evaluates the story as promising, it gives weight to the product and ties the Danish Film Institute to the project at the same time.

This section has shown how the evolving product brings the participants together during the start-up of the project. When human participants engage in progression of the product, they become united by the writing. Thus, the assemblage of the project is based in experiences of the evolving product. In the next section, the analysis looks at what happens with the co-production of the product and the social relations later on in the process.

Breakdown of the Project

After nearly a year of development, the film consultant finds it necessary to bring a director on board in order to proceed with the project. After some debate about candidates, the producer announces that he has found the ideal candidate. When the scriptwriter receives this information, he responds to the producer that he is not fond of this director. He gets one line in return, saying: ‘I trust him the same way I trust you’ (email from producer to scriptwriter). After that he does not hear from the producer for months.

Approximately 4 months after the scriptwriter has lost contact with the producer, I observe a meeting about the project, which turns out to be the first meeting that is held between the producer, the director and the production manager. The producer opens the meeting by briefly introducing the project, followed by the declaration: ‘So now we have to figure out when we want to make it’ (observation notes from meeting). Starting backwards from the date of the premiere of the film in less than a year, the making of the film is planned. The producer suggests that they start casting straight away.

After this meeting, nearly half a year passes where apparently nothing happens. I call the producer roughly every second week, and each time he explains that the project is postponed as he is occupied making and promoting other films. Eventually, he informs me about a meeting which I can attend. However, the night before, I receive a text message from the producer saying that the meeting may be cancelled. When I call him the next morning, he explains that the meeting is called off. ‘A lot of things are happening’, he says, ‘it’s a really exciting process, I just have to get through today’ (notes from phone call to producer). The next time I reach the producer he reports that the project is temporarily closed down. Later, I discover that a series of events has taken place in this period.

The scriptwriter explains that after not having heard anything from the producer for some months, he stopped by the producer’s office one day and found him sitting next to a large file, which had the title Rave. According to the scriptwriter, the file indicated that the project was in progress, although he was no longer involved. As the scriptwriter explains, he was interested in getting the best out of the situation so he tried to make his way back into the project group by asking if he could meet the director and start collaborating with him.

After a couple of weeks, the scriptwriter received an email with three pages of comments from the director about things he wanted changed in the manuscript. The scriptwriter responded to the director, suggesting that they meet in order to gain a clearer understanding of each others’ ideas. They met, and spent two weeks examining the script together page by page. Based on this review, the scriptwriter made a new version based on the comments of the director. After he had handed in this third version, he left for a vacation, believing that this version of the script was now being sent to the Danish Film Institute together with a funding application for production subsidies.

However, the producer explains that he and the director felt that the first two versions of the script were not good enough and the third version was not very different from those previous versions. To solve the situation, the producer decided to let the director write another version of the manuscript. So the director made a version of the script, and in collaboration with the producer the director made yet another version of the script which they were satisfied with. Whereas the scriptwriter’s story was about an outsider boy who finds an identity as a rave DJ, this plot is transformed by the producer and the director to become a story about family relations, where the development of the boy is altered to become a shift in his sub-cultural affiliations. A quote from the first scene of the film may serve to illustrate the characteristics of the fifth version of the script:

FADE IN:

EXT. CHURCH YARD – AFTERNOON

A bell RINGS from a small, white chapel.

SIGN: HERNING SEPTEMBER 1993

CLOSE of Bente’s grave stone. In the stone is carved. ‘Bente Andersen 1953-1993’. ADAM stands with a bouquet of flowers and looks at the grave stone. His gaze is distant. ADAM is a pretty boy at 16. He is in stretch-jeans and Metallica-T-shirt.

At a distance stands CHRISTIAN. He is a very correct-looking man at 45, dressed in a well-fitting black suit. Christian walks towards Adam. He is searching for words.

   CHRISTIAN

   I really think that your mom is feeling better where she is now.

Adam doesn’t react.

   CHRISTIAN (CONT’D)

   It was nice of your auntie that you could stay at her place until the funeral.

Adam puts the bouquet at the grave.

   CHRISTIAN (CONT’D)

I also think that you are going to feel well at our place in Copenhagen. You will have your own room and a new family.

Christian puts his hand on Adam’s shoulder, but Adam pulls his shoulder away.

CHRISTIAN (CONT’D)

   You now have a younger brother who is looking forward to meeting you.

Adam doesn’t respond.

Christian stands for a moment and looks irresolute.

CHRISTIAN (CONT’D)

   Adam. . . We have to get the best out of this.

Adam nods.

   CHRISTIAN (CONT’D)

   I’ll wait in the car.

Christian walks towards the road. Adam stays for a moment and breathes deeply. Then he turns around and walks in Christian’s direction.

When the scriptwriter returns from vacation, he still thinks that his third draft has been sent to the Danish Film Institute to apply for production subsidiaries. However, he soon discovers that his friend has received an email from the producer’s secretary, which says:

All of us have been fiddling with the script and at the moment this is how it looks. Will you look at the language to see if it fits? Would you say things this way, etc? Feel free to throw in comments. Open game. (Email from secretary to consultant)

The friend of the scriptwriter calls him and reads aloud from a version of the script which is attached to the email. Furthermore, the friend tells him that the deadline at the Film Institute has been rescheduled, which means that the producer probably plans to submit his and the director’s new version of the script.

The scriptwriter tries to contact the producer and the director. The first response he gets is an email from the producer’s secretary about the promotion of the film, addressed to him and his friend, saying: ‘Hi wonder-boys. “Hallo Denmark” [a daily TV-show] would like to broadcast you next Tuesday. How about that?’ (Email from secretary to consultant and scriptwriter). The scriptwriter is astonished. Then he receives an email from the producer about the rewriting of the script:

[The director] and I have spent all of last week revising all the versions, and [the director] has come up with some suggestions for a tighter design and especially development of the parents . . . We have also delved into the book by [the name of a writer who has researched the Danish rave scene] and have found some awesome slang. (Email from producer to scriptwriter)

The scriptwriter replies to the producer that he is furious.

On his computer, the scriptwriter shows me the drafts made by the producer and the director. Everything that has been changed, compared to the third version, is marked with red, which makes it easy to see how much it is. However, it is not so much the amount of changes that upsets the scriptwriter as the character of the changes.

The scriptwriter gives four examples of why the script has caused his negative reactions. First, the story about the boy’s development has been overshadowed by the family theme. For instance, the first scene now explicitly spells out the boy’s relations to his parents, whereas the earlier versions portrayed these relations indirectly and subtly.

Second, the structure of the story has been altered. The story has been cut up and reconstructed; parts from the previous scripts are blended with the producer’s and the director’s ideas in the new versions. The scriptwriter complains: ‘The only reason they made me make another version was so that there could perhaps be some bits they could (Interview with scriptwriter) take out and use as Lego-bricks in their Frankenstein’s monster of a manuscript’. According to the scriptwriter, the new versions of the script are poorly composed as they mix a variety of elements with different inherent logics.

Third, to expand his point, the scriptwriter shows me the title page from the last version of the script. In big rainbow colored letters it says Party On. According to the scriptwriter, that title page demonstrates tastelessness and incompetence. Not only is the graphic style horrific, according to the scriptwriter, but the new name of the film, Party On, also sounds more indifferent than the previous titles Raves and Jungle Dance.

Finally, the scriptwriter points to the language in new versions of the script. The slang is incorrect and inauthentic. For instance, the invective ‘clubber bitch’ is employed in the new versions of the script although it is a term that has never been used by Danish ravers.

According to the scriptwriter, the changes in theme, structure, aesthetics and language of the script mean that the story now lacks the bite which it originally had, and therefore he decides to abandon the project. The new version of the script not only makes it difficult for the scriptwriter to associate with the project. It turns him away from the project. Thus the rewritten version of the script breaks up the scriptwriter’s relation to the project. When the scriptwriter reads the revised version of the manuscript, he feels distaste for the product. Whereas Hennion describes ‘active passion’ that leads to attachments being made, the scriptwriter’s experience exemplifies how sensations may on the other hand entail aversion which is followed by attachments being broken. As the scriptwriter dislikes the fifth version of the script, he feels that he cannot maintain involvement in the project. In that way, the evolving product comes to disintegrate the project group.

After the scriptwriter discovers that the producer and the director have made a new version of the script, he contacts his union about the legal matters of rewriting his work, and he plans to take the case to court. When the producer discovers that he is most likely to lose a lawsuit filed against him for changing the script without permission from the scriptwriter, he decides to end the project. However, the scriptwriter informs me that he has since found out that the producer and the director are continuing their work, developing another film about the rave scene. The producer says the same story: ‘So now [the name of the director] and I are developing the real story of rave . . . it’s more dancing’ (interview with producer). When I leave the project, this new project is in its initial phase.

In this section, the analysis has looked into the co-production of the evolving product and the social relations during the time of the break-down of the project. At first, when the director becomes included in the project group, he is only affiliated with the producer and they work on the project without the scriptwriter. Then the scriptwriter and the director make an version of the script in collaboration, the third draft of the manuscript. This version of the script establishes an alliance between the director and the scriptwriter. However, the assemblage of the project is broken after the producer and the director make two versions of the script that exclude the scriptwriter. The project collapses when the scriptwriter feels distaste for changes in the script made by the director and the producer. As it is specific changes in the script that make the scriptwriter turn the project down, the evolving product becomes the active participant that disintegrates the project group. In that sense, the simultaneous and reciprocal co-production of the product and the social relations of its making ends when the fifth version of the script expels the scriptwriter.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have sought to further the socio-material perspective in the sociology of art by presenting an empirical example of how the evolving product becomes actively involved in the process of its making. The analysis has shown that the object attaches the human participants and comes to detach them as the human participants experience the evolving object in its various forms. Hence, the analysis has suggested that the object mediates the relations between the human participants.

In the analysis, a socio-material perspective has been proposed. Yet, a conventional sociological optic could also have been used to analyze the process that led from Raves to Party On. If the analysis had applied Bourdieu’s field theory, the informants’ interests would have been seen as deriving from their field positions. Whereas the scriptwriter has cultural capital, the producer primarily has economic capital. Hence, the cause of events during the process of development could have been understood as a power struggle in which field positions become decisive (Bourdieu, 1993b). Another interpretation of the process might have focused on how organizational structures emerge. Informed by the production of culture perspective, the division of labour in the project could have been highlighted. Thus the conclusion would have been that the project breaks down when the producer disrupts the division of labour, which the project relies on (Peterson, 1976).

However, the participants were well aware that they had differing visions of the film and they aimed to join these together. Thus, the actual changes in the manuscript do not simply result from the participants’ intentions. The changes are also active producers of the participants’ intentions. Hence, the mere fact that the producer oversteps the division of labour by rewriting the script might not have had fatal consequences. The project breaks down because of what is written and how it is written. This illustrates the importance of incorporating into the analysis the evolving product as an active participant.

In my analysis, agency has been ascribed to the evolving product as it is considered to attach and detach human participants. But the claim that the product becomes active does not imply material determinism; it is not a reversal of causality from social to material causes. Rather, the incorporation of the product represents an attempt to formulate a sociological perspective that includes artifacts which turn out to be relevant empirically. Accordingly, the description of the active product aims to capture processes that arise based in perceptions of the product, not some immanent agency of the product itself. In other words, the argument presented here is not that an autonomous product with ‘intentions’ does something to the human participants. Rather, the evolving product can be seen as a constructed material object which is experienced by the participants, and these experiences lead to attachments and detachments to the project. By portraying how relations between the human participants are mediated by the evolving product, the analysis presented here suggests that the script is what allows them to turn towards or against each other. In that way, the socio-material direction in the sociology of art calls attention to the co-production of products and the social relations around them. Paying attention to the role of the object may help progress understanding of the unfolding social processes around it.