THE INVISIBLE FOOT : Survival of New Art Ideas on the Swedish Art Arena - An Autoethnographic Study of nonTVTVstation

Sammanfattning: This thesis is an autoethnographic case study of an avant-garde art project – nonTVTVstation - which achieved broad international success but met several difficulties on the Swedish art arena and eventually ceased operations after 10 years. The puzzle the thesis addresses is: Why did the nonTVTVstation, despite its international success, constantly run into trouble in Sweden and eventually fail to survive as a new art concept? The difficulties associated with the local structures represented an “Invisible Foot”, constantly but in seemingly complex ways upsetting our plans; but the nature and details of this Invisible Foot remained hidden during the years of operation.The study consists of two main parts: (1) The account of a subjectively perceived and self-lived story for gaining an intuitive and holistic understanding of the nonTVTVstation case, serving as a fundament for choosing the adequate theoretical approach, and (2) an analysis using the perspective of variation, selection, and retention models seeking to explain the selection mechanisms operating on nonTVTVstation on the art arena. The thesis proposes a new way of looking at ideas which can be labelled as avant-garde and their pivotal but also precarious role in the dynamics of cultural systems and art arenas in particular. It urges for making a distinction between revolutionary and evolutionary ideas on the art arena, and disentangles its selection mechanisms, not just for the sake of understanding the fate of nonTVTVstation, but also for the increasing international interest in the dynamism of the cultural industry and policy making. By uncovering the selection mechanisms on the Swedish art arena this thesis investigates an unexplored area in academic research, makes a theoretical contribution of general interest to models dealing with the issues of variation, selection, and retention, as well as producing important methodological insights and identifies possible future research directions.