Going Commercial. L'integrazione degli artisti dall'underground al mainstream

The research analyses the processes of artist's integration from underground scenes and social movements to mainstream markets in Milan and Berlin, focusing on the transformations of urban contexts in the age of post-fordism. In the first chapter, the author takes into account the various theoretical frameworks of the studies on integration, considering the social movements studies approach (Castells and Pruijt), the subcultural studies approach (Cohen and Hebdige), the approach of the artistic critique developed by Boltanski and Chiappello and the studies on symbolic and subcultural capital (Bourdieu, Harvey an Thornton). The second chapter defines the methodological paths of the research, identifying four main urban variables that have been hypotisized as transforming factors related to integration (urban market, real estate, mobilisation cycles and institutional paths) and establishing definitions for the main topics (creative industries, underground, mainstream, new media arts). Chapter three and four are the ethnographic reports of the fields of Milan and Berlin: the main focuses here are on how the four urban variables have influenced integration paths, biographies and choices of activists and artists. In the analytical chapter the author reflects on the relationship between urban spaces, windows of opportunity, collective symbolic capital, subcultural identity and integration; here, there is a deepening on the relationships between transformations in urban economy, flexibility in labour markets and subcultural social cohesion. In the conclusions, the author optimises and re-defines the variables and suggests a general scheme for the interpretation of integration paths.