@phdthesis{Kahlert2024, author = {Kahlert, Peter}, title = {As Seen at the Hackathon. On the Cultural Significance of Creativity}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-1373}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-13738}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {235 Seiten}, year = {2024}, abstract = {My thesis is a study of creativity, with creative problem-solving in particular, based on a field study of hackathons and inquiry of everyday life occurrences and documents concerning creativity. It is no research of "why", nor is it a description of how, but a semiotic study of whats: what is a hackathon, what is creativity? I collected applications and occasions of creativity and hackathon to put them under structuralist scrutiny. The result is a structural description of the hackathon in five dimensions and by 20 criteria: "authenticity", "temporality", "organization", "participation", and "openness", therein: "hacker- likeness", "common outline", "content of coding", "strangeness", "boundedness", "length", "structuration", "regularity (repetition)", "rigidity", "detail", "homogeneity", "hosting", "threshold and filters", "motivation", "diffuseness", "commitment", "topicality", "skills", "means and tools", "participation". It further presents the finding that a concrete, empirical hackathon event is no simple configuration within this structure but constantly reconfiguring itself throughout its performance. This constant reconfiguration is illustrated by examples from participant observations at six hackathons. Based on these findings, a semiotic social theory has been speculated: that both, hackathon and creativity, are recursive, closure rejecting symbols. In other words, they are floating, overflowing signifiers, which, like the concept's origin, mana, embrace their semantic openness and semiotic incompleteness, engendering occasions. Accordingly, the thesis contains also a theory and methodology discussion searching for alternatives to the textual linearism of Grounded Theory's coding paradigm and unfolding a Barthesian semiology in reference to the conceptual value of "Italianicity": hackathonicity, creativicity, and somethingicity in general.}, language = {en} }