Cafe space, communication, creativity, and materialism

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Title: Cafe space, communication, creativity, and materialism
Author(s): McCosker, Anthony; Wilken, Rowan
Abstract: Coffee, as a stimulant, and the spaces in which it is has been consumed, have long played a vital role in fostering communication, creativity, and sociality. This article explores the interrelationship of café space, communication, creativity, and materialism. In developing these themes, this article is structured in two parts. The first looks back to the coffee houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to give a historical context to the contemporary role of the café as a key site of creativity through its facilitation of social interaction, communication and information exchange. The second explores the continuation of the link between cafés, communication and creativity, through an instance from the mid-twentieth century where this process becomes individualised and is tied more intrinsically to the material surroundings of the café itself. From this, we argue that in order to understand the connection between café space and creativity, it is valuable to consider the rich polymorphic material and aesthetic composition of cafés.
Publication type: Journal article
Research centre: Swinburne University of Technology
Research centre: Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Life and Social Sciences. The Swinburne Institute for Social Research
Source: M/C Journal, Vol. 15, no. 2 (May 2012)
Publication year: 2012
FOR Code(s): 1902 Film, Television and Digital Media; 2001 Communication and Media Studies; 2002 Cultural Studies
Keyword(s): Cafe spaces; Cafes; Coffee houses; Communication; Creativity; Materialism; Social interaction
Publisher: Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology
ISSN: 1441-2616
Publisher URL: http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/459
Copyright: Copyright © 2012. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial No Derivatives 3.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). The published version is reproduced in accordance with this policy.
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