+ Models SCAMAN-826; No. of Pages 10 Please cite this article in press as: Hewer, P., et al. ‘The exploding plastic inevitable’: ‘Branding being’, brand Warhol & the factory years. Scandinavian Journal of Management (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2013.03.004 ‘The exploding plastic inevitable’: ‘Branding being’, brand Warhol & the factory years Paul Hewer a, * , Douglas Brownlie b , Finola Kerrigan c a Strathclyde University, United Kingdom b Stirling University, United Kingdom c Kings College London, United Kingdom Introduction ‘‘Warhol is the most powerful contemporary art brand that exists. Picasso is another’’. (Appleyard, 2011: 82). Andy Warhol was a commercial artist, a fine artist; a film- maker, publisher and celebrity who lived and worked in New York from the 1950s until his death 25 years ago. His life and work has been extensively mined by art critics (Hughes, 1982), philosophers (Danto, 1992, 2009), sociologists (Currid, 2007) and marketers alike (Fillis, 2000; Schroeder, 1997, 2005, 2010). Jones (1990) travels back to Warhol’s childhood in Pittsburgh to explore the Factory, that communal space of cultural production within which Warhol conducted much of his creative work on prints, film, music production, painting, etc. Warhol’s father Ondrej Warhola had been employed for most of his life in a large steel mill, a factory where working conditions were poor and poverty not far removed: ‘The Depression had changed the factories’ image from being a source of employment to the source of smoke and disease’ (Jones, 1990: 107). Jones contrasts the ‘dark satanic mills’ of Pittsburgh with the factories of New York that Warhol would have encountered after graduating in 1949 and moving to New York to pursue a career in advertising as a commercial illustrator. At that time these factories still housed ‘craft oriented’ workers all over the city. In the 1960s Warhol chose to locate his ‘Factory’ in mid- town New York and Jones (1990: 109) describes this as a neighborhood that ‘signified modern business and contem- porary industry’. During his early years in advertising he learned the lessons of collaboration, his productivity having benefited from the use of assistants. When setting up The Scandinavian Journal of Management (2013) xxx, xxx—xxx KEYWORDS Branding being; Brand spaces; Brand Warhol; Sociocultural brands; Identity work Summary This paper contributes to theories of brands as sites of identity work and conver- gence. It takes as its subject relations of belonging and participation as they shape communal ‘scenes’ out of which spring intimations of spaces of cultural production as branding ecosystems. To illustrate ways in which this line of thought ignites discourses on branding as a mode of relational being, we explore the social environment fomented around Warhol’s court, ‘The Factory’, that iconic symbol of the mediated logic of his oeuvre. Drawing on archival accounts of Factory life, we explore cultural production as illustrative of brands and branding as social technologies exciting the imaginary and its theater of possibility. And to understand how collective consumption of relations of connectivity nurture conditions suggestive of new branding forms, we consider the existential logic of ‘branding being’, of thinking ‘spaces’ made available through branding as a mode of relational being. # 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: paul.hewer@strath.ac.uk (P. Hewer). Available online at www.sciencedirect.com j ou rn al home pag e: http: / /w ww. e lse vier. com/ loc ate /sc ama n 0956-5221/$ — see front matter # 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2013.03.004