The filmmakers believed the second Southern renaissance was on its way, and they aimed to document it in real time. After raising nearly $10,000 through a Kickstarter campaign in early 2012, Tharpe, West and Martin visited 17 cities and interviewed over 200 creators in just over a month. They interviewed luminaries like artist Radcliffe Bailey and musician Jimbo Mathus and they interviewed lesser knowns like the proprietors of the Idea Hatchery in Nashville and the Mojo Coworking space in Asheville. They were able to post a film trailer online and mount a gallery exhibition featuring the work of 10 Southern artists in 2013 before they ran out of money and momentum and put the documentary on indefinite hold.

Still, the remnants of “Something in Particular” reveal distinctive attributes of Southern innovation. Its sound bites speak of an expressive freedom emerging from scarcity. Tension, too, is cited as an important innovative influence here: the ever-present dualities of good and bad, black and white, what’s apparent and what’s hidden behind closed doors. Tolerance and togetherness, even in the midst of a segregated history, provide a support system, a sense of story and an acceptance of the iconoclastic oddity inherent in many innovators.

The South’s vivid contradictions do carry seeds of innovative advantage.

If turmoil is rich fertilizer for innovation, the region should be ready to burst with buds.

“Geography of Genius” author Eric Weiner writes, “There has to be an element of tension and disorder in order for a genius cluster to succeed; comfort is the enemy of creativity.” There is certainly plenty of discomfort to go around in the South. Six Southern states rank in the top 10 for worst poverty rates. A map of the worst health-care systems in the U.S. published by The Atlantic shows the entire Southeast in stark, negative contrast to the rest of the nation. But that is, perhaps, why it’s fair to ask: Is that why inventions like anesthesia or advances in open-heart surgery happened here before they spread elsewhere?

Weiner tells this story: “I talked to a venture capitalist not long ago and asked about who he funds. He said, when someone comes in for funding, he looks for the chip. The microchip? No, the chip on their shoulder. The South has chips to spare.”