Abstract
This chapter has three aims. The first is to define what we mean by the softwarization of cultural production and how investigating creative tools provides insights into this process. Our second aim is to sketch how this approach to cultural production connects with existing research. The third and final aim is to preview the works collected in this volume.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adorno, T. (1985). In search of Wagner (R. Livingstone, Trans.; 2005 ed.). Verso.
Alperson, P. (2008). The instrumentality of music. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 66(1), 37–51.
Arvatov, B. (1926/2017). Art and Production (J. Roberts & A. Penzin, Eds.; S. Avagyan, Trans.; English edition). Pluto Press.
Ashton, D., & Conor, B. (2016). Screenwriting, higher education and digital ecologies of expertise. New Writing, 13(1), 98–108. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790726.2015.1131304
Barbrook, R., & Cameron, A. (1996). The Californian ideology. Science as Culture, 6(1), 44–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/09505439609526455
Barnes, S. B. (2007). Alan Kay: Transforming the computer into a communication medium. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 29(2), 18–30. https://doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2007.17
Barrett, E., & Bolt, B. (Eds.). (2010). Practice as research: Approaches to creative arts inquiry. I.B.
Beck, J., & Bishop, R. (2020). Technocrats of the imagination: Art, technology, and the military-industrial Avant-Garde. Duke Univ Pr.
Becker, H. S. (1982). Art worlds. University of California Press.
Bardzell, J. (2007). Creativity in amateur multimedia: Popular culture, critical theory, and HCI. Human Technology, 3(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.17011/ht/urn.200768
Bruner, J. S. (1960). The process of education. Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1962). The conditions of creativity. In The Atherton Press Behavioral Science Series. Contemporary approaches to creative thinking: A symposium held at the University of Colorado. (pp. 1–30). Atherton Press. (2008–16115-001). https://doi.org/10.1037/13117-001.
Campbell-Kelly, M., Aspray, W., Ensmenger, N., & Yost, J. R. (2013). Computer: A history of the information machine (3 edition). Westview Press.
Carroll, J. M., Mack, R. L., & Kellogg, W. A. (1988). Interface metaphors and user Interface design. In Handbook of human-computer interaction (pp. 67–85). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-70536-5.50008-7
Chattopadhyay, B. (2022). Sound practices in the global south: Co-listening to resounding Plurilogues. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99732-8
Chun, W. H. K. (2004). On software, or the persistence of visual knowledge. Grey Room.
Chun, W. H. K. (2011). Programmed vision: Software and memory. MIT Press.
Clarke, A. E., & Fujimura, J. H. (1992). The right tools for the job: At work in twentieth-century life sciences / edited by Adele E. Clarke and Joan H. Fujimura. Princeton University Press.
Cohen-Cole, J. (2014). The open mind: Cold war politics and the sciences of human nature. The University of Chicago Press.
Crawford, K. (2021). Atlas of AI: Power, politics, and the planetary costs of artificial intelligence. Yale University Press.
Devine, K. (2019). Decomposed: A political ecology of music. The MIT Press.
Dewey, J. A. (1917/2010). Creative intelligence: Essays in the pragmatic attitude. Project Gutenberg.
du Gay, P., Hall, S., Janes, L., Mackay, H., & Negus, K. (1997). Doing cultural studies: The story of the Sony Walkman. SAGE.
Egan, D. (2020). Creativity: A Business Imperative. Retrieved January 10, 2023, from https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2020/07/13/creativity-a-business-imperative
Engelbart, D. (1988). The augmented knowledge workshop. In A history of personal workstations (pp. 185–248). Association for Computing Machinery.
Ensmenger, N. L. (2012). The Computer Boys take over: Computers, programmers, and the Politics of technical expertise. The MIT Press.
Feldman, S. (2004). A conversation with Alan Kay. Queue, 2(9), 20–30.
Flanagan, H. M. (1967). Instructional media and creativity. The proceedings of the sixth Utah creativity research conference held at Torrey pines inn, La Jolla. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 113(496), 346–347. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.113.496.346-c
Flichy, P. (2007). The internet imaginaire (L. Carey-Libbrecht, Trans.). MIT Press.
Forsler, I., & Velkova, J. (2018). Efficient worker or reflective practitioner? Competing technical rationalities of media software tools. In P. Bilić, J. Primorac, & B. Valtýsson (Eds.), Technologies of Labour and the politics of contradiction (pp. 99–119). Springer International Publishing.
Frabetti, F. (2015). Software theory: A cultural and philosophical study. Rowman & Littlefield International.
Friedrich, S. (2019). Edited by: Women film editors. http://womenfilmeditors.princeton.edu/“><meta property=
Fuller, M. (Ed.). (2008). Software studies: A lexicon. MIT Press.
Gaboury, J. (2021). Image objects: An archaeology of computer graphics. MIT Press.
Giblin, R., & Doctorow, C. (2022). Chokepoint capitalism: How big tech and big content captured creative labor markets and how We’ll win them Back. Beacon Press.
Gitelman, L. (2014). Paper knowledge: Toward a media history of documents. Duke University Press.
Gittins, D. (1986). Icon-based human-computer interaction. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 24, 519–543. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0020-7373(86)80007-4
Goldberg, A. (1973). Computer-assisted Instruction: The application of theorem-proving to adaptive response analysis. Ph.D. University of Chicago.
Gross, L. (1964/2023). Creativity: Process and personality. mediastudies.press. https://doi.org/10.32376/3f8575cb.60b97b6f
Gruber, H. E., Wertheimer, M., & Terrell, G. (Eds.). (1962). Contemporary approaches to creative thinking: A symposium held at the University of Colorado. Atherton Press.
Grudin, J. (2017). From tool to partner: The evolution of human-computer interaction. Morgan & Claypool. https://doi.org/10.2200/S00745ED1V01Y201612HCI035
Guilford, J. P. (1950). Creativity. American Psychologist, 5(9), 444–454. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0063487
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066
Hardjowirogo, S.-I. (2017). Instrumentality: On the construction of instrumental identity. In T. Bovermann, A. de Campo, H. Egermann, S.-I. Hardjowirogo, & S. Weinzierl (Eds.), Musical instruments in the 21st century: Identities, configurations, practices (pp. 9–24). Springer Singapore.
Hesmondhalgh, D., & Saha, A. (2013). Race, ethnicity, and cultural production. Popular Communication, 11(3), 179–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2013.810068
Ivins, W. M. (1969). Prints and visual communication. MIT Press.
Kara, H. (2015). Creative research methods in the social sciences: A practical guide. Policy Press.
Kātz, B. (2015). Make it new: The history of Silicon Valley design. The MIT Press.
Kay, A. (1984). Computer software. Scientific American, 251(3), 53–59.
Kay, A. (1990). User Interface: A personal view. In B. Laurel (Ed.), The art of human-computer interface design (pp. 191–208). Addison-Wesley Pub.
Kay, A., & Goldberg, A. (1977). Personal dynamic media. Computer, 10(3), 31–41. https://doi.org/10.1109/C-M.1977.217672
Kelty, C. M. (2008). Two bits: The cultural significance of free software. Duke University Press.
Kirschenbaum, M. G. (2016). Track changes: A literary history of word processing. Harvard University Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social an introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford University Press.
Laurel, B. (1993). Computers as theatre. Addison-Wesley.
Lesage, F., & André, G. (2017). The social constructivist mode of operation for personal computing—Digital Culture & Education. Digital Culture and Education, 9(1), 67–82.
Lesage, F. (2022). Mediatized skill: How capabilities with application software are collectively performed, perceived, and organized as part of contemporary media practices. International Journal of Communication, 16, 4801–4824.
Leyshon, A. (2009). The software slump?: Digital music, the democratisation of technology, and the decline of the recording studio sector within the musical economy. Environment and Planning A, 41, 1309–1331. https://doi.org/10.1068/a40352
Magnusson, T. (2019). Sonic writing: Technologies of Material, symbolic, and signal inscriptions. Bloomsbury.
Manovich, L. (1994). The engineering of vision and the aesthetics of computer art. ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics, 28(4), 259–263. https://doi.org/10.1145/193234.193242
Manovich, L. (2001). The Language of New Media. MIT Press.
Manovich, L. (2002). Generation Flash. In W. H. K. Chun & T. Keenan (Eds.), New media, old media: A history and theory reader (pp. 209–218). Routledge.
Manovich, L. (2013). Software takes command. Bloomsbury Academic.
McCray, W. P. (2020). Making art work: How cold war engineers and artists forged a new creative culture. The MIT Press.
McCullough, M. (1996). Abstracting craft: The practiced digital hand. MIT Press.
McGuirk, J., & McGetrick, B. (Eds.). (2017). Selling freedom: Tools of personal liberation. In California: Designing freedom (pp. 9–15). Phaidon Press.
McLuhan, M. (2001). Understanding media: The extensions of man. Routledge.
McRobbie, A. (2016). Be creative: Making a living in the new culture industries. Polity Press.
Meintjes, L. (2003). Sound of Africa!: Making music Zulu in a south African studio. Duke University Press.
Miner, J. D. (2021). Ethnographic photobomb: The materiality of decolonial image manipulation. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 24(3), 414–433. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877920976654
Nicoll, B., & Keogh, B. (2019). The Unity game engine and the circuits of cultural software. In The Unity game engine and the circuits of cultural software (pp. 1–21). Springer.
Parks, L., & Starosielski, N. (2015). Signal traffic: Critical studies of media infrastructures. University of Illinois Press.
Peterson, R. A., & Anand, N. (2004). The production of culture perspective. Annual Review of Sociology, 30, 311–334.
Poell, T., Nieborg, D., & Duffy, B. E. (2022). Platforms and cultural production. Polity.
Reckwitz, A. (2017). The invention of creativity: Modern society and the culture of the new (English edition.). Polity Press.
Rieder, B., Peeters, S., & Borra, E. (2022). From tool to tool-making: Reflections on authorship in social media research software. Convergence, 13548565221127094. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221127094
Rheingold, H. (1985). Tools for thought: The people and ideas behind the next computer revolution. Computer Book Division/Simon & Schuster; Prentice-Hall.
Sack, W. (2019). The software arts. MIT Press.
Saha, A., & Piper, A. M. (2020). Understanding audio production practices of people with vision impairments. In Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (pp. 1–13). https://doi.org/10.1145/3373625.3416993.
Star, S. L. (2002). Infrastructure and ethnographic practice: Working on the fringes. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, 14(2), 107–122.
Strauss, A. L. (1991). Creating sociological awareness: Collective images and symbolic representations. Routledge.
Suchman, L. (2011). Anthropological relocations and the limits of design. Annual Review of Anthropology, 40(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.041608.105640
Syvertsen, T. (2020). Digital detox: The politics of disconnecting. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Taylor, G. D. (2014). When the machine made art: The troubled history of computer art. Bloomsbury Academic.
Taylor, S. (2019). A practitioner concept of contemporary creativity. Social Psychology Quarterly, 82(4), 453–472. https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272519882400
Terren, M. (2021, March 23). The hegemony of the DAW. Disclaimer. https://disclaimer.org.au/contents/where-and-how-to-gather/the-hegemony-of-the-daw
Tresch, J., & Dolan, E. I. (2013). Toward a new organology: Instruments of music and science. Osiris, 28(1), 278–298. https://doi.org/10.1086/671381
Turner, F. (2006). From counterculture to cyberculture: Stewart brand, the whole earth network, and the rise of digital utopianism. University of Chicago Press.
van Es, K., Wieringa, M., & Schäfer, M. T. (2018). Tool criticism: From digital methods to digital methodology. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Web Studies (pp. 24–27). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3240431.3240436.
Velkova, J. (2016). Free software beyond radical politics: Negotiations of creative and craft autonomy in digital visual media production. Media and Communication, 4(4). https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v4i4.693
White, H. C., & White, C. A. (1965). Canvases and careers: Institutional change in the French painting world. John Wiley & sons.
Williams, F. E. (1966). Creativity in learning. Educational Technology, 6(22), 16–18.
Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. Public Affairs.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lesage, F., Terren, M. (2024). Introduction: Refiguring the Digital Tools of Cultural Production. In: Lesage, F., Terren, M. (eds) Creative Tools and the Softwarization of Cultural Production. Creative Working Lives. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-45693-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-45693-0_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-45692-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-45693-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)