[Commlist] Call for Chapters: Creative Tools and the Softwarization of Cultural Production

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS
Creative Tools and the Softwarization of Cultural Production

Edited by Frédérik Lesage and Michael Terren

As part of Palgrave Macmillan’s “Creative Working Lives” series (edited 
by Susan Luckman and Stephanie Taylor) Deadline for proposals: 31 
October 2022
 The tools, instruments, and media used to create cultural artefacts 
have always played a key role in culture: they enable and constrain how 
creators express themselves through their works, and in doing so shape 
our understanding of skill, formal conventions, and the social order of 
culture and creativity. An increasing number of these tools for creative 
practices are software whose use is a near-compulsory aspect of the 
contemporary working lives of their practitioners. Despite the ubiquity 
of software tools in contemporary cultural production, and while there 
are studies that consider individual fields or industries, there have 
been few opportunities to consider this condition from an 
interdisciplinary perspective.
 This book will explore how creativity is increasingly designed, 
marketed, and produced through these digital products and services — a 
process we refer to as softwarization. We use this term as a kind of 
provocation that speaks to historically and materially specific 
sensibilities that shape contemporary cultural practices and creative 
industries. While softwarization draws particular attention to 
application software as the quintessential contemporary creative tool, 
we use the term to encompass a more complex digital assemblage that 
includes complementary processes in the composition of creative tools 
including their remediation, platformization, and datafication (to name 
only a few). If, as we argue, creative tools and softwarization are key 
to understanding contemporary cultural production, it is essential that 
we understand them as articulations of political forces, economic 
interests, and cultural forms in their own right.
 Creative Tools and the Softwarization of Cultural Production aims to 
advance this concept from a variety of creative disciplines and 
practices, toward a more holistic understanding of the relations between 
cultures and their contemporary means of production. By bringing 
disparate creative and methodological traditions together in one volume, 
we aim to provide a comprehensive overview of approaches for 
understanding this complex, emerging, and dynamic field that speaks 
beyond the disciplinary-specific categories of ‘tool,’ ‘instrument,’ 
and/or ‘software’. This edited book will make a unique intervention in 
the fields of cultural production and the cultural and creative industries.
 This edited volume is to be published in late 2023 in Palgrave 
Macmillan’s “Creative Working Lives” series, edited by Susan Luckman and 
Stephanie Taylor. We welcome contributions from researchers, 
instructors, and creative practitioners from any discipline. We also 
welcome contributions from anywhere in the world.
Examples of creative tools:
We acknowledge that ‘creative tools’ and ‘software tools’ are imprecise 
terms that point to the lack of shared vocabulary across disciplines — 
thus, we find it appropriate to suggest example types of tools that we 
are particularly interested in:
1.       Digital audio workstations (Pro Tools, Ableton Live, 
GarageBand), plug-ins, software synthesisers, and peripheral hardware
2.       Image editors (Photoshop, Sketch) and historical visual editors 
(e.g. Flash, Corel Draw) 3.       Video editors (Premiere Pro, Final Cut)
4.       Game engines (Unity, Unreal), middleware (Wwise), and in-game 
creative tools (Roblox, Minecraft)
5.       3D modelling (CAD, Blender) and animation software (Maya)
6.       Bespoke text editors (e.g. Scrivener, Ulysses) and mainstream 
text editors used in literary production (Microsoft Word, Google Docs, 
LibreOffice)
7.       Suites, software bundles, and parent companies (Adobe Creative 
Cloud, Avid, Apple, Autodesk) and historical examples (Macromedia)
8.       Presentation software (PowerPoint, Canva)
9.       Social media content creation functionality (e.g. video editing 
in TikTok)
 The chapters for this book will be between 6000-7500 words and will be 
organised into the following broad areas:  1.	Creative tools and 
technologies for cultural production: theoretical perspectives
Chapters in this section will examine various definitions of creative 
tools and their implications for cultural production along various 
theoretical and methodological perspectives (ex. historical, 
ethnographic, political economic, etc.). How can scholars of cultural 
production take the role of media technologies and digital tools 
seriously without falling into technological determinism? In what ways 
does the softwarization of artistic and creative practice shape cultural 
production? What theories of techno-social relations can account for the 
rise, proliferation, and in some cases hegemonic status of 
softwarization? How can we reconcile changing conceptions of creativity 
and artistic agency with advancements in theories of technological 
mediation? How do existing conceptions of creative tools reproduce 
existing gendered and racialized inequities (to name only two)? How 
might we better critique such conceptions?   2.	From tools to platforms: 
developing and maintaining technical ecologies
Processes of softwarization for creative tools sometimes embrace the 
logic of the platform, bringing creatives, third-party developers, and 
secondary content creators together in some sort of mediated exchange of 
cultural goods. Distinct from content distribution platforms like 
Amazon, Spotify, or Netflix, the platformization of creative tools can 
foster new industries, such as audio plug-ins or 3D model libraries, 
bringing reputation and diversity to the platform. However, developing 
for privatised platforms carries risks and contingencies, and, as 
attested by Photoshop’s transition to Creative Cloud, can be captured 
into proprietary ecosystems. In this section, we consider the political, 
economic, and infrastructural effects of organising cultural production 
and tool development in this way. We also consider adjacent processes 
and structures of development such as certified educational programmes, 
proprietary or third-party hardware, application programming interfaces 
(APIs) for creative tools, and software-as-a-service pricing models.  3. 
Cultures of creative tools: communities of practice and their 
individuation Commercial interests continue to co-opt and reify artistic 
and creative methods into tools as a means of establishing a particular, 
neoliberal kind of creative working life. This engenders new forms of 
community and participation, from social media platforms and forums 
dedicated to certain creative tools to communities of artistic and 
creative practitioners organising to design and disseminate and use 
creative tools that challenge this alienating creativity dispositif. In 
this section, we collect case studies and examples of collaborations, 
remixes, hacks, and any other alternative approaches to creative tools 
for cultural production.  The following is a list of potential topics:
•	Bridging theories of technology and cultural production
•	Categorical distinctions between software tools and digital media
•	Theoretical perspectives on creative agency and its 
mediation/mediatization through creative tools
•	Cultural/creative industries of software and creative tools
•	The material assemblages of creative tools
•	Affordances of softwarization and creative tools
•	The marketization, financialization, and/or assetization of creative 
practice through software
•	Cultural work of designing creative tools
•	Creative labour with creative tools
•	Critical pedagogical perspectives on creative tools
•	(Con)figurations of creativity through creative tools
•	Representations of creative subjectivities through advertising and 
grey literature on software tool
•	Gendered subjectivities of creative tools and their communities
•	Global perspectives on creative tools and their intersections with 
race, class, and cultural capital
•	Colonizing and decolonizing creative practice through software
•	Alternative uses of creative tools
•	The aesthetic economies of plugins and patches •	Social media as 
creative tools
•	Gaming and creative tools
•	Music and creative tools
•	Graphic design and creative tools
•	Video and creative tools
•	Memes and creative tools
•	Presentations and creative tools
•	Visualization and creative tools
•	Photography and creative tools
•	Conceptualizing creative tools for cultural production •	Exploring the 
various modalities of creative tools
•	The platformization of creative tools
•	Designing software tools greater creative autonomy for practitioners
•	Creative tools and the culture industry
 Potential list of approaches and methodologies invited to discuss 
these topics:
•	Software studies •	The political economy of creative tools
•	Comparative studies of softwarization
•	Historical studies of creative tools
•	Case studies of creative tools for alternative forms of co-creation 
and distribution
•	Case studies of the softwarization of creative practices
•	Communities of practice and creative tools
•	Creative organizations and creative tools
•	Art worlds and software tools
•	Fields of cultural production and softwarization
•	Cultural techniques and softwarization
•	Media archaeologies of creative tools
•	Ethnographies of creative software development
•	Tool criticism and analysis
 About the editors:
Frédérik Lesage is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication 
at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, whose research focuses 
on the intersections between digital culture and cultural production. 
His work can be found in academic journals like Convergence, 
Fibreculture, and the International Journal of Communication.  Michael 
Terren is an academic and musician based in Boorloo/Perth, Australia, 
whose research focuses on digital audio workstations and their 
relationship with contemporary forms of labour, venture capital, and 
music culture. He works at Edith Cowan University and the University of 
Western Australia.
 Submission Instructions:
Please send a 500 word chapter proposal by Monday 31 October 2022 to 
both Frédérik Lesage <(flesage /at/ sfu.ca)> and Michael Terren 
<(m.terren /at/ ecu.edu.au)>. In the subject line of your email, include “CTSCP 
Chapter Proposal”. In the body of your email include:
•	Chapter title
•	Section you are submitting to:
•	Section 1: Creative tools and technologies for cultural production: 
theoretical perspectives
•	Section 2: From tools to platforms: developing and maintaining 
technical ecologies
•	Section 3: Cultures of creative tools: communities of practice and 
their individuation
•	500 word proposal
•	100 word bio of the authors
•	Name of author(s), title(s), institution(s), & email addresses.
 We will send out confirmations by Monday 14 November 2022. First 
drafts are expected by Monday 6 February 2023. All chapters will be 
6000-7500 words including notes and references.

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