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    amateurism III

    New Macs are coming bundled with GarageBand, a piece of loop-making / multitracking / music production software.

    Predictably, the ease-of-use of the product has led some to question whether GarageBand is "truly" enabling creativity or is "just" allowing people to enjoy the experience of being "artistic" without the hard work and discipline that we normally associate with the actual making of art. (See, for instance, this parody of GarageBand: a fake Apple product called "AtticAuthor.")

    The parody is admittedly clever. And it's true that, like many other easy-to-use production tools, GarageBand may enable some users to hurriedly produce formulaic output which appears superficially "professional." But I believe in creative amateurism, and so I come down on the side of cheap tools for cultural production every time. I'd defend the point more extensively in this post if I hadn't already done so in a very similar argument almost two years ago, and if Jean Burgess hadn't been doing so quite eloquently over at Creativity / Machine. Visit this archive for five thoughtful posts defending GarageBand, as well as other posts on the topic of "vernacular creativity" (great phrase!).

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    Thursday, February 12, 2004
    2:13 PM

     

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