Writing custom software enables artistic expression that commercial tools structurally prevent

Commercial software — word processors, image editors, DAWs — offers everyone the same fixed palette of operations and thereby implicitly defines ‘what is possible’ on a computer. Because most people meet computation only through such tools, they absorb a model of what computers do that is shaped by the makers’ commercial and engineering priorities, not by the full range of what computation enables. The result is a homogenizing force: users worldwide solve problems the same way and produce aesthetics that look and sound alike, and stop imagining alternatives. Golan Levin frames writing one’s own software as the counter-position — not because code is inherently superior, but because personal tools enable personal expression: an artist can author new operations that reach beyond the commercial envelope, respond to novel input, or work on dimensions the tools never addressed. This same standardisation is inseparable from software’s liberating side (publishing, shared standards); the point is to treat homogenization as a problem to work against. The misconception to avoid: configuring presets in a creative-coding environment is not the same as authoring new operations — the distinction is between using a fixed set of operations and writing your own.

Examples

A performer who writes a custom Max/MSP patch builds a gestural instrument mapped precisely to their own physical vocabulary — no commercial MIDI-controller software supports it because the instrument did not exist before; the code is the instrument. Conversely, once a DAW ships a particular reverb as a default preset, it appears on thousands of records and listeners associate the sound with an era rather than any one artist; designing your own signal chain differentiates the result.

Assessment

Explain why a commercial tool with ‘unlimited presets’ is not equivalent to custom software from the artist’s perspective. Name one aesthetic or sonic feature that became ubiquitous because it is a default in popular software, explain how that ubiquity results from distribution rather than artistic consensus, and describe a strategy for working against it.