Published
27-4-2026
Type of Work
Article
Abstract
This paper examines the complex nature of authorship as it is reshaped within technologically mediated creativity. Drawing on theoretical perspectives on authorship, agency, and technological mediation, it argues against binary notions of artistic originality and instead frames the author as a “node” within a vast network of technological and cultural influences. Through two practice-based case studies—generative musical systems developed in Bitwig Studio’s The Grid, and the coding of an album-art generator in collaboration with OpenAI’s Codex—the paper explores how different forms of uncertainty emerge when creative decision-making is partially delegated to systems that behave unpredictably or autonomously. In these contexts, authorship is shown to arise through the designing of creative systems, collaboration with non-human agents, and curatorial judgement of output, rather than through complete control over material outcomes. Rather than identifying this as a loss of artistic responsibility, this model of authorship is proposed as a productive framework for understanding creativity in contemporary technology-centric creative practice.
References
Bitwig. (2025, August 27). Automation Editing in Bitwig Studio 6. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CQQu51ykO4
Karpathy, A. [@karpathy]. (2025, February 3). There's a new kind of coding I call "vibe coding", where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, ... [Post]. X. https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383
Kennedy, R. (2017, January 2). A New Year’s Gift From Brian Eno: A Growing Musical Garden. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/arts/music/a-new-years-gift-from-brian-eno-a-growing-musical-garden.html
Moruzzi, C. (2022). Creative Agents: Rethinking Agency and Creativity in Human and Artificial Systems. Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology, 9(2), 245–268. https://doi.org/10.1080/20539320.2022.2150470
Rezwana, J., & Maher, M. L. (2022). Designing Creative AI Partners with COFI: A Framework for Modeling Interaction in Human-AI Co-Creative Systems. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 30(5). https://doi.org/10.1145/3519026
Roads, C. (2015). Composing Electronic Music: A New Aesthetic. Oxford University Press.
Soos, C., & Leazer, G. H. (2020). Presentations of Authorship in Knowledge Organization. Knowledge Organisation, 47(6), 486–500. https://doi.org/10.5771/0943-7444-2020-6-486
u/loudluck. (2014, May 25). I thought using loops was cheating [Online forum post]. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/EDM/comments/26e2vw/i_thought_using_loops_was_cheating/
Zhang, S., Wang, H., & Yi, X. (2025). Exploring Collaboration Patterns and Strategies in Human-AI Co-creation through the Lens of Agency: A Scoping Review of the Top-tier HCI Literature. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 9(7), 1–43. https://doi.org/10.1145/3757594
Citation
Carroll, Patrick (2026). Distributed Authorship in Technologically Mediated Creativity. Imaginings: creative practice and inquiry: 2(1) Article 4. https://creo.sae.edu.au/imaginings/vol2/iss1/4