Being a Breaker instead of a Maker?

May 27, 2016 2:56 AM

I'm curious if there's any information about people who have trouble with creating something wholly new but instead seems much better at modifying or creating by assembling parts of things they already know.

There are people who seem to be very good at coming up with new ideas that are genuinely new or original. We tend to see these people as creative and have strong creative intelligence. Maybe they write a piece of amazing original fiction or paint a beautiful picture out of their own mind. My question is what do you call people who maybe have a hard time creating original work but who do well modifying existing work? They write a good piece of fiction but it's made of concepts borrowed from other works arranged in a clever or unique way, they're able to take a picture that's already drawn and add some elements to it that make it different and beautiful in a different way.

posted by Socinus to Human Relations (19 answers total)

I'd call someone like that a hacker.
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:24 AM on May 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Is there really anything that's truly new or original? I'm not trying to be snarky, but I think the impression that something is original is more often that it's drawing from influences and previous work that the viewer is not aware of. Even if someone is adding to an existing piece, the artist (and I would call them an artist) is approaching it in a new way - a way that the original creator didn't see and you didn't see.
posted by like_neon at 3:37 AM on May 27, 2016 [9 favorites]

I don't have a perfect word for you, but it strikes me that a lot of a work of a designer is exactly this - taking what has already been done and expressing it and making it work in a new and sometimes weird contexts.

So, Designer, Mechanic. Hacker. Artist. Engineer. Craftsperson. Explorer.

Mix and match.

I just watched the documentary "Iris". If you haven't seen it I think you'd find it fascinating. In a large part this is what the film is about.
posted by arha at 3:47 AM on May 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Crafter vs artist
posted by Aranquis at 3:58 AM on May 27, 2016

We're all standing on the shoulders of bumbling giants. The next time you see something entirely "original" think about the raw materials, take a bolt, what is the alloy of metal? How would you take a raw chunk of steel and machine it into threads that match exactly to a nut? How is the iron extracted from the earth? and on and on.

For searches try "hardware hacking" "DIY" "Hobbyist" "engineering" "tinkerer" "builder"
posted by sammyo at 4:02 AM on May 27, 2016

you might find the concept of bricolage to be a useful search term.
posted by crocomancer at 4:03 AM on May 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

Bricoluer is one who engages in bricolage. Term was used when I was in Architecture grad school 30 years ago.
posted by rudd135 at 4:18 AM on May 27, 2016

Everything is derivative. Nothing is entirely new. That's how culture and technology among humans work. Layers upon layers upon layers over millennia.

For starters, the way we think is influenced by the language we speak, and language is perhaps the oldest derivative tool we have.

"Makers" is pretty much a pop culture buzzword leverage by people for their own, often profit-taking, reasons.
posted by justcorbly at 4:33 AM on May 27, 2016 [8 favorites]

Douglas Hofstadter thought creativity is all variations on a theme, twiddling the possibility knobs on a great idea machine.
posted by Sebmojo at 6:56 AM on May 27, 2016

Is this really a distinction? I feel like a lot of Maker stuff is already assembly/remix/bricolage/etc.
posted by OrangeDisk at 7:29 AM on May 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

The line you describe is very thin if it's even there at all, but I might use the terms remixer, collaborator, hacker.
posted by Mizu at 7:30 AM on May 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

My question is what do you call people who maybe have a hard time creating original work but who do well modifying existing work? They write a good piece of fiction but it's made of concepts borrowed from other works arranged in a clever or unique way, they're able to take a picture that's already drawn and add some elements to it that make it different and beautiful in a different way.

I call these people creative and see them has having strong creative intelligence.

If you really wanted another term, my immediate thought was "Tinkerer," but to be honest, I think that Maker works for those folks too.

We all stand on the shoulders of giants.
posted by sparklemotion at 7:49 AM on May 27, 2016

Not so much creativity but the thing that gets me thinking is the idea of Rethinking Repair (read this chapter, PDF). That is the process of maintaining and caring for the things that already exist is (or should be) its own kind of skill and ability. I read the stuff by Steven Jackson because it's a thing sort of central to what libraries do and underappreciated as something that's actually a skill and can be a job. He has a link from his page to this installation piece.
posted by jessamyn at 8:29 AM on May 27, 2016

Nothing is 100% original. Everyone is influenced by everything they've ever seen and done in their entire lives.

"Good artists copy; great artists steal."
posted by MexicanYenta at 8:47 AM on May 27, 2016

Editor.
posted by freya_lamb at 9:32 AM on May 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

As a creative professional, I find that "original" usually means "swipes from eight or more things at once". Preferably diverse things you wouldn't think would go together, and some obscure things rather than all super popular things.
posted by egypturnash at 9:44 AM on May 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Nthing bricoleur
posted by bricoleur at 11:48 AM on May 27, 2016

You're a recycler, practicing sustainability!
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:50 PM on May 27, 2016

Another term that popped into my mind is "collage artist".

When you're thinking about this spectrum, it might be interesting to include things like Hamilton, which is full of original words and melodies but also quotes from lots of other things, from earlier Broadway shows to rap; and jazz, which is a form that also uses a lot of quoting of earlier performances.
posted by kristi at 1:34 PM on May 28, 2016