maker assembly lecture: two (of many possible) makerspace futures

From making to criticality, and back again …

or, two of many possible futures of making.

kat braybrooke | @codekat university of sussex humanities lab

From critical reflection on maker cultures with hackers…

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to making things together…

Source: Kat Braybrooke

4Sources: Tate Digital Studio, Maker Library Network, Sussex Humanities Lab

to doctoral research on makerspaces + cultural institutions in the UK.

a call for future maker projects that are critical and based on community needs as well as hands-on…

Source Presliger Library by Kat Braybrooke

— Chris Csikszentmihályi, director MIT Centre for Future Civic Media

“All over what is called the Global South there are makers everywhere, only they are not called makers. There are fab labs everywhere, only they are not called fab labs…”  

FUTURE #1? Makerspaces based on Western leisure and profit, not critical perspectives.

Photo: Kai Loffelbein

FUTURE #2? Diverse community spaces make critically, sustainably and collaboratively.

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13Images: Kramer, Kenneth, Dedrick, Jason; Sharma, Prakul; Say Chan, Anita.

The world of FUTURE #1…

Graphic: Maya Robinson

From Silicon Valley…

To the upper echelons of global policy.

-- Dr Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union

“…all the world’s citizens will [now] have the potential to … enjoy all the benefits of the knowledge society.”

So what, exactly, is wrong here?

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-- Judy Wajcman

“Such depictions of a proximate sociotechnical future are far from innocent. We are in fact

being mobilized as a [market] resource…”

What’s the world of FUTURE #2?

Jugaad, India: Innovative fixes and work-arounds; creative technical solutions that bends the rules through making.

Image: Indian Roots

— Richard Stallman

versus hacking, “exploring the limits of what is possible in a spirit of playful cleverness…”

jugaad in practice…

“today’s jugaad practices have started to embody the continued presence of local, postcolonial struggles against uneven power structures…”

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Rebusque, Columbia: “Making as technological disobedience; the many side activities necessary to make a living”

Image: Inge-Merete Hougaard

29Image from Fez, Morocco 2016

Gambiarra, Brazil: “Local DIY solutions to daily tech problems based on repair and repurposing”

Image: Fred Paulino www.gambiologica.net

31MetaRecliclagem images: Uirá Porã-CC By SA

Mutirão: “Collective dynamics of neighbours helping neighbours”

32Images: Jentery Sayers + team, UVic Maker Lab

“Prototyping the past” workshops in Canada to re-make shared histories.

The UK’s first makerspaces + sustainability workshop…

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"When we maintain, resell and make together, we create local value in a throw-away economy.”

— Janet Gunter, Restart Project, London

Demand Energy Equality, Bristol: “Hands-on access to once-mysterious renewable technologies, like solar panels.”

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Makers, Sheffield: “Widening local participation in making for everyone.”

FUTURE #1?

Source: Shingy, AOL

Source: Critical Making, Hertz.

FUTURE #2?

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THANK YOU for listening!

k.braybrooke@sussex.ac.uk | @codekat | codekat.net