Re: <nettime> The Maker Movement is abandoned by its corporate sponsors; throws in the towel

[Jaromil <jaromil@dyne.org>]

dear Bruce and nettimers,

On Sat, 08 Jun 2019, Bruce Sterling wrote:

> *Well, so much for the O’Reilly Web 2.0 version of popular
>  mechanics.  Fifteen years is not too bad a run by the standards of
>  an increasingly jittery California Ideology.  Now what? — Bruce S

Felipe Fonseca has seen it coming years before and express it well:
https://medium.com/@felipefonseca/repair-culture-65133fdd37ef 

he wasn't alone: for those of us who were into the "recycling" and DIY
scene in the late nineties, the Make magazine circus was the sort of
poison to kill a movement by sugar coating and extraction aka
franchising. While doing that for 15 years, there are a three points
it missed to address IMHO:

1. the right to mod your hardware, esp. video-games which represent
   the vast majority of new hardware sold and thrown away around the
   globe

2. the "peripheries of the empire" aka South of the World (remember
   Bricolabs?) where DIY is *amazingly* developed in various forms.
   As usual, we have learned nothing from that, just advertised us
   westeners doing it better and with more bling.

3. the "shamanic" value that can be embedded in uses of technologies,
   as opposed to the sanitized and rational interpretation given by
   designers in the west. Techno-shamanism is something Fabi Borges,
   Vicky Sinclair and other good folks in Bricolabs have been busy for
   ages!

so then, what now? I believe the functional need of aggregating places
for "hacker culture" is lowering: everything can exist virtually as
software, more or less. Machinery + franchising have a too high
production cost compared to their output, not sustainable at all. Also
moving hardware around is a *big* effort and the only ones lowering
overhead costs for new players are in China (...Aliexpress).

Plus the acceleration of hardware production resulted in way less
sustainability especially in relation to obsolescence: buy a part now
then ask if it will be still available in 20 years! you'll be
presented an NDA to sign and then discover there is just a 3-4 years
plan behind it. Spare parts anyone? Meanwhile is almost 2020 and there
is no service to print and sell-on-demand USB sticks with stuff on:
what a contrast if you think of the CD/DVD on-demand industry of 15
years ago! which partially resists only on garage music productions.

So, software still offers possibilities, but will it produce a
cultural shift? I doubt it will do more than what it did already in
crypto, which is already highly controversial and poisoned of a sort
of unstable sugar coating mixed with toxic financial capitals.

At last, looking at the new generations, the bling is what really
counts: I guess most "fablabs" could be converted to
"fashionlabs". Personally I'm planning to revamp dyne:bolic which
besides running on old computers and modded game consoles did one
thing which is still actual: it was a media production studio. The
best part of "maker culture" was its cultural expression, mined for
its value until exhaustion; but isn't it harder to express cultural
values using hardware? Much easier with music and videos etc. they
also travel easier.

For more *practical examples* of projects who may inspire new
horizons: you are all invited to an event we (Dyne.org) are setting up
in Amsterdam on the 5th July. We will fill the stage with many new
faces: 16 projects we awarded with EU funding for their pro/vision of
"human-centric" solutions, purpose driven and socially useful. Hope to
see some of you, we will also have a new call end of year, its about
200k EUR equity free so lets engage in new sustainable challenges
https://tazebao.dyne.org/venture-builder-eu.html

ciao



-- 
  Denis "Jaromil" Roio      https://Dyne.org think &do tank
  Ph.D, CTO & co-founder    software to empower communities
  ✉ Haparandadam 7-A1, 1013AK Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  ✩ Profile and publications: https://jaromil.dyne.org
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