on Toshareproject.it - curated by Bruce Sterling
…We need to resuscitate DIY to save making from itself.
My reasons for rejecting making in favor of DIY should now be clear. The
inescapable problem with making is that it trades out the cultural, artistic,
and controversial components of DIY culture for a more family- friendly for-
mat for a mass audience palate. The danger of the maker movement is that
it approaches engagement with technology through the totalizing lens of
Make magazine’s lifestyle tech brand, neglecting the many older strands of
electronic art that it is inspired by. “Maker culture” has been useful as a term
to bring a diverse range of people together, but it is relatively incomplete
because it is generally void of the complexity, history, and thorny political
possibilities within art and design. In response, this book articulates one of
the core strands left out of this Martha- Stewartization of DIY into maker
culture that reaches back nearly a hundred years: DIY electronic art. This
book naturally shares an affinity with other technologically oriented coun-
tercultures, like the history of hacker culture, the free software movement,
experimental and noncommercial designers, and the FabLab movement.
However, my emphasis is primarily on contemporary artistic practice, a
theme sorely absent from official histories.
Looking back at these influences on the contemporary idea of making
helps us see their historical influences and the morphology of the concept
over time. DIY electronic art revives these lessons from the past to point a
new path forward for artistic practice and design work. The maker move-
ment’s technological fetishization will disappear as fast as the waning hype
around 3D printing: nobody is really excited by 3D printing anymore any-
how. By contrast, this book’s enduring history centers on experimental art
and design practices, themes that will continue to nourish future genera-
tions disappointed at how “making” has aged….