Alternative Histories in DIY Cultures and Maker Utopias

Please join us for a special event on alternative maker histories, Thursday 29 April 2021, 18.00-19.45 CET, online.

Register here to get the zoom link: http://tiny.cc/by9wtz
The event will be recorded.

The programme (subject to changes):

18.00 INTRODUCTION (18.00 Amsterdam, Cape Town; 13.00 Rio de Janeiro; 12.00 New York; 0.00 Hong Kong)
Cindy Kohtala, Yana Boeva, Peter Troxler


RADICAL TECHNOLOGY – THEN AND NOW
Chair of theme: Cindy Kohtala
Simon Sadler, Peter Harper in conversation with Cindy Kohtala and Yana Boeva on Alternative Technology and the Exhibition of People’s Technology, Stockholm, 1972
Kostas Latoufis on Alternative Technology in the UK.
Q&A


THE POLITICS OF DIY COMMUNITIES
Chair of theme: Peter Troxler
Ellen Foster on the history of Maker manifestos.
Regina Sipos on the history of Germany’s Open Workshops.
Suné Stassen and Felix Holm on Making and makerspaces in southern Afrika.
In absentia: David Cuartielles, Cesar Garcia on the history of Spain’s maker communities.
Q&A


19.00 BREAK (19.00 Amsterdam, Cape Town; 14.00 Rio de Janeiro; 13.00 New York; 01.00 Hong Kong)

THE POLITICS OF CARE, CRAFT AND REPAIR
Chair of theme: Yana Boeva
Emilio Velis on the Meaning of craft during the San Salvadoran civil war.
Svetlana Usenyuk-Kravchuk on Arctic inventiveness and “cosmic conversion”.
In absentia: Petr Gibas, Blanka Nyklova on Czech DIY.
Anupama Gowda on Making with and for marginalized children in India.

ALTERNATIVE INDUSTRIAL HISTORIES
Chair of theme: Yana Boeva
Sam Shorey on Corporate DIY, ‘then and now’.
Kat Jungnickel on discovering women’s Inventions in patent registries.
Jesse Adams Stein, by video, on the Meaning of manufacturing expertise.

Q&A


OPEN DISCUSSION AND CLOSING OF EVENT


INFORMAL HANG-OUT


This event is to mark the launch of a Special Issue of Digital Culture & Society, guest editors Cindy Kohtala, Yana Boeva and Peter Troxler.

If you have any questions about the event, please email me directly or our editors’ email <dcs.si.althistdiy (at) gmail.com>. We are also collecting questions for the presenters in advance!

The study was supported in part by the Nessling Foundation.

Systems of Resilience: A Dialogue on Makers

Here is a free pdf of my chapter in the Agents of Alternatives book, called ‘Systems of Resilience: A Dialogue on Digital Makers, Making and Their Principles of Conduct’ (2015).
It’s an easy read, inspired by the dialogue format Jane Jacobs used in Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics. I present various types of DIY makers, typical motivations for why they do what they do, and the typical types of commons they foreground.

It was reprinted in the research publication Fabricating Society produced for the FAB13 international Fab Lab meeting in 2017, edited by Andrés Briceño and Tomás Vivanco, available as a free pdf here.

A song for tech determinists

Hello out there, all you tech determinists, all you people with “technology is neutral” on your T-shirts! And those of you with a “technology will save the world” bumper sticker on your self-driving car! Yeah, guess what? I wrote a song! Just for you!

After all, if you didn’t exist, I wouldn’t have a job!

Feel free to sing along. You’ll know the tune. I call it –

A Ditty for the Tech Utopians.

Here we go:

Blockchain and printers and circuits and power!
Teach children coding, forget reading hour!
They will start startups, the value that brings!
These are a few of my favourite things!

Mining the moon while the earth is left pretty,
Let’s put our money in space and Mars City!
Surely we prosper when new worlds we seek,
History tells us that we’ll never peak!

When the smog quells,
And the sea warms,
And I’m feeling sad…
I simply remember my favourite things,
And then I don’t feel so bad!

Self-driving autos and more roads and parking!
Smart City sensors and robot dogs barking!
Walking is silly and so out of date,
Bodies need augmenting – that is our fate!

Employees in hotels and shops are for gluttons!
Keypads and screens, oh, I do like those buttons!
Humans are costly and I need the dough,
I need to spend it on screens and on blow.

When the flesh aches,
And the heart yearns,
And I’m feeling sore…
I simply go into my white privilege cave
And then I don’t feel any more!

GM technology! Hunger will vanish!
Insects and poor soil – oh, all will be banished!
All of the world will eat beef and eat corn!
These are the reasons why I’m glad I’m born…

Up in the north where we have so much water!
GMO crops will be saviours of bother.
Seeds are for companies, not for the poor,
They need to recognize markets are core!

When the shares slump,
And my kids stare,
And I’m feeling scared…
I simply remember my favourite things,
And then I don’t feel so aware!