I like this Treehugger post that talks about our inability to do things ourselves and our constant reliance if not on technology but also on the prepackaged and premade. Beyond their obvious comment about our grandparent’s skills that got developed in less happy conditions and because of heavy recession, i wonder if there isnt something there about our ability to learn how to make things, repair things and tackle them and our subsequent attachment to them. Fixing up a shelf in my friend didier’s apartment, i was thinking about the sweat and labour that goes into fixing things around you, a pair of tables that i picked up off the street a few years ago and stipped and are now in the capable hands of my best friend in Canada. The work and effort makes the object meaningful in a way. How can this be pushed with the objects that contain our digital information??? More thoughts, not much answers but leads nonetheless…
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Neil Gershenfeld over at MIT has been working on “Fab Labs” – increasingly cheap technologies that allow you to build just about anything with some basic parts. Current bare bones Fab Labs cost about $20,000 USD, not much when you consider what they can do.
I think that tradition of making things, and understanding how they work will return with the rise of cheaper and easier to use micro fabrication tech. Its something Gershenfeld talks about during his interview on science friday a few months back:
http://libsyn.com/media/sciencefriday/scifri-2005111112.mpu
Its something that comes to light when Gershenfeld starts talking about the fab labs he’s helping people build in the third world and watching kids tinker with the tech and teach themselves how to use it. Its interesting to think about this kind of thing taking off in cultures where crafts still play a big role in the economy. What does a technologically enabled craftsman look like?
DIY, imho will be making a comeback in the not too distant future.