Electronic Crafts / doing-it-ourselves.

01. Proposition
Investigate possible impact of democratization of innovation on the fields of product design and communication, focusing more specifically on electronics and physical computing technologies.
What kind of new approaches, products and models could emerge from a wide-spread movement of more and more people doing-it-themselves?
What would be the consequence to the world of design and interactive creation?

I am also interested in exploring and refining a methodology of electronic crafts based on practices similar to what is done at ITP and spreading trough already emerging open source hardware information networks.
What can a craftsmenship approach bring to the future of new technologies?

My research will be conducted in X steps
First, i will select a series of online DIY electronic projects and attempts to complete them following instructions and specifications as they are made available by their original creators (individuals, hobbyists, crafters, creators –not industry).
I will document and evaluate the process. How easy the exercise was? What were the issues? Did i succeed or fail. Larger questions include, how much can i actually do outside of ITP with the knowledge i have acquired during these 18 something months of learning physical computing for absolute scratch. Is there an common language at the core of electronic crafts? what can the boundaries of electronic crafts be (what is a definition of DIY electronic considering i cannot be making the chips etc…).
Secondly, if the projects succeed, i will share my knowledge online as complements to the initial instructions and attempt to re-do the entire project by bringing in my own approach and craftiness. Can new forms slowly emerge from that iterative process? What is the interest for a design to take control over the hardware aspects of creating things, objects and installation?

Specific projects:
-Portable MP3 player
-Wearable LED display
-Solar powered power supply
But also looking at
-Lights in general- using LEDs (could be the very first project done and easily repeated as an experiment. Do it once on a breadboard, then on PCB board [share], do it again with other materials, soft materials, paper only, recycled components only… and see)
-Clock (although it seems that clocks already exist in millions of forms and shapes)
-Persistence Of Vision displays –good ressource online as a basic DIY electronic. but i am not sure what the value, either from a product perspective or an art one is.
-Small bots, “make your own pet” -what do we really want our pets to be like, to do. here personalization is key.

Electronic Crafts: Doing-It-Ourselves and Getting somewhere

02. Historical Inspirations
DIY has been appropriated by the home renovation / popular science world and brought into the mainstream with kits and self-assembly packages and products. However, it is possible to trace a history of DIY that tells a story of talent, skill, imagination, vision and necessity.

A loosly knit history of DIY based mostly on things i have found to be of inspiration:
1. arts & crafts movement
Early 20th century reaction against industrialization, against everything being made by machine and for bringing the designer, the creator back in control of all the process of “making things”.
“Arts and Crafts: A movement that sought to restore the medieval tradition of handicraft in reaction to the spread of mass production, originating in late 19th century Great Britain. Designs were based on simple forms and natural materials, as much for purposes of social refrom as for aesthetic reasons.”

2. bahaus
from the a&c movement but without the reaction against all things man made. invitation to explore the raw materials and to reconsider all things pre-WWII.
“To restore to the designer the experience of direct experience of a medium, is, I think, the task today. Here is, as I see it, a justification for crafts today. For it means taking, for instance, the working material into the hand, learning by working it of its obedience and its resistance, its potency and its weakness, its charn and dullness. The material itself is full of suggestions for its use if we approach it unaggressively, receptively. It is a source of unending stimulation and advises us in most unexpected way.”
Anni Albers Design: Anonymous & Timeless 1947

3. surrealism and dada
Looking at things differently, reconsidering all things, questioning all assumptions.

4. 60’s Whole world catalag
[other trend of sharing and publishing technical information and knowledge to the lay people –starting with Diderot’s Encyclopédie maybe]
“We are as gods and might as well get good at it. So far, remotely done power and glory - as via government, big business, formal education, church — has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing — power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.”

6. 90’s Brit DIY culture
First the protests and parties. But them most importantly, the political reaction, the desire to re-appropriate things and objects around us and be the own designers of our world. 10 years after the party, Indymedia UK now gives workshops on how to do your radio and on sustainable energy for example.

7. Rise of the Geek: technology is sexy and the mainstream adopts it

8. Deisgn Noir

9. Open Source movement
About “democratizing innovation” and the bottom up approach to design.

10. The rise of pcomp: ITP & other

03. Current Trend
1. people doing it
2. Publications and People doing it
—-and it’s changing face (ready made, make magazine, DIY book, make workshop …)
3. Draft craft manifesto by Hobby Princess (of course, it had to happen on a blog)
4. trends of industry re-approprating this however, there is more. “consumer made”
5. People getting organized: Instructables (will try and use their platform to publish i think), Invention DB, Arduino and InstaSoup project.
6. Open source hardware = creative process shifts
Look at methodology—–

04. Thesis (or something)
1. DIY= “making things” model shifts.
old model = conception somewhere, production at the other end of the world, marketing everywhere and distribution anywhere //with the overhead, costs and possible world visions associated with this]
new model = conception somewhere, production at the same place, no need to market, distribute knowledge for free //with another vision of the world

2. DIY= “making new things” model shifts.
old model = top down, the engineer has the final word, compromise to cut costs, to satisfy larger audience, to make it fast and to limit overheads of old “making things” model, the designer has no interest in the technical information (cultural, hierarchy, or jealousy cause designer ain’t got the final word…)
new model = bottom up, compromise for things that are important to the creator [money or sustainability or weight or look and feel or EMF or anything you want], if you don’t know it’s impossible then maybe (often) you end up making it happen anyways, the more people think about a problem -and the most diverse the background of these people are- the more chances it will happen and it will be better or different or more diverse.

05. Contribute
From available recipes, emerge possible improved ideas or new ideas all together. Also, in the background, think about a specific language so there can be an exchange, use it in my own proposition.

Participate actively in this trend to bring forth challenges and solutions
- Take a few examples of DIY projects online
- Understand what the individual parts and informations and steps required are
- Make it, make it different
- Propose improvement/innovation/new things, post as open source

contribute, modify, propose