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The Critical Makers Reader: (Un)learning Technology INC Reader #12 The Critical Makers Reader: (Un)learning Technology Editors: Loes Bogers & Letizia Chiappini Copy editor: Luke Munn Cover design: Samuli Saarinen Design and EPUB development: Loes Bogers Typefaces: wwwaaa by Mikko Varakas, Trade Gothic by Jackson Burke and Helvetica by Max Miedinger & Eduard Hoffmann. Printing and binding: Tuijtel, Hardinxveld-Giessendam Paper advice: Esther Krop, De Monsterkamer, Amsterdam Paper: Holmen TRND 2.0, 70 g/m2 and Rebello 110, 300 g/m2 - 100% recycled Published by the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2019 ISBN/EAN Paperback: 978-94-92302-36-6 ISBN EPUB: 978-94-92302-37-3 Institute of Network Cultures Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences Phone: +31 (0)20 595 1865 Email: [email protected] Web: www.networkcultures.org Order a copy or download this publication freely at: networkcultures.org/publications. Subscribe to the INC newsletter: networkcultures.org/newsletter. This publication was made possible with support and a financial contribution from the center of applied research Create-IT. A big thanks to everyone at INC for your generous and critical guidance, to all the authors for their contributions, Luke Munn for his keen copy-editing eye, and Samuli Saarinen for his exciting design. In particular we would like to thank all our colleagues at the Makers Lab for creating and maintaining a welcoming space for doing, learning and reflecting. This publication is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 4.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). To view a copy of this licence, visit creativecommons.org/ licences/by-nc-sa/4.0/. The Critical Makers Reader: (Un)learning Technology Edited by Loes Bogers & Letizia Chiappini INC Reader #12 4 THE CRITICAL MAKERS READER Previously published INC Readers The INC Reader series is derived from conference contributions and produced by the Insti- tute of Network Cultures. The publications in this series are available in EPUB, PDF form, and a print run of 2000 copies. All INC Readers, and other publications like the Network Notebooks series, INC Longforms, and Theory on Demand, can be downloaded and read for free. See networkcultures.org/publications. INC Reader #11: Inte Gloerich, Geert Lovink and Patricia de Vries (eds) MoneyLab Reader 2: Overcoming the Hype, 2018. INC Reader #10: Geert Lovink, Nathaniel Tkacz and Patricia de Vries (eds) MoneyLab Reader: An Intervention in Digital Economy, 2015. INC Reader #9: René König and Miriam Rasch (eds) Society of the Query: Reflections on Web Search, 2014 Reader #8: Geert Lovink and Miriam Rasch (eds) Unlike Us: Social Media Monopolies and Their Alternatives, 2013. INC Reader #7: Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz (eds) Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader, 2011. INC Reader #6: Geert Lovink and Rachel Somers Miles (eds) Video Vortex Reader II: Moving Images Beyond YouTube, 2011. INC Reader #5: Scott McQuire, Meredith Martin and Sabine Niederer (eds) Urban Screens Reader, 2009. INC Reader #4: Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer (eds) Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube, 2008. INC Reader #3: Geert Lovink and Ned Rossiter (eds) MyCreativity Reader: A Critique of Creative Industries, 2007. INC Reader #2: Katrien Jacobs, Marije Janssen and Mateo Pasquinelli (eds) C’LICK ME: A Netporn Studies Reader, 2007. INC Reader #1: Geert Lovink and Soenke Zehle (eds) Incommunicade Reader, 2005. CONTENTS 5 CONTENTS Loes Bogers & Letizia Chiappini – Introduction 7 Matt Ratto & Garnet Hertz – Critical Making and Interdisciplinary Learning: Making as a Bridge between Art, Science, Engineering and Social Interventions 17 MATTER THAT MATTERS: MATERIAL ENGAGEMENTS WITH A CAUSE Graham Harwood – Teaching Critical Technical Practice 29 Maria Dada – The Counter-Testimony of the Maker 38 Critical Media Lab: Merle Ibach, Michaela Büsse, Felix Gerloff, Viktor Bedö, Shintaro Miyazaki & Jamie Allen – Unmaking: Against General Applicability 47 xtine burrough <> Lucy HG Solomon – Drawing on Theory to Build/Unbuild Media, or Lalalalalalalalala 61 Gareth Foote & Eva Verhoeven – Tactics for a More-Than-Human Maker Culture 72 (UN)LEARNING TECHNOLOGY: HOMO FABER’S TOOLS Caroline Sinders – Making Critical Ethical Software 86 KairUs (Linda Kronman & Andreas Zingerle) – Behind the Smart World: Artistic Remixing of a Global Data Breach 95 David Cole & Hannah Perner-Wilson – Getting Lost and Unlearning Certainty: Material Encounters in an Electronic Craft Practice 107 Wim Nijenhuis - Making (Things) as Ethical Practice 127 Serena Cangiano - Back to the Basics: Or Why [Design] Education Is Going Back to Making 140 Samantha Penn - Learning the Washing Machine 148 Verena Kuni - C IS FOR...? Cards for Collaborative Learning of / for / from / about Critical Making 162 6 THE CRITICAL MAKERS READER ORGANIZING OPENNESS: SOCIALITY AND COMMUNITY Benjamin Matthews – Enkel Collective: Making Change Makers 173 Paul O’Neill – C-Node: Subverting the Black Boxes of Amazon Web Services in Dublin 181 Tom Keene – Demolition Machines: Making and Thinking with Databases of Urban Regeneration 196 Deanna Herst – Destandardizing Design? Learning from Critical Users 206 Peter Troxler – Building Open Design as a Commons 218 Krystin Gollihue & Abigail Browning – Towards an Intersectional Feminist Critical Making 227 Anja Groten – Hacking & Designing: Paradoxes of Collaborative Practice 237 MAKING SPACES: LABS, INSTITUTIONS, AND AUTONOMOUS ZONES Grace Van Ness – Hacking the Hustle: Sex Work, Networks, & Social Reproduction Under FOSTA-SESTA 245 Kat Braybrooke – ‘Placeless’ Making? Rearticulating the Power-Geometries of Digital Platforms in China Through Tactical Co-Creation 258 Xin Gu & Pip Shea – Fabbing the Chinese Maker Identity 269 Cindy Kohtala & Sharon Ede – Maker-Activists in the Post-Growth City 278 Maya Livio & Lori Emerson – Towards Feminist Labs: Provocations for Collective Knowledge-Making 286 Bernhard Garnicnig – Making It Up: Critical Practices of Instituting 298 APPENDICES Verena Kuni – Appendix 1: Critical Making Bibliography - Critical Mapping Sources 306 Author Biographies 311 INTRODUCTION 7 Introduction Loes Bogers & Letizia Chiappini 8 THE CRITICAL MAKERS READER INTRODUCTION LOES BOGERS & LETIZIA CHIAPPINI In June 2019, Maker Media announced that it had laid off its entire staff and ceased its operations. Over the last 15 years, the company had successfully positioned itself as the face of a self-proclaimed 'maker movement'. It had celebrated making, tinkering, and DIYing with technology as educational leisure activity. It had organized local showcases and written detailed tutorials for your next project, that crazy cyberpunk clock or smart weather station. Its signature MAKE magazine had provided the guides for choosing (read: buying) your next dev board or 3D printer, allowing you to finally build that ret- ro camera or automate your home in your spare time. Maker Media's popularity and influence have been undeniable, but not uncontroversial. Its ideology, lack of diversity, and strategic choices (such as accepting DARPA funding), were subjected to critical scrutiny from practitioners within the maker realm as well as the hackers, artists, and cultural critics in adjacent fields. The death knell of Maker Media gives us pause. It provides us with a moment to reflect about making practices, about the ideologies and imperatives built into this so-called movement. What constitutes better stuff when it comes down it, when we examine the essence of how things are made and embedded into a social, economical, cultural, political, and ecological fabric? Slick promises and good intentions often obscure a non-solution with more undesirable and unintended consequences than you can fit on a product poster. Nevertheless, you too can build this – provided you can spend €150 in sensors, boards, and acrylic sheets, and have the luxury of at least two weeks of free time to learn new skills and visit a local makerspace within their limited (or non-existent) public opening hours. Who benefits from this making and who doesn't? During the giddy rise of Maker Media-style making, these basic questions were passed over or waved away with user research and agile methods involving mostly corporate stakeholders. But the gravesite of Maker Media might also be a garden, sprouting the early shoots of a new critical making. Makers are increasingly shaking off their initial blind enthusiasm to numerically control everything, renewing an interest in sociocultural histories and futures, as well as the environmental and economical implications of digital machines for subtracting, adding, transforming, and connecting materials. Whereas a decade ago many gaped starry-eyed at the possibilities of 3D printers and other DIY tech, a critical mass now points out that no service, tool, or piece of software is good, bad, or neutral – or even free for that matter. Your cheap hardware from China is costing someone else their health and soil. In response, new critical initiatives are emerging in the shape of feminist makerspaces, local communal electronics depots, repair and upcycling com- munities, and research and education platforms centering around sustainable materials and open-source tools. We've arrived at a crossroads. What was making? What is making? And perhaps most crit- ically, what could making become? These are the questions this anthology investigates. INTRODUCTION 9 The Maker is Dead. Long Live the Maker? Shortly after the news of MAKE's demise, a discussion erupted on the net-time mailing