Digital fabrication and wellbeing, human agency in post-automation: an analysis into the appropriation of digital design and fabrication technologies by crafters and coders in non- industrial settings

Abstract

Craft's relationship with industrial design, production and manufacturing seems to be coming full circle. Where once craft was the refuge of pr oductive skills lost to industrialisation, recent innovations in distributed digita l fabrication technologies hav e contributed to a rise in small batch production, and a decline or devaluing of the homogenous, ma ss produced — indicating new craft relations and sensibilities between designers, producers, consumers and things (Cardoso, 2010). Digital design and fabrication technologies, and their non-industrial use in community settings such as hackerspaces and makerspaces attract considerable attention in this regard and offer a site for empirical research. Enthusiasts celebrate a widening appropriation of tools such CAD/CAM, 3D printers, laser cutters and routers. Yet it is curious how technologies that deskilled machinists and damaged worker c ommunities in the past, are now celebrated as equipping m akers with new skills and capabilities. Perhaps the real picture is somewhat ambiguous