Week 12 reflections

In “Disobedient Electronics” edited by Garnet Hertz, he points out that the realization of this curated project is to suggest:

1. Building electronic objects can be an effective form of social argument or political protest
2. DIY, maker culture can have strong nationalist and protectionist components to them — populism can be seen as the rise of the DIY non-expert
3. Critical and Speculative Design are worthwhile approaches within industrial design, but not adversarial enough to reply to contemporary populist right-wing movements
4. If we are living in a post-truth time, we should focus on trying to make progressive arguments and facts more legible and engaging to a wide and diverse audience
5. The fad of ‘Maker Culture’ is over. Arduinos and 3D printers are fascinating, but the larger issue of what it means to be a human or society needs to be directly confronted.

Although I won’t comment on all of these points — there isn’t much to say other than to agree with points 1, 2, and 3, I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss points 4 and 5.

We are, indeed, living in a post-truth time — meaning a time where objective facts are less influential in appealing to public opinion than emotions and personal beliefs. It is particularly clear looking at how public opinion and attention has been swayed by bipartisan conflicts in the United States; specifically, observing how Donald Trump’s nonfactual tweets or speeches have been able to rally such a devoted and tenacious following. His ability to gather so much support in spite of his glaring inadequacies as President stems from his language and behavior — his “unpolished mannerisms” which separates him from the nuances of federal political protocols, have often been able to appeal to the (often problematic) desires, impulses, and belief systems of his community. He doesn’t speak in the elite, political jargon that is often used to separate the government from the mass, and he is able to reach an audience by utilizing platforms in ways previous Presidents have not — such as his excessive and unfiltered use of Twitter. In a way, Trump’s followers — beyond their sociopolitical and religious beliefs — represent an interesting audience for testing the effectiveness of products, whether they be physical, conceptual, academic or for marketing purposes. This group is not necessarily motivated by functionality, nor the novelty of the product, but rather by promise — a promise that their goals in investing in the product would be rewarded, regardless of the user. The audience is willing to waste time, money, and resources if it means the product will provide reprieve from their concerns or problems, and small achievements provide incredible reinforcement for their continued loyalty and patronage for the product. Considering this dynamic, how can designers, marketers and artists create products and discourse that can engage this demographic while still keeping other demographics (whose preferences are often at ends with this community) actively invested as well?

I can’t help but find the reasoning made in point 5 to be as naive as Hertz is making those who believe ‘Maker Culture’ is not a fad to be. His argument that we need to directly confront the larger issue of what it means to be a human or society is an existential conundrum, and something that philosophers have already discussed in great depth over history. As our society has entered a post-human era, our dependency on technology has caused them to become de-facto extensions of ourselves — both physically in the case of prosthetics, but also conceptually in how we integrate ourselves with our world. The idea of a person as a maker, with little formal training necessary, is an assertion that humans can become crafters in the way machines can be programmed for detailed tasks despite not having a particular aptitude for creativity. To say that the progress and steps made in hardware like Arduinos and 3D printers is not directly confronting what it means to be a human or a society is to assume that these products and ourselves are mutually exclusive, when the creation of these tools reflects an evolution of human needs and our codependence on technology.