Probing the Potential of Post-Anthropocentric 3D Printing

Abstract

The growth of small scale manufacturing technologies associated with the "maker movement" has captured the attention of artists, innovators, educators, and policy makers. This paper critically examines how one core technology of the maker movement, a 3D printer, materializes assumptions about makers and their preferred ways of working with machines and materials. We describe how existing designs can be seen as anthropocentric, framing the human maker as visionary and commander of passive machines and materials. We then present an alternative system for 3D printing, called Redeform, which explores how a post-anthropocentric framing of makers as collaborators with machines and materials changes the design of 3D printers. We place our system within a lineage of performances that have explored relationships between humans and nonhumans since the 1950s. In doing so, we explore and speculate on the opportunities for operationalizing post-anthropocentric theories within the specific context of the maker movement.

Machine Sensibility

“…Data from the longitudinal ethnographic study is not explicitly presented in this paper, thus provided us both with an analytical direction, and contributes to the conceptual work we are mapping out here. During analysis, we iteratively reviewed the empirical material by using inductive analysis techniques and a grounded theory approach [7]. We coded the transcript and analyzed the data by looking for interdependencies between reflections on material, machine and design as well as for accounts related to the participants' experience and expertise they demonstrated in the conversations.…”

“…As often highlighted, the 3D printer comes with the promise of "a machine that could make (almost) anything" [29] and only requires 'a push of a button', despite both research and practice showing that interactions with a 3D printer require far more than that. The 3D printer also stands out as a piece of machinery or "emblematic technology" [8] that has come to symbolize the maker movement as well as futuristic promises of personal fabrication [16,26,53] as well as towards alternative and novel ways of production [7,15,41]. Personal fabrication 1 is according to Gershenfeld understood as the manufacturing of a product using a personal computer, digital data, and a printer that can produce three-dimensional solid objects [17].…”

Towards design sociology

“…From this perspective, design is viewed as a form of story‐telling or communication, and the form and affordances of objects reveal the intentions of designers to users (Norman, ). Some design researchers have also taken up new materialist theoretical perspectives, seeking to identify the ways in which humans and non‐humans come together in a more‐than‐human world (Devendorf, De Kosnik, Mattingly, & Ryokai, ; Forlano, ; Kimbell, ). Like sociologists and other social researchers, therefore, many design researchers now focus their attention on the sociotechnical contexts of design as a practice and the sociocultural dimensions of the objects and systems that emerge from and are enacted through these practices (Binder et al, ; Kimbell, ).…”

Coworking, fab labs et living labs

“…Leur action peut alors s'inscrire dans le cadre de la nouvelle économie, particulièrement l'économie collaborative, qui repose sur la production de valeurs en commun et sur de nouvelles formes d'organisation de travail (Botsman et Rogers, 2010). L'économie collaborative promeut, en effet, les modes de vie collaboratifs (tels que le coworking), la consommation collaborative (Felson et Spaeth, 1978) ou la production contributive comme la fabrication d'outils numériques ou encore d'imprimante 3D que l'on peut retrouver au sein des fab labs (Vak et al, 2015 ;Devendorf et al, 2016 ;Fleischmann et al, 2016).…”

“…Il s'agirait alors d'une négation des compétences acquises par certains au profit d'une pseudo-connaissance universelle. La possibilité qu'offrent ces lieux (notamment les fab labs) de réaliser ou de construire par soi-même tels ou tels biens (imprimante 3D, outils de bricolage, de mécanique, objets de menuiserie… : Devendorf et al, 2016) pourrait contribuer à une perte des niveaux de technicité (savoirs techniques et artisanaux de pointe) et des compétences réelles des professionnels au profit d'une généralisation des créations amateurs. On pourrait alors redouter un effet de déqualification des acteurs qui utilisent ces lieux et leurs dispositifs, mais aussi des risques de blessures ou de santé avec des instruments non normés.…”