3D Printing: Convergences, Frictions, Fluidity

• Main Author: Ree, Robert
• Other Authors: Ratto, Matthew
• Language: en_ca
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: 3D printing; digital culture; material culture; design; craft; Makers; DIY; Critical Making; 0723; 0389
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/31404

The emergence of desktop ‘3D printing’ is not only a technological development, but equally a social and economic phenomenon that actively (and often contentiously) co-produces the material and ideological infrastructures it occupies. Reflecting wider momentum toward digital-material convergence, the current “revolution” in desktop digital fabrication is fundamentally attributable to the efforts of decentralized Maker and DIY communities who, connected through digital networks, practice citizen-led technological experimentation and occupy novel spaces for innovation and entrepreneurship. Employing hybrid qualitative methods that include Critical Making, this research explores the following themes: rhetoric versus reality, the divisive notion of ‘digital craft’, perceptions of authenticity, as well as cultural momentum manifested in decentralization, convergence, stratification, and iteration. An overarching theme emerges: 3D printing is a fluid phenomenon – in literal, metaphorical, technological and cultural ways.