What can the maker movement teach us about the digitization of creativity?

Sascha Friesike,Frédéric Thiesse,George Kuk

doi:10.1145/3447524

Abstract

Experimenting with the creative process.

Highlights

In recent years, the ‘maker movement’ has emerged as a social phenomenon driven by novel technological possibilities.[1]
As part of a multi-year research project on the use of 3D printing by the maker community, we found that the use of these platforms in the creative process blurs the boundaries between the digital and the physical and changes the way ideas are expressed, curated, and eventually translated into physical reality
In a world where the creative process does not end with the distribution of a product, we need to rethink our understanding of how people create

Summary

Inspiration Phase

Where Ideas Come From Creativity in a digital context often makes use of prior art It embodies the past in the present and is a reflection of the social context in which it takes place. It is inherently social when makers of an online community build upon each other’s work through ‘remixing’, a process that resembles versioning and code sharing in software repositories. Maker skarab found plant signs that allow gardeners to remember which pot contains which plant He transferred the idea from ‘Outdoor & Garden’ to the ‘Office’ category by turning the signs into bookmarks that can be clipped to magazines, documents, or books. A similar situation is well documented in research on scientific impact where “science follows a nearly universal pattern: The highest-impact science is primarily grounded in exceptionally conventional combinations of prior work yet simultaneously features an intrusion of unusual combinations.”[9]

Distribution Phase

Iteration Phase

Conclusion