Seminar: Marie Goyon

“Artisanal Electronics: Digital Repair Cultures” was a mini-conference we held at July 6.

Marie Goyon (Ecole Centrale de Lyon) followed up on the maker movements and discussed the political relationships we can observe in today’s return to making practices. She presented different types of relationships we entertain with contemporary objects such as attachment, alienation and abundance to question the role of objects in our society. Even though tinkering practices are everything but new, places such as Fablabs and hackerspaces might be the opportunity to rethink our values towards objects and digital technologies. Referring to a Fablab in Lyon this talk questioned the notion of social utopia in this place and eventually draws attention to the Jugaad and Rikimbili movements, in which users become the main actors of innovation by diverting objects. In fact, hijacking gestures are motor of emancipation, source of social empowerment, and political gestures.