Moffet Pushes for Demystification of Technology through Community Design Labs

“We can demystify the process of modifying the physical world through community design labs,” said Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) Fellow James Moffet during a presentation on May 12. Moffet, who is also a Fulbright Fellow, is researching the intersection between technology, design learning, and civic participation with a focus on community design labs (a.k.a. FabLabs, makerspaces, hackerspaces, etc...).

Moffet highlighted how manufacturing has shifted from small-scale domestic manufacturers in the days of before the Gutenberg press, to centralized mass production facilities like the Ford factories, and finally to centralized manufacturing with global shipping, resulting in the modern system of globalized production. According to many panelists at the WEF event in Davos this year, the acceleration of global trade has stopped, noted Moffet, and the world is moving to an undetermined “new normal”, in which domestic and distributed manufacturing may play a greater role.

One example of distributed manufacturing is the 3D printer. Creators can download models for 3D printers online for free using sites like Thingiverse and print objects. 3D printers are an excellent embodiment of digital fabrication and the domestication of manufacturing but, “as the microwave is to the kitchen, so is the 3D printer to the community design lab,” Moffet said.

“We need to demystify technology and ‘look into the black box,’” urged Moffet, citing a phrase by STS scholar Bruno Latour. “The design of a medium or algorithm or infrastructure is at least as important as its final product.” Moffet gave the example of Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm. Understanding why certain news stories appear in a newsfeed is key to understanding what information we are being offered (or not offered) on that platform.

Moffet argued that opening this “black box” is the key step in critical making, a term coined by Matt Ratto, who suggested that making or creation of material objects is “an underutilized part of critical reflection on technology and society” within sociological scholarship. By pursuing critical making, people can avoid the trap of “textual doppelgangers,” which can occur when one conducts an analysis of their own description of an object of study rather than the object itself. David Peters Corbett coined this term in 2005 when reflecting on analyses by art historians, but Moffet explains the way Ratto related this concept more broadly to many objects of sociological inquiry.

Community design labs, explained Moffet, allow ordinary people to make things themselves. Design labs are equipped with tools, materials, and technology like videoconferencing that allows people to reach experts from whom they can learn. These “networked maker communities” show a transition from DIY (do-it-yourself) to DIT (do-it-together), with the Fab Lab Network being the most mature example.

There are, however, some troubling aspects to the domestication of manufacturing, noted Moffet. One downside is the “platformization” of essential knowledge-building tools and datasets, which inevitably exposes the “underlying profit motivation” of companies’ support for DIY. “Companies will only invest in our ability to customize apps, tools, and knowledge insofar as it is profitable,” said Moffet.

“Community design also acts as a real-world ‘port of entry’ from online activism,” Moffet concluded. Through a variety of material projects, those previously only involved in digital activism can engage with the public on issues ranging from immigration to privacy, via digitally-distributed actions in the physical world.