Creative Industries

Convention 2011

CIS.doc # 04

Open Design

English
Contributors – – –
Armin Medosch Yochai Benkler Markus Beckedahl
Cory Doctorow Georg Russegger Andrea Goetzke
Manfred Faßler Ronen Kadushin Bre Pettis
Lev Manovich White Elephant Mark Frauenfelder
Paul Atkinson Garmz Ponoko 9 7 8 3 9 0 2 7 4 8 0 3 4
Gerin Trautenberger Patick Dax Wienett
Hannes Walter Evan Jones Peter Troxler
Kiss#2: Collage of 340 pictures under CC-by license (page 21)
Artist: Evan Jones
 Creative Industries Convention Contents Seite 5 Creative Industries Convention Contents
2011 2011

Contents/ Contents /
Theory Practice
page 04
Introduction Eberhard Schrempf

page 11
Ronan Kadushin
Products in a Networked
page 16 Culture page 23, 25, 27
Lev Manovic Markus Beckedahl /
Who Is the Author? page 13 Andrea Goetzke
Open Design Now Creative Commons in Open Design
page 18, 20 Why Design cannot Remain
page 04 Paul Atkinson Exclusive page 29
Introduction Christian Buchmann Ghosts of the Profession Bre Pettis
page 15 The Future of Working At Home
page 06 – 07 page 22 White Elephant
Open Design Gerin Trautenberger Balloon Light page 31
Creative Commons Basics Mark Frauenfelder
page 10 page 17 Do It Yourself Innovation
Armin Medosch page 24 Garmz
Open Design as a New Hannes Walter Crowdsourcing page 33
„Design Culture“ Designer and a Little More Ponoko
page 19 The Factory of the Future
page 12 page 26 Fluid Forms
Cory Doctorow Yochai Benkler Intelligent Design by Means page 35
Love the Machine, Hate the Today Innovation is Coming of Creative Coding and Open Wienett
Factory from All Directions Source Software Handwerk 3.0

page 14 page 28, 30, 32, 34, 36 page 21 page 37

Manfred Faßler Georg Russegger Evan Jones Peter Troxler
Where Is Open? Aleatory Design Models How the Images Are Created The Proliferation of Fab Labs

– –
Imprint:
Publisher: Creative Industries Styria GmbH
CEO: Eberhard Schrempf
Marienplatz 1, 8020 Graz, Austria
T: +43 316 890 598, E office@cis.at
www.cis.at
–
Concept of publication: This publication is licensed under the Creative IHRE Ökologisch nachhaltiger Druck
bei der Medienfabrik Graz:
Gerin Trautenberger & Patrick Dax, Microgiants GmbH
Andreas Hirsch, andreas-hirsch.net
Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
Austria License. To view a copy of this license, visit
IDEEN • Verwendung von FSC und
PEFC zertifizierten Papieren
Project Management: Barbara Tscherne http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/at/ WERDEN • Klimaneutrale Produktion durch
CO2-Kompensation
Translations: Otmar Lichtenwörther
Proofreading: Otmar Lichtenwörther
GRÜN. Unserer Umwelt zuliebe!

Graz, February 2011 Graphic Design: moodley brand identity

Print: Medienfabrik Graz
ISBN No.: 978-3-902748-03-4 Medienfabrik Graz
Dreihackengasse 20, 8020 Graz
Distribution: Verlag Neue Arbeit, 1070 Wien
Telefon: +43 (0) 316 8095-0
www.mfg.at
Seite 6 Creative Industries Convention
2011
Open design is indeed one of the most radical develop-
ments in the field of the creative economy. This radical
innovation is an important source of inspiration for
both economy and society and it facilitates the further
development of traditional businesses and economic
sectors. Thus not only modern and communicative ent-
repreneurs benefit from this innovation but, in the long
run, traditional business too profits from the changed
economic environment.
The creative industry is regarded as a forerunner
when it comes to using technological innovation and it
is a pathfinder for fundamental social changes. These
changes encompass all areas of life and are by no means
restricted to the creative sector. The paradigm shift that
has been accelerated by digitization and digital commu-
nication is no longer a science-fiction story but is already
happening. Today we are still witnessing the beginnings
of these fundamental changes and can thus determine
the direction these developments should take. Just like
in the times of the invention of the printing press even
the most brave forward thinkers cannot foresee the
further development of the phone, the Internet and
social networks.
Introduction
Christian
Buchmann
Head of Department for
Economy, Europe and Culture,
Provincial Government of Styria
More economic growth through innovation takes
center stage in our new economic strategy “Steiermark
2020”. Only by means of innovation we can generate va-
lue creation, growth and jobs in Styria. In the frame of
the new economic strategy “Steiermark 2020” the crea-
tive economy – as a main crossroads – will be of special
importance. What we aim for is to create new jobs by
implementing creative ideas.
Thus this open design initiative by the Creative Indus-
tries Styria is a useful supplement to the strategic guide-
lines of the Provincial Government of Styria. Open de-
sign is a new motivating force for all those who are in-
terested in a future-oriented Styrian economy and thus
enabling a closer interlocking of innovation design
and economy.
Open design promises a lot and it is necessary to have
a close look at these promises. What we aim for is exa-
mining open design with its possible future potential in
mind and sounding it out with regard to potential fields
of application for designers, but also for entrepreneurs
and consumers. Hence keeping track of these new devel-
opments and giving possible stimuli for new innovation
is of great interest for the Provincial Government of
Styria.
Seite 7 Creative Industries Convention
2011
Eberhard Schrempf
CEO OF
CREATIVE INDUSTRIES STYRIA GMBH
Nothing has changed the role of the designer as radi-
cally as the digitization of the technological and com-
municative interfaces. Not even twenty years ago the de-
signer was only responsible for shaping a product or for
the graphic design/illustration of an entire magazine.
The rest of the process – from the initial idea to distri-
bution – was reserved to other specialists. But today the
new role of the designer is not only restricted to one sin-
gle step but ranges from the strategic product decision
and the design process right up to product or customer
communication.
Open design and open source are comparatively
young concepts of creation and production. The key
question is as follows: What can product, communica-
tion and service design as well as fashion and architec-
ture learn from the open source movement? Creative
Commons, Linux or the collaborative tools of Web 2.0
show how collaborative working and living can work. In
the process innovative forms of work and production are
created which are based on exchange at eye level. The
traditional boundaries between product, customer and
production are disappearing. The Internet doesn’t only
facilitate the distribution of digital works but also of
construction plans and patterns for material products.
Hence open design is a current development within
the creative economy that is to encourage open collabo-
ration among creative minds and the exchange of ideas.
Moreover, open design holds the potential for the Sty-
rian creative economy to open up new perspectives and
market opportunities both right here, at the business
Introduction
location of Styria, and beyond Styria’s borders. In ad-
dition, local producers can benefit from open design by
means of a wider product range that can be produced at
a local level.
Since they were founded in 2007 the Creative Indus-
tries Styria have been dealing with all new forms of
design and the collaboration of designers. Not only col-
laboration between creative people has been of interest
to us but also the collaboration between the Creative
Industries Styria and traditional business. In this re-
spect the Creative Industries Styria acts as a source of
inspiration making topics of future relevance available
for the public at large.
The Creative Industries Styria will deal thoroughly
with subjects such as Creative Commons, open source
and open culture as well as the changed role of the de-
signer in a digitized value-adding process. The Con-
vention 2010 on the subject of „Designing the Creative
Societies of the Future“ with the controversial theorist,
writer and blogger Cory Doctorow as keynote speaker
opened up thematic fields we can use as a starting point
in 2011, for both our Convention and this CIS.doc on the
subject of open design. On the occasion of the Conven-
tion 2011 we examine if open design is more than just a
theory – i.e. a novel working method or even an innova-
tive business model.
Open
Design
Creative Commons, Linux
or the collaborative tools of
Web 2.0 show how collabo-
rative working and living can
work. Standardized inter-
faces, the simple exchange
of files and communication
at eye level between all
participants facilitate new
forms of working and pro-
duction for creative people.
Today the World Wide Web
doesn’t only facilitate the
Seite 09
Open Design
Put to Good Use
distribution of digital works
but also of construction
plans, patterns and plans
for material products. In
the this CIS.doc and on the
occasion of the Convention
2011 Creative Industries
Styria examines if open
design is more than just a
theory – i.e. a novel working
method or even a new busi-
ness model.
Creative Industries Convention
2011
In 2010 and, first and foremost, in the Creative Con-
vention in February, CIS emphasized the theme of
“Designing the Creative Societies of the Future“. This
vol-ume of the CIS.doc series might be seen as a conti-
nuation of our topical focus on open source and Creati-
ve Commons (CC). Along with up-to-date open design
theory it also presents concrete examples and projects
which make use of open source and describe collabora-
tive work among creative people.
With regard to its content this publication can be di-
vided into two separate fundamental strands. On the
one hand it presents examples, applications, tools and
models and, on the other, it introduces theoretical ap-
proaches and information on open design. The new de-
sign of the CIS.doc publication also aims at fulfilling the
requirements of additional presentation formats such as
iPad and Internet. Beside a theoretical part this reader
also provides an overview of the present debate on the
subject of open design. In addition to this it also contains
a practical part, a cross-section of all current trends and
projects using the open design method in their day-to-
day work.
Moreover, our open design publication consists of four
thematic blocks. The first block of articles (Manovich,
Faßler, Walter, Russegger, Benkler) aims at ex-plaining
altered processes with regard to authorship and the
paradigm shifts related to this. Collaboration on the
Internet requires new skills from all participants and
entails clear consequences with respect to authorship,
rights of use and sharing of works. Open source soft-
ware and Creative Commons are attempts to simplify
communication among creative people and to respond
to present-day requirements by means of technological
and socio-cultural changes. These multifaceted aspects
are examined in the second block of articles. The con-
tributions written by Medosch, Troxler, Trautenberger,
Fluid Forms, Beckedahl/Götzke describe ideas and the
use of open design at work as well as the newly cre-ated
aesthetical forms of expression for designers. Open de-
sign and open source are not only tools and methods but
have brought forth a clear and recognizable aesthetics,
Introduction
which is expressed by one‘s choice of the tools and mate-
rials. Last but not least, we could win over Cory Docto-
row to allow us to publish his essay “Love the Machine,
Hate the Factory” in German language.
“
What can product,
communication and
service design as
well as fashion and
architecture learn
from the open source
movement?
”
Gerin Trautenberger
The third block, with contributions by Frauenfelder,
Kadushin, White Elephant and presentations of wienett,
garmz (fashion), crowdsourcing as a business model, Po-
noko and Bre Pettis from Makerbot, and Evan’s graphic
work, deals with projects and the tools and methods
employed in open design, and introduces select Good
Practice examples. These examples illustrate the band-
width of the topic with contributions ranging from con-
crete application examples to business cases and discus-
sions of various other aspects of open design. The fourth
Part shows two examples where open design is used by
designers. The Hackchair by Ronen Kadushin and the
Balloon-lamp by White-Elephant are published under
creative commence license (cc-by-sa) and can be used
free by everyone.
This publication is meant to be the description of and
a starting point for a new development which is still in
its infancy today. The examples, theories and projects
described herein still have to be negotiated and do not
claim to be exhaustive or finalized. For these reasons we
placed a great deal of value on inclusiveness when we se-
lected authors, examples and projects and thus avoided
exclusion.
Gerin
Trautenberger
Microgiants
Seite 10 Creative Industries Convention
2011
Biography
Armin Medosch is a freelance writer, media artist and theorist who has already participated in many In-
ternet projects. Since 2007 he has worked on thenextlayer, a collaborative research platform on the subjects of
art, politics, open mind and open source software.
Armin
Medosch
W hat
is open
Design ?
This term has no fixed meaning yet.
Open design is a concept, a proposal.
On the analogy of open source soft-
ware this could mean: Give us insight
into building plans and construc-
tion principles so that a new colla-
borative design culture can emerge.
Moreover, open source also means re-
moving the barrier between consu-
mers and producers. What motivates
open source programmers is the fact
that they use the jointly created pro-
grams themselves too. Thus the pro-
duct “software” turns into a process
shared by many – the programmers but
also the testers, the authors of bug re-
ports and manuals, in short, the enti-
re lively community. In line with this
open design might mean to free oneself
from the notion of the product as an
already finalized thing and to see de-
sign as an open-ended process. Alrea-
dy 40 to 50 years ago, between 1955
RELATED LINKS
thenextlayer.org/blog/2
and 1968, such basic approaches to a
new design culture were developed at
the Ulm School of Design. Initially,
the Ulm School adhered to the Bau-
haus principle of the “Gute Form” (i.e.
good form or good design), which ex-
presses an object’s function. Yet from
1957 a new team under the direction
of Tomás Maldonado from Argentina
pursued a more modern and more ra-
dical program. As Maldonado’s colle-
ague Gui Bonsiepe analyzed in a book
which was published a few years ago,
artistic creativity was not supposed
to simply accept the existing world of
products uncritically but to keep an
eye on the bigger picture. What was
called for was “social imagination”. In-
dustrially produced objects are a prod-
uct of social relationships and create
themselves social relationships again.
Instead of modifying the outward ap-
pearance of a given product design can
contain a social outline. Defined like
this, open design questions the context
a product is embedded in. Which raw
materials are required? Which work-
ing procedures with which machines,
which hierarchies and chains of com-
mand? How are the people involved in
the process? And how do we eventually
get rid of the produced things without
any negative environmental impact? Of
Armin Medosch
“
DESIGN IS
AN OPEN-ENDED
PROCESS
”
Armin Medosch
course, it would mean to overtax them
to make the designers alone respon-
sible for all these considerations. Mal-
donado and Bonsiepe saw them as team
workers who moderate the processes.
Their dictum was not to put up with
what was given but to “create unrest”.
In this sense open design is a commit-
ment to change the world. Back then
the Ulm School of Design failed due to
the narrow-mindedness of the funding
authorities. Today both the technologi-
cal and the social framework are much
more favorable for the realization of
such a program.
Seite 11 Creative Industries Convention
2011
Ronen
Kadushin
Products
in a networked
c u lt u re.
In today’s market-driven culture, industrial designers commit
themselves to producers in order to realize their creativity. Produ-
cers, with the power to control all aspects of a product, are the gate-
keepers of design creativity, deciding what and how products are
available to consumers. This situation begins in Industrial design
education systems that train designers to integrate into an indus-
trial production scenario and accept that producers have the right
to regulate design and indoctrinate their set of values and ends.
Fresh approaches and radical views are marginalized as they do
not conform with the dogmas of the Church of Industrial Design.
But other creative fields that found their products in phase with
the realities of the Internet and information technology (fields such
as music, communication design, animation photography, text, etc.)
are experiencing an unprecedented flood of freely available crea-
tive content. Industries that once dominated these fields and have
not adapted to this reality are quickly becoming redundant.
RELATED LINKS
ronen-kadushin.com
Photo: Ronen Kasushin, Vague chair
Biography
Ronen Kadushin is an Israeli designer and design
educator living in Berlin since 2005. He developed the open
design method, where the designs of his products can be
downloaded, copied, modified and produced, much as in
open source software.
Enter the open source method, one that revolutionized the soft-
ware industry, created a viable economy, and gave birth to a flour-
ishing social movement that is community-minded, highly creative
and inclusive.
A revolution in product development, production and distribu-
tion is imminent due to the Internet’s disruptive nature and the easy
access to CNC machines. Open design is a proposal to make this
happen. It’s aim is to shift Industrial Design to become relevant in
a globally networked information society.
Designing and producing with this method have an effect not
only on the characteristics of the object itself, but also on its modi-
fication possibilities and transformation potentials into other prod-
ucts. It suggests a new model for an unbiased marketplace for all to
take part. And it empowers the designer to freely pursue creative
expressions, realize them as industrially repeatable products and
have the ability to globally distribute design.The presentation will
be accompanied by a product making demonstration.
 Seite 12 Creative Industries Convention Cory Doctorow Seite 13 Creative Industries Convention Open Design Now
2011 2011

Biography
Cory Doctorow is a Canadian blogger, journalist, and
science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the blog

Open
Boing Boing. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copy-
right laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons.

Design
Cory Now
Photo: Joi Ito, Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0

Open Design Now –

Why Design Cannot Remain Exclusive.

Doctorow
A book by Creative Commons Netherlands, Premsela und
Waag Society. With articles amongst others from Paul
RELATED LINKS Atkinson, Michel Avital, Caroline Hummels,
craphound.com Ronen Kadushin, Andrew Katz, Joris Laarman,
de.wikipedia.org/ Bert Mulder, Jost Smiers,
wiki/Steampunk Pieter Marleen Stikker,
steampunkmagazine.com John Thakara, Peter Troxler;

Why Design
BIS publishers, Amsterdam.
Pictures from Peter Troxler

Love the Machine, Cannot Remain

Hate the Factory Exclusive

We’ve heard a lot about how scary the in-
dustrialrevolution was — the dislocations it
wrought on the agrarian population of the
early 19th century were wrenching and ter-
rible, and the revolution was a bloody one.
From that time, we have the word Luddite,
referring to uprisings against the machines
cally every industry saw massive increases
in productivity thanks to their work.
But all this gain was not without cost. The
“unscientific” worker personally worked on
several tricky stages of manufacture, often
seeing a project through from raw materials
day could take it easy without holding up
a production line. On good days, the work
could fly past without creating traffic jams
farther down the line. For every gain in ef-
ficiency, scientific management exacted a
cost in self-determination, personal digni-
ty, and a worker’s connection with what he
The book Open Design Now – Why Design Cannot Remain Exclu-
sive documents the current state of open design from a variety of
perspectives—art history, information and design research, business
RELATED LINKS
and legal, arts and design, education, and political science. opendesignnow.org
petertroxler.net

that were undoing ancient ways of living
and working.
But the troubles of the 1810s were only the
beginning. By the end of the century, the
to finished product. or she produced. For me, the biggest appeal
of steampunk is that it exalts the machine
and disparages the mechanization of hu-
“ man creativity (the motto of the excellent
and free SteamPunk Magazine is “Love the
Open design as the collaborative creation of artifacts by a dis-
persed group of otherwise unrelated individuals has been growing
since the nineteen sixties and since then the Cult of the Connoisseur Open design could also become relevant to other domains. Govern-
or specialist has had to give way to the Cult of the Amateur - those
who know themselves what is best for them. Open design builds on
ment projects striving for participation and citizen empowerment

workplace was changing again. Workers

who’d once again found their lives being
dramatically remade by the forces of capital,
through a process called “scientific man-
agement.” Scientific management (which
was also called Taylorism, for its most prom-
inent advocate, Frederick Winslow Taylor)
was built around the idea of reducing a man-
ufacturing process to a series of optimized
simple steps, creating an assembly line where
workers were just part of the machine.
Taylor, Henry Ford, and Frank and Lillian
Gilbreth used time-motion studies, writ-
ten logbooks, highspeed photography, and
other empirical techniques to find wasted
motions, wasted time, and potential log-
jams in manufacturing processes. Practi-
Finally, we’ll
be able to work
like artisans and
produce like an
assembly line.
” going to raise your workbench to spare your
Cory Doctorow
He or she could choose how to sit, which tool
to use when, and in what order to complete
the steps. If it was a sunny day with a fine
autumn breeze, the worker could choose to
plane the joints and keep the smell of the
leaves in the air, sav-ing the lacquer for the
next day. Workers who were having a bad
Machine, Hate the Factory”). It celebrates
the elaborate inventions of the scientifically
managed enterprise, but imagines those
machines coming from individuals who are
their own masters. Steampunk doesn’t rail
against efficiency — but it never puts effici-
ency ahead of self-determination. If you’re
back, that’s your decision, not something
imposed on you from the top down.
Here in the 21st century, this kind of ma-
nufacture finally seems in reach: a world of
desktop fabbers, low-cost workshops, and
communities of helpful, like-minded ma-
kers puts utopia in our grasp. “Finally, we’ll
be able to work like artisans and produce
like an assembly line”.
generative principles that include major features such as open access,
reconfigurability and reproducibility, and cover all four aspects of
design: object, process, practice and infrastructure. Parts of this in-
frastructure are copyright tools, ensuring the four freedoms of open
source (use, study, redistribution of copies and of modifications), ma-
nufacturing tools like the self replicating MakerBots, and fabrication
laboratories as places for making and sharing that become the libra-
ries of open design.
Designers are starting to adopt open design practices for them-
selves. The position of design literacy is changing when confronted
with digital tools and media. Yet collaborative work combined with
individual autonomy, as in open source software development, has
not been common practice in design. Current educational models
need to be reformulated to reflect the flexibility, openness, and con-
tinuous development of open design.
could benefit from an open design approach. The world´s bigger prob-
lems such as depletion and wasting of natural resources, population
growth, consumerism and wide-spread poverty may find novel so-
lutions through open design. Eventually, making itself, being at the
core of open design, could become a way of material and conceptual
exploration and creation of novel understandings and critical solu-
tions.
The consequences of this development are enormous, not only for
the design profession. End-users of designed products will have to
decide to which extent they want to get involved in the design proc-
ess, or if they simply want to follow the decisions a designer has made
for them. Designers and even more so their clients will have to decide
how closed they can keep a design project or if they can retain desi-
gning for themselves at all. Open design is happening here and now,
and design cannot remain exclusive between the arts, science and
the media.

Seite 14 Creative Industries Convention
2011
Biography
Manfred Faßler is Profes-
sor at the Institute for Cultural
Anthropology and European
Ethnology of Johann Wolfgang
Goethe University, Frankfurt
am Main. In his research and
teaching he mainly deals with
the evolution of the media and
media-integrated knowledge
cultures.
Manfred
Faßler
Where is open?
RELATED LINKS
uni-frankfurt.de/fb/fb09/kulturanthro/
staff/fassler_home.html
1. Where is open?
Is this a stupid
question?
Not at all, I hope. After a couple of years
in Internet, media and communication
research one may ask the following:
Where actually, and what actually, is
this new country called “Open”? Is it a
legend, a paradise, a post-revolutionary
utopia, a Serious Game, an office, a
fanfold of networked individualism?
Renaissance opened up a small door
towards well-proportioned aesthetics.
Who walked through it, entered the civ-
il society. Industrial design of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century
opened the gates of functionality and
everybody was taken in by its alleged
forms. The Electronic Frontier Foun-
Manfred Faßler
dation of the late nineteen eighties and
early nineteen nineties backed the im-
minent open country of networks and
at least thought about pioneering, the
highly straining act of founding new
worlds. It’s still worth reading J.P.
Barlow’s “Declaration of Independence
in Cyberspace” in order to understand
visions of open networks at that time.
Where something was going to happen,
was evident: right ahead, who knows.
And today? That’s why I’m asking once
again: Where is OPEN? What is invent-
ed, designed and maintained? Do we
aim for an aesthetics of change-sensi-
tive openness beside self-organization,
a kind of concept or project aesthetics?
2.
To begin with: There has never
been so much openness! Yet this is no
answer to our questions. Not even if
we refer to participation, interactivity,
tit for tat or collaborative work. First
and foremost it is about self-com-
mitment. Free access to everything
digital and available in the matrix of
online/offline is to be arranged and
maintained. So is this rather a free
Seite 15 Creative Industries Convention White Elephant
2011
White
RELATED LINKS
white-elephant.at
Elephant
balloon light
market for a slowly emerging global The lamp is suspended in midair; its base turns from a static element
creative middle class, an open market into merely a counterweight that prevents the lamp from flying away.
for patent-free ideas? It seems that this If you unplug it, it rises to the ceiling and waits there for someone to
much-trumpeted openness with re- use it with its dangling cable. All elements used are easily available in
gard to the use of algorithms, product DIY stores or on the Internet. The construction manual is published
ideas or blueprints has become some under a CC:BY-NC-ND license:
kind of design testing market, beta
Construction Manual:
design; or, as a individualistic gesture:
1) Open the lampholder and remove the 7) Place the unit consisting of cable, lamphol-
first hand openness. A testing market existing cable der and tube centrically arranged in the
would be convenient and cost-efficient 2) Cut off 2 meters from the electric cable, plug-in sleeve and fix it with duct tape on a
for many, as the actual costs for infor- remove insulation and clamp it into the durable surface.
lampholder 8) Generously foam the plug-in sleeve with
mation products and product infor- PU foam holding the tubing with one hand
3) Cut off the felt pen 2 cm under the tip
mation cannot be calculated anyway. using a saw and remove the core. Cut off in order to adjust its position if necessary.
Yet one question remains: When does its cap 1 cm away from the lower end 9) A the foam hardens cut off a 2cm piece from
using a Stanley knife. the tube coupling and seal it with hot glue.
openness close again, when are the
4) Stick the piece cut off from the cap Then drill a small hole on the lower end
FOSS projects (free [without market through the lower part of the lamp- and hang up the key ring.
prices] and open [changeable in use] holder from inside and also insert the 10) Let the foam harden overnight and cut off
source) software projects used in
tube of the pen as far as possible until
it is clamped force-fit and flush.
the excess hard material with a Stanley
knife on the next day without damaging the
economic and professional life? Open 5) Pull the cable through the tube and clip cable or the tubing.
must be consumable outside the mar- the lampholder. Attach the flat plug to its 11) Cautiously pull the balloon over the fini
loose end and quickly test it with the shed lamp, inflate it with helium and plug it
ket, it must be creative barter busi- candle lamp.
in – done.
ness. Yet how is creativity, and thus 6) Cut off 10cm of aquarium tubing and
design, conceived in this respect? Is plug it into the plug-in sleeve together
with the unit consisting of cable, lamp-
the message “Eat as much as you want holder and tube.
from the web cake of OPEN, put your
copyrights in the dungeon of economic
rules of life and enjoy the Schlauraf-
fenland of OPEN”? Or does “open” illuminant 40W
imply more than the uncontrolled
consumption of other people’s chair,
cupboard or software visualization lampholder E14
ideas, hence coherent and interrela-
ted creativity? If this is the case – and
some websites seem to integrate this
Biography tube Ø 9mm, slightly tapered
(e. g. from felt pen)
idea –, we need concepts dealing with White Elephant was founded
the material, concrete, practical and by Tobias Kestel in Graz in 2005
and was joined later by Florian PU foam
theoretical closure of this openness,
Puschmann. The White Elephant
with the transition from an idea into DesignLab specializes in the field
a product, no matter if it is a commu- of Product Design and Experi- pipe end, plastic or
mental Design. Experimentation bamboo Ø 40mm
nity, content or a chair. Project Poïesis and Exploration of materials and
aquarium tubing Ø
must enable project aesthetics. their excitability by external in-
6mm inside
fluences is an important resource two-core 230V cable
of inspiration. plug, Ø approx. 7mm
key ring
to be continued on page 32
All pictures from White Elephant
under cc-by-sa
Seite 16 Creative Industries Convention Lev Manovich Seite 17 Creative Industries Convention
2011 2011

Biography
Lev Manovich is a Russian American media
RELATED LINKS theorist, critic and artist. He currently teaches
manovich.net as a professor for visual arts, art and theory RELATED LINKS
of the new media at the University of Califor-
garmz.com

Lev
useabrand.com
nia, San Diego and at the European Graduate
School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. His book The
Language of new media has been translated into
several languages and is commonly regarded as
the first comprehensive description and theory

Garmz
of contemporary new media.

Manovich
Photos: www.garmz.com

Who Is the Crowdsourcing

Author?
“The new media culture involves a number of new
models of authorship, which all entail different forms
of collaboration”, writes the media theorist Lev Ma-
novich in his text “Who is the Author? Sampling/Re-
mixing/Open Source”.
But according to Manovich collective authorship is
not a specific characteristic of the new media – histo-
ry teaches us that it has always been the rule rather
than the exception. The romantic model of the “lone
individual author” only takes up little space in the
history of human culture.
Yet the new media offer new variations of earlier
forms of collaborative authorship. In the wider con-
text of a contemporary cultural economy, says Mano-
vich, it is in the new media – which can be regarded
as the avant-garde of the cultural industry – where
new models of authorship, new relationships between
producers and consumers and new distribution mod-
els are tested.
Among other things, Manovich refers to the remix as
an example for this. Combining, appropriating and
rearranging content is something constant and an in-
tegrative element of all human culture. Most human
Photo: www.manovich.net
“ perspectives. The new cultural modu-
larity – where cultural objects are de-
Remixability
signed from discrete samples results
is becoming
in the future possibility of combining
the key feature
cultural objects with one another like
of a digitally
Lego bricks regardless of their materi-
networked media
ality and medium.
universe.
”
Lev Manovich
While the traditional definition of cul-
tural modularity – as it was used by
designers, architects and artists – was
weblog entry – all this follows the same restricted to a limited vocabulary, the
„Today innovation is coming from all directions“, says law scholar
Yochai Benkler elsewhere in this publication. The two fashion start-
ups garmz and useabrand impressively illustrate this thesis. They
use new technologies to open up and democratize the selection, pro-
duction and distribution mechanisms of the fashion industry.
The principle behind this is called crowdsourcing and is used in
many other economic sectors too. Here the creativity and the skills
of Internet users are integrated into processes that have formerly
been reserved to specialists.
„Fashion shall be no dictatorship“, says useabrand head designer
Anna Rihl. She calls her Vienna-based startup “Mo-demokratie“
(mo-democracy). Users can upload their sketches to the online plat-
form and they are also involved in the decision making process as to
what is going to be produced and what not.
While at useabrand the ideas and sketches of the community flow
into the label’s collections the startup garmz, which was also foun-
ded in Vienna, wants to help young designers to take their first
steps in the industry.
The designers present their sketches on the online platform and the
users can rate them and comment on them. Then garmz produces
first prototypes of selected fashion design. If sufficient demand is
apparent, the items go into serial production and are distributed
worldwide via the company’s own online shop. Garmz fully assumes
the financial risk and the shares the revenues with the designers.
It seems that the online platform, which was launched in summer
2010, touched a nerve with its concept. The uploaded sketches have
already been rated more than 30,000 times. By the end of the year
garmz had already 6,500 users from more than 200 countries. First
products are available in the online shop, which has been available
since early December 2010. Along with production and distribution
the company also helps its designers organize their online market-
ing activities in social networks.
By means of crowdsourcing concepts garmz might also be able to
estimate the demand for different fashion items and thus minimize
market risk. “By including the users in the process we can also
create stronger ties to both the platform and the brand”, says Klin-
ger. “garmz helps customers realize their requirements and thus
even niche products get their market”. Or, as prominently placed on
the company’s website: “Good night, fashion industry. Good mor-
ning, designers.”
“
Fashion

shall be no
cultures, as Manovich writes elsewhere (remixabili- principles, says Manovich: “Both put to new modularity does not draw upon a
ty essay), developed from integrating and modifying practice remixability.” previously defined vocabulary anymore “Concepts such as open innovation or user innovation enable us to in-

dictatorship
forms and styles derived from other cultures. but any cultural object can become a volve several parties directly into the creation of an item and thus to
In his highly acclaimed book The Lan- component of another cultural object see already at an early stage the strengths and weaknesses of a pro-
Digital technologies and the rapid growth of infor- guage of New Media Manovich re- – hence we will be able to subscribe to duct”, garmz co-founder Andreas Klinger explains. “The designers

mation on the Internet enable new possibilities of col-
laborative remixes: No matter if designers integrate
historical or cultural forms into their work and mod-
ify them or if texts are linked with one another in a
cognized modularity as an essential
basic principle of the new media. It is
the combination of modularity and re-
mixability that brings forth exciting
modules – in much the same way as we
subscribe to RSS feeds today. Remixa-
bility is becoming the key feature of a
digitally networked media universe.
”
get feedback already at the design level and can thus bring the pro-
duct to the market together with the future customers without ta-
king any risk.”
 Seite 18 Creative Industries Convention Paul Atkinson Seite 19 Creative Industries Convention Fluid Forms
2011 2011

Biography
Biography
Fluid Forms is the result of
Paul Atkinson is an industrial designer, design its founder’s, Hannes Walter’s,
historian and design educator. He is currently a diploma thesis on the subject
Reader in Design at Sheffield Hallam University. of creative coding and design
He has spoken at a number of international confe- Foto: http://www.
interfaces. Together with Ste-
rences around the world and has had articles pub- flickr.com/photos/jro-
phen Williams, who specialized
senk/5328024329/sizes/o/
lished in a number of international design journals. in algorithmic/generative in/photostream/
product design and geometri-
cal modeling, he founded Fluid
Forms in Graz, Austria, in
2005.

RELATED LINKS
fluid-forms.com
n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com

Photo:Stephen Williams and Hannes Walter in front of the “Streets Clock”

Fluid Forms

Paul Fluid
Atkinson
Rapid Prototyped Automake bowl by Justin Marshall

Ghosts of the
Profession:
Open Design and Post Industrial Manufacturing
For most of our history, the design and production of
goods have been carried out by individuals, without
the requirement for any kind of professional frame-
work or system. In fact, only since the onset of the
Industrial Revolution has the design of a product be-
come so divorced from its manufacture and a heavi-
ly regulated process of production, distribution and
consumption been put in place. As manufacturing
technology progressed, and world-wide communi-
cation developed, the 20th Century saw huge refine-
ments in the mass-production of goods to a fixed, pre-
“ made in the thousands to justify the cost of its pro-
RELATED LINKS
paulatkinsondesign.co.uk
Forms
Intelligent Design by Means
of Creative Coding and Open
Design: Fluid Forms, Foto: Karin Lernbeiß
determined design and the establishment of complex, Source Software
global infrastructures to distribute and sell enor-
mous numbers of identical products – a development
that significantly changed the world in which we live.
is created. First prototypes of chairs
Ironically, it is the latest manufacturing and commu-
which is strongly inspired by nature. In whose structure has been automatic-
nication technologies that are moving the processes
Our aesthetic feeling experiences natu- addition to this, the layer structure of ally created by program code on the
of design and production away from large centralized
ral forms created by evolution as har- 3D printing is actively used as a design basis of its future user’s weight and the
systems and placing them in the hands of the indi-
monious and enjoyable. The logic be- element. The source code for this will desired weight distribution, and which
vidual consumer. The latest developments in desktop
hind this can be simulated by program also be publicly available sooner or la- have subsequently been 3D printed, al-
digital manufacture, especially 3D printing, coupled
code, which in its turn can be used for ter, enabling other designers to pick up ready exist.
with the open distribution network of the Internet,
product design. In this way a favorable the basic logic and use it for their own
mean that there is no longer a need for a design to be
impression is automatically created. work. Over time such software functions

the world is duction, or for that design to be the result of professi-

n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com makes use of this
principle as a starting point for all its
onal design activity.
changing products, which manifests itself imme-
diately in a very natural aesthetics. At
once more. the same time the source code for the
More and more frequently, program
code is becoming the logical material
for the definition of three-dimensional
shapes. If the code serves its purpose
will take on more and more complex
tasks. Thus some kind of intelligent
aesthetics will take shape which gives
form to the desired function at the
touch of a button. In this respect the

” products is made publicly available.

Paul Atkinson Fluid Forms, in turn, uses geodata as a
starting point for very individual jewel-
to be continued on page 20 ry. This too contributes to an aesthetics
well and is made available to other
creative coders, there is a good chance
designer’s job will be increasingly to
work out the right definitions of task
that the latter combine it with addition- and the appropriate framework condi-
al functions. So a virtual toolbox, so tions.
to speak, for various design purposes
Seite 20 Creative Industries Convention Paul Atkinson Seite 21 Creative Industries Convention Evan Jones
2011 2011

Biography
continued from page 18
Evan Jones works in Brisbane, Australia;
he completed an honours degree in Mathema-
tics at the University of Queensland. He tra-

Paul
velled to Cambridge University on scholarship
and completed a PhD in Mathematics and
studied Architecture at Kings College. Evan

Atkinson
Jones is a talented software engineer and
recently he has focused on producing collages
from large sets of digital images provided by
flickr.

Collage of 200 pictures under CC-by flickr

www.flickr.com/photos/28594411@N06/

Evan
- What happens when there are no ‘standard’, identi- RELATED LINKS
cal products to purchase? evanjones.com.au

Jones
- What happens when the professional designer has
little control over the appearance of products?
- Should professionally mass-produced and non-
professional, individually designed products be
valued differently?
- Does the fact that the consumer is involved in the Future Factories Lampadina Mutanta luminaire by Lionel Dean

creation of a product detract from or add to its value?

I started to explore these questions through running
two Post Industrial Manufacturing research proj-
ects, Automake and FutureFactories. Both of these
systems utilize computer generated random elements
and consumer decision-making processes within flex-
ible schemes defined by a designer and a craftsman/
maker. The results have changed the perceptions of
consumers towards the products that they create and
the processes of design, as well as their perceptions of
their own capabilities. The systems not only liberate
the designer from the sterile perfection of the manu-
factured form, but also free the consumer from the
dictatorship of owning identical products. Clearly,
Post Industrial Manufacturing systems will change
the meaning of design.
Photo: Automake user with printed bowl
by Justin Marshall
INTELLIGENT
FORMAL LANGUAGE
The boundaries between professional and amateur
design (or to put it another way, between designer
and user) are quickly being eroded. The bar has been
raised from “co-design” and “user-centred design”
processes as now, the designer and user are essenti- The first part of the process is to obtain
ally one and the same thing. We are entering a post- or create a suitable target image.  This
professional era of open design. We are far closer is the image that I attempt to recreate
than might be thought to a position where high-qua- in the large scale of the collage.  It usu-
lity products, indistinguishable from those produced ally takes quite a bit of time and invol-
professionally, can be downloaded, adapted and man- ves trawling image galleries for some-
ufactured by anybody, anywhere, in any material. thing suitable.  A lot of images simply
This not only changes the way we think about design will not work or not be interesting
practice and the consumption of design, but the way when reproduced as a collage. I also
we need to teach design to future designers. often look for specific characteristics
with which I can test new ideas.
In order to maintain a significant role in the design  
and production of goods, professional designers will After I am happy with the target
have to lose their egos and change their role from the image, I start matching the component
design of finished products to the creation of systems images to the target.  I do this using
that will give people the freedom to create high qual- software tools I have been writing for
ity designs of their own; systems which free the user the last couple of years.  Essentially the
from requiring specialist skills in design, yet which software runs through a large library
produce results retaining the designer’s original in- of potential components and chooses
tention. The better a particular designer’s system the one that is closest to the underlying
works, the more successful that designer will be. De- image.
signers unwilling to change risk becoming ghosts of  
the profession. In this stage I will typically set restric-
tions to regions of the target image
on how the matches can be made. For
example, in some areas I am happy to
match larger images with little rota-
tions, while in other areas I may want to
allow for much smaller images, great-
er rotations and maybe even adjust-
ments to the color channels.  These
choices affect how closely or loosely
the underlying image is reproduced,
and on the other hand, how easy it is to
view the component image.  These sorts
of choices allow me to accentuate some
areas and make artistic decisions about
the final image.
 
This process can take anywhere be-
tween a couple of days and a few
months to complete, a lot of this is just
the computer processing time.  For my
collages I will run anywhere between
a dozen and a hundred matching rou-
tines.
 
When I am happy with the matching
between components and the target I
will then generate the final image.  This
involves going back the original
component images and performing
whatever transformation that are requi-
red – rotations, scaling, cropping, color
tweaks, etc – and then layering them
into the final image.  Over the years
I have written quite a few routines for
doing this final rendering so I will of-
ten make ten or twenty images using
various different approaches before I
am happy with the final result.
 
Typically I will use between two hun-
dred and six hundred component ima-
ges to create a collage.  These will come
from a library of over fifty thousand
images from more than four thousand
photographers. I developed my library
from Flickr images which have been
offered under the CC Attribution licen-
se.  So when I post my collages I also
put appropriate acknowledgements to
all the artists whose work I have used.
 
From a purely logistical level, being
able to use the CC licensed images
has made the whole project feasible.  I
would have almost certainly not got
nearly as far as I have if I had to rely
on my own and friends, images.  It is
also invaluable from an artistic point
of view, because what I can show is not
just my work but a synthesis of crea-
tivity from hundreds of other artists.  I
aim to generate synergy, something I
consider to be the fundamental goal for
this type of work.
Seite 22 Creative Industries Convention
2011
Biography
Gerin Trautenberger,is a
trained product and furni-
ture designer and has been
working as a designer, writer
and curator for net culture
projects since 1992. In 2005
he founded the design collec-
tive Microgiants. Moreover,
he is vice chairman of creativ
wirtschaft austria.
Gerin
Trautenberger
Creative Commons Basics
The emergence of Creative Commons licenses (CC)
and the Creative Commons movement have to be un-
derstood as closely related to the massive growth of
the Internet and the currently newly developed col-
laborative forms of work. Digitization and the easy
exchange of texts and images mark a paradigm shift
with regard to copying and the way we deal with copy-
righted works.
The creation (Schöpferprinzip, a central principle of
German copyright law) of a work is in principle pro-
tected by national and international copyright law
and does not need any separate registration. What is
regulated there, is first and foremost authorship and
not the various ways of using a work. Usage rights
for a work must always be negotiated separately, of-
ten with the help of lawyers. These conditions often
stand in the way of free, flexible and straightforward
communication between creative people.
The core of copyright as we know it today is more
than 150 years old. Today’s copyright too cannot keep
pace with the social and technological developments
and needs to be adapted in fundamental ways. For
this reason the CC principle was developed in the
USA in 2001. Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at
the Stanford Law School, contributed substantially
to the implementation of the concept and today it is
supported by a broad Creative Commons movement.
Gerin Trautenberger
RELATED LINKS
microgiants.com
CC enables the creator of a work to predefine dif-
ferent licensing possibilities on a step-by-step basis.
Thus exchanging and using licenses can be simpli-
fied significantly – and without any tedious license
research or contract negotiations. So everybody can
freely use a work, or the licensing rights can be re-
stricted for further usage (see illustration below). Yet
CC also provides the possibility to specify the com-
mercial usage of a work.
“ that has been publishing standardized license texts for copyright-
TO ALLOW ARTISTS, CREATORS,
TEACHERS, JOURNALISTS AND
SCIENTISTS TO SHARE THINGS IN
A SIMPLE AND LAWFUL MANNER
USING THE OPEN NETWORK
PROVIDED BY THE INTERNET.
”
Yoichi Ito
Only the use of Creative Commons or related software
licenses, such as GNU-GPL, facilitates the creation
of complex collaborative projects such as LINUX or
other open source projects. But Creative Commons
does not only help create social works of art but is
also a tool for working in small groups or on/with the
Internet.
Seite 23 Creative Industries Convention
2011
Markus
Beckedahl/
Andrea
Goetzke
Creative Commons
iN Open Design
RELATED LINKS
newthinking-communications.de
In digital design communities Creative Commons licenses were al-
ready in use at a rather early stage, e.g. for sharing clip art images,
graphics or photos on platforms such as flickr.com. Yet what is re-
ally interesting are the first steps out into the material design world
of real objects. More and more projects, experiments and examples
for how the open source idea can be carried over into the real world
can be subsumed under the notion of “open design”.
Creative Commons is a US-based non government organization
ed content since 2001. What is so special about it is the fact that
these licenses have meanwhile been adapted to the respective na-
tional copyright laws in more than 50 countries and their clauses
and freedoms are in force everywhere. The person who takes center
stage is the creator, who can grant certain freedoms to use his or her
work. With the help of a license kit the creator chooses if the work
can be used commercially or non-commercially, if it can be remixed
or not and if the same conditions shall apply for the remixes (i.e. any
resulting copies or adaptations are also bound by the same licens-
ing agreement) as specified in the copyleft principle from the world
of free software. The only condition in all six Creative Commons
licenses is the following: The creator must always be named as a
source. Free software with its manifold licenses has been the model
for the idea of Creative Commons licenses. “All rights reserved” of
classic copyright has turned into “Some rights reserved”. So crea-
tors can enter their works into a large shared pool of knowledge and
creativity, and in the best case scenario, the works can be further
processed without any further inquiry and additional agreements.
Photos: Markus Beckedahl, Andrea Goetzke
Biography
Markus Beckedahl is a co-founder of newthinking commu-
nications GmbH and as such a consultant on many issues of our
digital society and online strategies. In collaboration with Andrea
Goetzke, who is responsible for international collabo-rations and
works as a copywriter and project manager for newthink-ing, he
works on projects such as “re:publica” or “Open everything”.
Andrea Goetzke works in the field of open source strategies
and topics on digital cultural societies. She has managed projects
suchs as the series if events “openeverything Berlin” and “all-
2gethernow” - a discourse on new strategies for a society rich in
music and culture.
Examples
The Berlin-based designer Ronen Kadushin is one of the pioneers of
open design. Already quite early he experimented with publishing
his raw data under a Creative Commons license. This is what moti-
vated him: “It should encourage designers to share their creativity
and to create a collection of high quality products.” Thus he sha-
res the objects he designed such as furniture or lamps online under
a non-commercial CC license. Owners and users of a laser cutter
can manufacture the products using the digital template, e.g. laser
machining them from a steel sheet and manually forming the final
product. In this way computer-controlled production technologies
and manual work go hand in hand.
The CC-BY-NC license grants the right to use for private (non-com-
mercial) purposes if all derivative works are shared under a license
identical to the license that governs the original work. If you want
to commercially produce the objects, you have to conclude a con-
tract with the designer.
ronen-kadushin.com/
Yet Kadushin mainly produces and distributes his objects in a con-
ventional manner. Publicly sharing the designs under a CC license
is just an additional distribution channel. Along with the crea-
tions of other designers his works are available on platforms such
as “Movisi – The inspirational furniture store”. The raw designs
can be found on his website, but also on platforms such as “flexible
stream”.
Digital distribution of the designs under a CC license facilitates de-
centralized production and distribution. Thus the designs can be
found in countries where designers otherwise would have never ex-
ported their products nor would have advertised for themselves. So
if somebody finds a design there and is interested in producing it, he
or she can experiment with the design for a start and then possibly
agree on jointly producing it with the designer.
to be continued on page 25
Seite 24 Creative Industries Convention Seite 25 Creative Industries Convention Markus Beckedahl / Andrea Goetzke
2011 2011

biografie
Hannes Walter Due to his childhood ex-
perience in his father’s smithy Hannes Walter Continued from page 23
RELATED LINKS has always been highly interested in the crafts.
fluid-forms.com As a trained electrical engineer he discovered openwear.org
the possibilities of huge laser-cutting facilities Pamoyo also supports the openwear

Markus
when working as a 3D CAD designer. After
community. Openwear is a platform
working in product development in the footwear
industry for a while he studied Media Design. experimenting with new collaborative

Beckedahl/
That’s when he joined the real and virtual world and open approaches to both the pro-
to launch www.fluid-forms.com. As one of the
duction and distribution of fashion.
two co-founders and CEO of the company he

Andrea
is responsible for product development and For this openwear worded their own

Hannes
Photo: Karin Lernbeiß organization. For this reason he is particularly license, which is similar to the CC li-

Goetzke
interested in digital production processes and
creatively linking up different people and fields
censes, but in addition aims at esta-
of research. blishing an open and collaborative
openwear brand. For example, you are Software and platforms for docu-
obliged to publish a derivative design mentation, sharing and collaborative

Walter
in the openwear community. This is
part of this specific agreement (http://
openwear.org/info/license). http://fa-
shionreloaded.com/
Pamoyo.com
ible, aesthetically appealing and economically viable. An essential The Berlin-based label Pamoyo in- arduino.cc
element of such design systems can be found on e.g. fluid-forms.com troduces the ideas of open design into The Arduino project is becoming
further development of designs for ob-
jects, hardware and fashion are vital
tools in the open design process. A lot
is still up-and-coming. Such software
tools and platforms should, on the one
hand, enable us to come up with doc-
umentation of a plan that facilitates

Designer and or n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com: the intuitive and easy-to-use user interfaces.

With their help the customers become the co-designers of their in-
the world of fashion. It aims at creating
sustainably produced fashion based on
more and more popular among design-
ers and artists. The platform consists of
its full reproduction but, on the other,
allow for the creation of derivative de-
a little more dividual products. When the program logic, as in the case of n-e-r- public domain patterns and designs. hardware and software and has been signs. Last but not least, they should
v-o-u-s.com, is published under an appropriate Creative Commons “Live green, look good“ is Pamoyo’s developed further as an open source be able to handle authorship issues.
license, the open source software and open design cycle comes full motto, and Pamoyo wants to be more project since 2001. Its core elements are (Which change was added by which
Within the present economic system no individual designer piece is circle as this code can also be copied and manipulated ad libitum. than just a fashion label. “For all those a simple microcontroller which can be user?)
in demand but rather a product that solves a problem for as many As it is all about free production data the democratization of pro- who want to create their own fashion triggered with a rather simple develop-
customers as possible. The digital revolution has led to a total virtu- duction plays an important role. In the current post-industrial rev- patterns instructions are available as ment environment. While the develop- makerbot.com
alization where knowledge about production and forms are created olution mass production is being replaced by individual production to produce one’s own favourite Pamoyo ment environment was licensed under The Makerbot project offers another
and communicated in the form of CAD data. Let us assume some- carried out from the living room. This can be done by open source style; e.g. to breathe new life into the the GNU GPL, the hardware design outlook on future trends. The company
one wants to publicly share such a CAD file. Thus within a demo- production machines such as makerbot.com, by online services such worn-out T-shirt you simply cannot was published under the Creative Com- of the same name produces an open-
cratized design system – we can safely call it open design – the roles as i.materialise.com or by production networks such as makerfacto- live without” – this is how the makers mons ShareAlike license, which grants source rapid prototyping 3D printer.
of designer and producer, marketer and customer, blur. For this re- ry.com or cloudfab.com. of the label explain one of their mo- extensive freedom of usage, so that the With this device it is possible to pro-
ason a redefinition of these terms might make sense. tives. The goal is to build a community CAD files can be developed further and duce plastic objects up to maximum
At the same time platforms such as ponoko.com and shapeways. of designers and people with a sense of shared. dimensions of 10x10x15 cm at afforda-
Already the act of sharing this file makes this evident. Platforms com also offer marketing opportunities for the individually crea- style in general who are interested in ble prices and thus print out 3D designs
such as thingiverse.com, ponoko.com or shapeways.com are online ted and possibly even individually produced designs. In this way the philosophy of openness and sustai- Arduino products are extensively in plastic. The Makerbot printers are
platforms that have been conceived with sharing production files the boundaries between designer, customer, producer and marketer nability. http://flexiblestream.org/ used at art schools for creating interac- sold as assembly kits (and they are, by
for physical products in mind. If the file is publicly shared under totally blur. The notion of prosumer, i.e. a term blending ‘producer’ tive installations and the hacker com- the way, themselves open design prod-
an appropriate license, it can be downloaded and manipulated at and ‘consumer’ has become common usage for this. When they use CC licenses for their munity too has quickly accepted the ucts, i.e. they are permanently devel-
pleasure. This is the starting point for collective or evolutionary de- patterns the people behind Pamoyo project and contributed its share to its oped further by a community). A large
sign where various co-designers – i.e. designers rather in the sense want, among other things, to acknowl- success in recent years. community of designers has gathered
of agents – work on a design and good design prevails automatically “ edge the creative process and make around 3D printing technology who
as it is more frequently manipulated and improved. As to be seen it visible – a process that started out fritzing.org share their designs and further develop
quite well on thingiverse.com, this system leads to mashups of mul-
Each and every a long time before me, the designer, Building on Arduino the Fritzing the technology. The company-owned
tiple already well-functioning parts. possible form or and still is a long way from comple- project at the Fachhochschule Pots- platform Thingiverse enables users to

variant is functional, tion when I have completed my design. dam – University of Applied Sciences publish their documentation and raw
For several reasons CAD files are increasingly being created with Further activities such as clothing up- is developing software and a commu- data and to collaboratively develop
program code specifically created for this purpose rather than with producible, aestheti- cycling events shall encourage users to nity with the help of which users can them further.
full software solutions and the mouse. Depending on the type of cally appealing and reveal the producers in themselves to a document and collaboratively develop
coding this form of design is called generative design, parametric greater extent. Is it the designer’s role further prototypes. Moreover, Fritzing
design or creative coding. Here the coder is at the same time design-
economically to sketch out or deliver finished prod- is said to facilitate the creation of PCB
er and his or her code does not define any fixed product shape but viable. ucts or rather to provide help and ad- layouts for professional production.
a large number of possible shapes. The term meta design has been vice for other people in their aesthetic At the same time this platform serves
suggested for this space of possibilities, which is for logical reasons ” work and to inspire these people’s own as a possible application scenario for
defined in a way that each and every shape is functional, produc- Hannes Walter creativity with his or her designs? hands-on electronics teaching. to be continued on page 27
Seite 26 Creative Industries Convention
2011
Biography
Yochai Benkler is a law professor at the Harvard Law School
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University>. In his book
The Wealth of Networks and the essay “Coase‘s Penguin”, among
other publications, he deals with questions pertaining to Internet
production and copyrights.
Yochai
Benkler „Today innovation
is coming from all
directions“
RELATED LINKS
benkler.org
In which ways have the new collabo-
rative modes of production changed our
culture?
Benkler: The pool of people who can
actively participate in the production
of information and cultural goods
has radically widened. The industri-
al model of information production,
which appeared in the nineteenth
century, requires a high amount of
costs for the production and distribu-
tion of cultural goods. Due to incre-
ased mobility and broadcasting the
distribution opportunities have been
extended too. Both the cost and the
coverage have increased. Those who
had sufficient funding to create an
effective production and distributi-
on system could also decide who says
what to whom with which authority.
The Internet has led to an inversion of
the funding structure. Today we have
a billion people who have the means to
produce, store and circulate informa-
tion. The new productive communities
neither need a business model nor pro-
prietary rights to participate in cultural
production. This has resulted in mani-
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/Fotos/joi/538158535/
fold perspectives and modes of expres-
sion, in a new form of popular culture.
How does this affect the economy?
Benkler: Today innovation is coming
from all possible directions. Before,
innovation came predominantly from
enterprises and was market-driven. To-
day we see that significant innovation
comes from the periphery. Wiki, blog-
ging and peer-to-peer software, for ex-
ample. Today innovation does not only
happen within an enterprise or within
the frame of the copyright and patent
system anymore. It develops from social
interaction and collaboration.
Thus a new form of competition arises
for enterprises. For example, the music
industry had to deal with peer-to-peer
file sharing. At the same time also many
business opportunities arise for enter-
prises. So Google incorporated Blogger.
And Google’s PageRank too defines rel-
evance primarily in terms of what is in-
teresting for the people.
The new modes of production also ques-
tion traditional business models, which
are based on copyrights. So where do
peer production and copyrights tread
on each other’s toes?
Benkler: Copyrights basically as-
sume that there is a business model that can put the
production of information and cultural goods to good
use. This model is based on exclusion and paying for
cultural goods. Yet this is far from being the only mo-
del.
E.g. two thirds of the software industry’s turnovers
are generated with services that do not depend on
copyrights. In the music business the labels main-
ly make money with copyrights. Musicians primari-
ly make money with live shows, which have nothing
to do with copyrights. When peer-to-peer networks
shook the traditional copy system, the record industry
fell into crisis. Yet today artists have more possibili-
ties than ever before, they can do what they want and
make money with live concerts or develop other busi-
ness opportunities.
The text printed here is an excerpt from a longer in-
terview on the occasion of the ars electronica, Linz,
in 2008, which was also published in the ORF Futu-
rezone.
“ posting. The entire business model, the
We are in the
midst of a techno-
logical, economic and
organizational trans-
formation that allows
us to renegotiate the
terms of freedom,
justice, and
productivity in the
information society.
” achieve much more than only one sing-
Yochai Bwnkler
Seite 27 Creative Industries Convention
2011
continued from page 25
Markus
Beckedahl/
Andrea
Goetzke
thingiverse.com
The designs on the Thingiverse plat-
form are published under CC licenses.
People experiment with new possibil-
ities of 3D printing and the creation
of modified and technically improved
works is more often than not clearly
welcome. The more people deal with a
design and check out how an object can
be technically improved, the more fully
developed a printing template eventu-
ally becomes. E.g. already on the home-
page you can find the category “Newest
Derivatives”.
dailydump.org
Another illustrative example for the
use of CC licenses for open design in
practice comes from a small business
in India. The Daily Dump offers com-
posters made of Terracotta, plus plenty
of information on the subject of com-
design of the pots, info material and all
sorts of other items used in the business
process, such as aprons etc, are public-
ly available on the Internet under a CC
license. Prospective business partners
can experiment with the material; if
they want to open their own shop and
enter a business relationship with Dai-
ly Dump, they have to make a contract
with the parent company.
If this business is successful it can
le small composting business. So what
can be achieved?
Photo: http://www.gutestun.com/copyme/?p=88
by GUTESTUN production Berlin
* Pots and info material are permanent- These examples illustrate that CC licenses are used for
ly improved – and thus of the working different reasons and for different uses in the field of
basis for all people involved
* It inspires many people to work in the
the design of physical objects. Some share their designs
in addition to traditional local production, as a source
composting business of inspiration for others, to advertise themselves in
* It tackles the waste problem in India order to maybe establish new contacts this way etc (as
on a much broader basis is the case with Ronen Kadushin or the fashion label
Nevertheless there will be still enough Pamoyo). Others aim at improving a design by means
work on the local level. of collaborative work, as is the case with many design-
ers of 3D printers or Arduino hackers. Design proj-
But the idea of open design also pene- ects that are collaboratively laid out from scratch,
trates further into other communities. like Makerbot perhaps, are not yet that widespread.
OpenDrawCommunity wants to create http://odc.betahaus.de/
a shared pool for the creation of etch
templates for model railways which What we see now are tentative first steps and open
can be made available for private use design pioneers are drawing additional attention due
under a Creative Commons license. to a still small market which can easily be kept track
of. But more and more young designers are taking the
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falab philosophy behind open design, sharing and collabo-
In contrast to open source software, ration, for granted. Open design has come to stay.
where everybody can work on a com-
puter at home, the production of design
objects always requires materials and
in many cases specific tools, from sol-
“
dering irons and sewing machines to
laser cutters and 3D printers. Thus,
along with the open design movement,
we have also seen the emergence of
OPEN
places where tools can be collabo-
ratively used. In many countries of the
DESIGN
HAS
world there are meanwhile so called
COME TO
Fab Labs, which make tools for the
production of open design objects
STAY
available. Open Design City in Berlin
is one such example.
”
Seite 28 Creative Industries Convention
2011
Georg Russegger is a software developer, curator, media and communication scholar. As an artist
he uses the pseudonym of Grischinka Teufl. He lives and works in Vienna and Tokyo. Currently he is
Scientific Manager at Kunstuniversität Linz, AT.
Georg
Russegger
Aleatory
Design Models
My idea of design in the given context
is one of an artificial process (Poiesis)
of conceiving and creating possible
realities. But I don’t refer to “artifici-
ality” as opposed to “naturalness” be-
cause we cannot make this distinction
so easily in a highly complex neural
network of invention such as the hu-
man brain. According to Herbert A.
Simon’s seminal work, engineering,
medicine, economy, architecture and
art do not deal with necessities but
with contingencies, i.e. contexts that
operate with the transformation of un-
likely things into probabilities hence
frequently under conditions of aleatory
moments (coincidences). In this short
text contribution I am going to focus on
the question how things can be (design)
with particular reference to the human
capabilities and knowledge cultures
linked to this, which claim so called
openness for themselves.
Proceeding on the reality of sociocul-
tural everyday life which is increas-
ingly being negotiated in digitally
networked, multi-sensorial codified
and computer-centered communica-
Georg Russegger
Biography
tion dispositions and cultures of inter-
action, complexity design has now more
than ever become a fundamental and
global requirement for humankind.
Collaboration models between humans
and machines can only be perpetuat-
ed within these data and information
structures, if access and possibilities of
modification and intervention are, as
a matter of principle, laid out open for
communities and projects, so that the
complexity associated to them can be
kept manageable and developable in the
long run. Computerized and automated
systems are increasingly being deplo-
yed in order to relate human producti-
vity especially to the fields of invention
and design. To achieve this we test, de-
velop and apply smart, i.e. intelligent,
clever, ingenious, shrewd, skillful and
elegant or resourceful methods, in or-
der to put the complexity around us,
which results from computer-assist-
ed operating systems and living envi-
ronments, to good use in an innovative
manner.
Although this starting point is marked
in principle by the linking of human
and non-human powers, it manifests
a shift in the material relationships,
Seite 29 Creative Industries Convention Pre Bettis
2011
RELATED LINKS Biography
brepettis.com
Bre Pettis is an entrepreneur, video blogger and foun-
der of Makerbot Industries. Bre is also known for DIY
video podcasts for MAKE  and for the History Hacker
pilot on the History Channel. He is one of the founders
of the Brooklyn - based hacker space NYC Resistor.
Bre
Photo: Patrick Dax
Pettis
The Future of
Working At Home
In a interview with cnn, you where talking about
democratizing manufacturing - could you describe
what you mean by that?
Smartject Our mission with MakerBot is to bring the tools of Photo: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid
Hybrid program consisting manufacturing to the masses. We‘re dedicated to sup-
of subject culture and modi- porting creative people so they can make anything.
We got started hacking on 3D printers so that we
fications of artifacts, collabo-
could afford to have a 3D printer and then we decided
ratively coupled in project
to make it so that everyone could have one.
dispositions A small machine, ...
Makerbot is a huge success - who is buying this ... not bigger than a microwave which can produce everything you need for
Smartifacts machine?
everyday life – sounds like a science-fiction novel, doesn’t it? But already
today we can see what will be taken for granted in many households in the
Semi-intelligent, multi-senso- It‘s a mix. It‘s mostly programmers, engineers, tin- foreseeable future. The replicator of Star Trek, which “replicated“ food
rially networked and partially kering moms and dads, and regular folks that want to and everyday consumer goods still was an idealistic thought experiment
automated soft- and hardware live in the future. but the projects that have been underway in the DIY scene for the past
three years are bringing us a big step closer to this vision of the future.
agents in media-integrated
How do people use it in their business - or do people
interaction environments and Founder Bre Pettis describes the idea behind it as follows: “We want to
create new business opportunities by using a Maker- democratize manufacturing ... and therefore we developed the MakerBot
configurations of information self assembling kit ...... it´s about personal manufacturing“. In another
Bot?
interview, which can be found on the Shapeways website, Bre Pettis
Most people use a MakerBot for their own satisfac- outlines its differences to the two other comparable projects: “The main
tion and to make the things that they need but there difference between a MakerBot Cupcake CNC and a RepRap is how much
time it takes to make one. The RepRap project is an academic research
are a bunch of people using a MakerBot in their busi-
project and it can take a few months to gather the materials and then put
ness. My favorite is when people come up with a pro- a RepRap together and then a lot of experimentation to get it to print. The
RELATED LINKS duct and sell it. I‘ve seen everything from camera MakerBot CupCake CNC is a kit and can be printing things out after a
datadandy.net
accessories to iPod docks. People also use it to make weekend of assembly with a friend.“
Along with commercially distributing the MakerBot assembly kit, the
parts for other 3D printers like the RepRap and then
founders of MakerBot also run a platform for sharing and exchanging 3D
sell those parts on eBay. Also, when used in design designs – Thingiverse.
shops it gets used to make prototypes for mass manu-
With these projects the idea of independent self-supply has indeed come
factured things.
within reach. You can build your own home manufactory and, in addition,
you can deliver commissioned work for others whenever there are surplus
to be continued on page 30 Bre Pettis in a conversation with Gerin Trautenberger. time and resources available.
Seite 30 Creative Industries Convention
2011
Georg
Russegger
continued from page 28
attention performance, attendance models and colla-
borative relations between these agents, which no lon-
ger can be classified along the lines of the traditional
distinction between subject and object. It is in the re-
production of skills rather than in the replication of pro-
ducts where I see the foundations of the abilities which
gain significance under the paradigm of open design.
Already in 1982 Serge Moscovici noted in this respect
that: “manpower is modeled by skills and abilities,
by a code that provides it with a leeway to work in a
given frame”. In project-related design environments
(cf. Flusser 1989, Faßler 1999) this updated open sour-
ce coding of ability models and working methods is
increasingly being transformed in a way that the pro-
ject participants’ own skills become communicatively,
collaboratively and normatively linkable and acces-
sible, in the form of design and production processes,
techniques being edited and presented in line with
Open Cast objectives.
These basically highly dynamic forms of cooperation
and co-organization in project communities are ar-
ranged by information and design programs in short-
term or medium-term models in order to be concen-
trated in material contexts. Project sense is always
marked as open (changeable, adaptable, etc) in relati-
on to the respective know-how of the project commu-
nities and, due to its flexibility, it is the opposite of the
standardized production process because it is fueled
by heterogeneous skills and techniques of individual
project participants. Thus design, form and function
(with regard to the design process) cannot be separa-
ted from both: technology and medium, the software
becomes cultureware in the process. This suggests
that we use “open source intelligence” (Stalder, Hir-
sh; 2002) in form of complexity design and informati-
on design based on related knowledge cultures.
In this respect the definition of the moddr, who in
modification cultures not only modifies and extends
existing design models and systems on the basis of
computerized design and production environments
but also rebuilds and uses them contrary to their ini-
tial purposes, takes up an important position in open
design prototyping. In the course of the further de-
velopment of existing generations of technological,
Georg Russegger
Complexity design
has now more than ever
before become a fundamental
and global requirement
for humankind.
Georg Russegger
social and cultural codes existing de-
signs are transformed in such a way
that they are transferred into novel
versions or variants in the form of a
reconfiguration of existing offers. This
fundamental formability is an impor-
tant basis for further development and
the creation of dynamic norms and
standards. In the recent human design
history, which was and still is marked
by media evolution, the shift from
highly standardized design processes
towards normative yet open source sys-
tems marks a fundamental paradigm
shift in design processes.
What takes center stage in this study is
a life form (or form of survival) which I
call Smartject. As a hybrid socio-cul-
tural program of bio-neuronally and
technologically and medially coupled
bodies it makes use of cultural operat-
ing systems by applying the method of
self-design. This self-design manifests
itself in the interactive interconnec-
tion of semi-intelligent agents (Smarti-
facts) and multi-senso-mechatronically
coupled programs. So the Smartject
by necessity provides new framework
conditions and criteria for productivity
and life planning which are only over
time transformed into conventions and
values. Yet these values are not neces-
sarily subject to a logic or causality but
more and more come into operation in
the form of biographical scenography
which must be understood as a view
through the eyes of a player on his or
her game – a game whose rules can be
constantly transformed as required or
desired.
“
”
In this context aleatory moments and
situations, which can be cross-read
as synonyms for combinatory coinci-
dences and loss of control that goes
along with them, the center action is
applied in form of a ludic turn within
creation processes – which claims a
fundamental error-friendliness and
dynamics of modification in the pro-
duction processes of open design as it
places its emphasis on playing or ex-
perimentalizing – a known innovati-
on strategy but definitely one that has
to be revisited in explorations for the
future. Here, coincidence plays a more
and more important role, as it does
in all creative processes. Or, as Klaus
Mainzer puts it: “The interplay of
contingency and redundancy enables
creativity and innovation” (Mainzer,
2007). These randomizers will show if
an open design paradigm can set off
the artificial introduction of changes
of perspective and thus can be used for
constructively further developing de-
sign processes and exploring the blind
spots inherent in them. What is pre-
sently necessary for the terminological
frame of open design is the following:
To design open and collaborative alea-
tory processes in such a way that ma-
ximum accessibility of (in)formation
offers are guaranteed, coupled with
models of usable complexity, generate
globally connectable forms of commu-
nication and thus new foundations for
innovation.
Seite 31 Creative Industries Convention
2011
Mark
Frauenfelder
do it yourself innovation
RELATED LINKS
boingboing.net
makezine.com
In the last couple of years do-it-yourselfers have gained access to
a myriad of new tools and services to help them design, prototype,
fund, manufacture, and sell the things they make. Most of these
tools and services are free or very inexpensive, and they hint at a
future in which individuals and small collectives will offer viable
alternatives to mass-produced goods.
When I went to work in 1985 at Memorex as a disk drive design en-
gineer, I designed components on a drafting table with pencil and
paper. In 1986 the company installed a CAD/CAM system, which
cost many thousands of dollars per seat with an additional charge
for every minute anyone used the software.
Today, 3D design programs like Google SketchUp, Blender, and
Alibre PE are not only much more powerful than the software I
was using 25 years ago, they are much cheaper, too. (Alibre PE is
$99 and Google SketchUp and Blender are free.) DIYers are using
these programs to design everything from bicycles to chicken coops
to model rocket components. And they are sharing their 3D designs
on websites like Thingiverse.com, where other people can download
the designs, modify them, and then make their own versions of pro-
ducts using the models.
And the tools that they are using to make these objects are getting
more powerful and cheaper all the time, too. Do you remember when
laser printers, which cost $100 today, used to cost $10,000? A similar
thing is happening with manufacturing machines. Low-end laser
cutters cost about $7000, compared to $20,000 just a couple of years
ago. And 3D printers, such as MakerBot Industries‘ Thing-O-Matic
(a rapid prototyping machine that prints out objects in the same
kind of plastic that Lego bricks are made of) sell for about $1200.
Mark Frauenfelder
Biography
Mark Frauenfelder is a blog-
ger, illustrator, and journalist.
He is founder and editor-in-
chief of MAKE magazine and
co-editor of the collaborative
weblog Boing Boing.
Eventually 3D printers will become as commonplace in people‘s ho-
mes and offices as laser printers are today. But in the meantime,
websites like Ponoko.com and Shapeways.com are the equivalent
of desktop publishing service bureaus. For a small fee you can send
your 3D design to Ponoko.com and Shapeways.com and have them
print out a model in plastic, metal, or other material. These ser-
vice bureaus will also manufacture and sell your product to anyone
around the world who wants one.
Most of the things that DIYers make are funded out-of-pocket. But
for more ambitious garage entrepreneurs, websites like Kickstarter.
com allow DIYers to post requests for project funding. The next
phase in crowdsource funding will be small scale securities mar-
kets in which individual investors will share in the profits of finan-
cially successful project.
And finally, the Web itself has become the great enabler of do-it-
yourself innovation. It allows communities of interest to communi-
cate with each other, greatly accelerating the evolution of designs of
everything from amateur unmanned flying drones to cigar box gui-
tars. The Web also serves as an indexed surplus store where almost
anything anyone would want can be found with a simple search.
In the 19th century people made most of the things that they used
– furniture, clothing, shelter, food. We may see a return to a world
where individuals make many of the things they use every day, but
be connected to other innovative individuals around the world who
help them realize their goals.
Seite 32 Creative Industries Convention
2011
Manfred
Faßler
continued from page 14
3. We cannot rule out that Open De-
sign is a real but virtual cloud of cog-
nitive capitalism (T. Negri; Y. Boutang-
Moulier). Hence: How is OPEN? What
for? I have nothing against openness
beyond or even against traditional
hierarchies, institutions and power
structures. Even less if it is about on-
line structures, online/offline habitats,
neighborly web action, the intelligence
of correlations / in correlations. Yet
this is exactly what can only very rare-
ly be found on the web pages, forums
and blogs on the issue of openness
that I have viewed. I guess this contin-
ues on all the more than one hundred
million websites that call for, present,
explain and praise open design, open
access, open creativity, open whatever
– I wasn’t able to check out all of them.
But if openness is linked to creativity,
or even any variant of design – thus
crosses the borderline between main-
tenance and moderated access rights –
it isn’t first and foremost about market
and consumption anymore. Then the
inventing and designing subject not
only has to differentiate him- or her-
self from others but also to make his or
her design distinctive, one-of-a-kind
and eye-catching. And this means:
highlight it. So difference as a brand
merges into the claim for openness.
Possibly, community as a project brand
is aimed for within the FOSS struc-
tures. Yet this would require commu-
nity design – not in the fashion of Se-
cond Life but with a similar gesture.
So the question >WHERE is OPEN?<
turns into >HOW is OPEN?<, or into the
following question: Who on the Inter-
net shuts the door, for how long and for
which people?
4. Is this the betrayal of the online
commons? No. If the creative abun-
dance of inconsistency means a lot
to designing web users, they cannot
exclusively refer to openness. If they
did, some sort of design per contin-
gency or design per click frequency
would at best remain. Designers as
clickworkers? It is possible that some
of us think along these lines. Yet for
me the artistic, creative, aesthetic, po-
etic and functional decision for a de-
sign is not only more than all this. It
is something different. It is deliberate
and well-justified differentiation from
ego-consuming the big web cake. Pos-
sibly, using Web 2.0 events and product
formats is cool, at least cooler than
over-air-conditioned malls and sudo-
rific style shops. But consumption is no
design only because design encourages
consumption. Thus this phrase doesn’t
express any equation. Design is an op-
tion, an expectation; design is billions
of options and expectations. Of course,
any design plays in the world league
of promise, and of appearance. As op-
posed to the big truths and grand narra-
tives that emphasize the >once forever<
design stands for >forever for once<, for
the moment of use and consumption.
And as we deal with a travelling cir-
cus here, travelling consumption, the
styles are subject to change. Only for
this reason can design disappear and
reappear in a different shape, or, rare-
ly, turn into a classic, beyond its initial
promise of use. No openness can re-
place this. The singularity of any crea-
tion of color, form, function, movement
or use is a double agent: it encourages
us to consume an offer but, possibly, it
is also the vehicle of status advantages
within different social strata. What is
even more important is the fact that it
can evoke changes in our perception or
perhaps support socio-political pro-
grams such as the architectural ideal of
functionalism of the nineteen twenties
– light, air and sun. This worked out
because the times of the social func-
tions, the designs, and the times of the
Manfred Faßler
consumption of the living space didn’t
get in each other’s way. Design subsist-
ed on these highly prolonged asyn-
chronies which were alien to or remote
from each other. Design had his own
economy of time, although it depended
on the market. Yet precisely this has
broken away. So talking about open-
ness without considering the collapse
of temporal and perceptive borders is
something I definitely cannot relate to.
5. So how shall we
conceive of design in
real time? Timeless?
I guess this won’t work, as taking out products from
the open market randomness brings lifetime into
play. How can we conceive of design between the po-
les of offline and online? Design as border-crossing
in a collaborative no-man’s-land, or as an interme-
diary? Which economies of time are thinkable? Real
time/lifetime or real time = lifetime or real time plus
lifetime, or real time minus lifetime? What looks
playful at first is serious web culture. When we read
about user generated content today, go in for it and
represent it, we are mediators of complex dynamics
where collapse is no day-to-day event but the cri-
sis of our concepts of control and design more than
apparent. Our web present isn’t marked by open-
ness anymore but by “competing paradigms” (Nina
Lilian Etkins). And this competition manifests itself
in all those discussions about knowledge, attention
deficits, the dumbing-down through the Internet and
saving our society (an educated and well-informed
society where reflection is encouraged). It’s about
interpretative supremacy, patterns of regulation and
lead concepts. The battle for the virtual topologies,
the political and economical reach, is in full swing,
not only since documentation of the cyber attack
on nuclear facilities in the Iran, which are run with
Siemens software, has been available. And this has a
considerable impact on the discussion of the aesthe-
tics and pragmatics of openness.
to be continued on page 34
Seite 33 Creative Industries Convention
2011
Biography
Ponoko calls itself „your
personal factory“ and is a small,
but significant manufacturer
of three-dimensional products
based in Wellington, New Zea-
land. It gained some considera-
ble media attention because
of its unique business model.
Ponoko is one of the first manu-
facturers that uses distributed
manufacturing and on-demand
manufacturing.
Photos: ©Ponoko
Ponoko
The factory of the future
Not only the starting point of the value chain – such A creator can use the digital platform to present
as design and product development – is changed by and sell his designs and cutting plans of a product.
the digitization and standardization of interfaces but Customers who like a product design can pay for the
also the end of traditional value creation: production. design in the Pomoko online shop and download the
In the near future traditional manufactories and the files. After successfully downloading the files the
production of small series will follow rules of the game customer can have the product manufactured by the
which are completely different from today’s rules. producer of his confidence or by Ponoko. Then it is
packaged and shipped to the customer.
The present picture of productive holdings is either
marked by the craftsmanship of a family business or Thus the radical new approach exemplified by Pono-
specialized departments of medium-sized companies. ko promises the division of design, payment and pro-
Within these structures traditional working tech- duction. So a product can be designed in Europe, it is
niques are passed down from generation to genera- paid via Ponoko in New Zealand and it is produced in
tion or specialized production techniques become the a local production facility in the United States.
unique selling proposition by means of extensive ma-
chine use in order to be able to produce standardized
products at low cost. These closed systems work ac-
cording to their own rules and new innovative pro-
duction or collaborative working models have a hard
time asserting themselves within these structures
One project that aims to break this closed cycle is a
small startup from New Zealand named Ponoko. Po-
noko call themselves digital fabricators who want to RELATED LINKS
offer new freedoms to creators, and new possibilities ponoko.com
of participation in the design process to buyers.
Seite 34 Creative Industries Convention
2011
Continued from page 32
6. Only a quick glance on backs of books and into
digital archives reveals that we are still looking for a
coherent understanding of digital transformations of
our everyday life in the information age. The unas-
suming library in my office alone is filled with design
words such as cyberspace, smartmobs, virtual real-
ities, intelligent environments, science of the artifi-
cial, visual intelligence, networks, scaled networks,
geospaces, evolutionary algorithms, post social time,
cultural evolution, artificial intelligence, glocali-
sation, second modernity, games, e-sports, Space In-
vaders, homo ludens, screenagers, Interface I, II, III
and time and time again media, communication, in-
formation, les immateriaux, cyborgs, weblogs, social
software, Second Life. We abandon the questions that
result in these terms as quickly as we consume the
terms and some of their points and learn about them.
Above all, what we learn from them, slowly but never-
theless: The world’s experimental cultures cannot be
reduced to things, and the latter cannot be reduced to
materials and functions. Things are conceived, have
programmatic and generative kinship relations to us
human beings, and, more recently, they even think,
are networked and interactive in a cybernetic sense.
Do we have an idea, a concept, or several ideas and
concepts that might help us to explain the pressing
questions of the present life of our species? No, we are
still looking for them. Understandably. For 40 years
of digital media stand against 4,000 years of analog
explanations of God and the world, hence 1% against
99%. Pointing out that nowadays not only a small
bunch of wise guys but billions of clever friends par-
ticipate can be well justified though but this is also
where the difficulties actually begin, as these friends
have no common home, no common city, no perma-
nent territory. The digital classical age begins with
the end of the Neolithic Period. Moreover, the friends,
fans and communities are no displaced people but
fall in the categories of nomads, driven people, exper-
imental people, developers or beta testers. How can
we speak of culture, of social systems, when there is
no final test, no guarantee that it works and no perma-
nent functional dependencies? So what are we talk-
ing about when talking about design?
Manfred Faßler
7. Linguistic help to describe this
was provided by Alvin Toffler, with
“prosumer”, hence the merging of
“producer” and “consumer”. In his
book The Third Wave (1980) he respon-
ded with this term to the end of serial
mass production seeing the emergence
of a stronger product and market po-
wer of the consumer. In recent years a
successor of this neologism emerged –
the “produser”, a combination of “pro-
ducer” and “user”.
This is a response to the creative and
collaborative participation required in
user-controlled projects. In these proj-
ects information is not only dissemi-
nated but it is provided with semantic
markers. Content is created, informa-
tion and content is collected. They pro-
vide the structural frame for the inter-
temporal consumption of information.
This can be found in the fields of open
source software, computer games, file
sharing, video hosting, photo sharing,
platforms such as Flickr, Wikipedia
and real-time sharing. Although dif-
ferent in focus they nevertheless build
upon a small number of universal basic
principles.
This directs our attention to different
formats of information transformation
and links up questions pertaining con-
sumption to the product and its pro-
duction. The concept underlying this
assumes that information consumption
is commons-based, that it consists of
peer-to-peer relations and that inno-
vation is guaranteed by creative com-
mons. This comes close to the model of
endogenous growth as proposed by the
Portuguese economist Sérgio Rebelo
in 1991 but won’t take us any further
forward if we want to find an answer
to the following question: What kind of
correlations are we talking about when
talking about information-based hu-
man lifestyles?
Seite 35
wienett is an online marketplace for local handicraft and
design products. The platform was founded by Anita Posch
and Martina Gruber in 2007. What wienett aims for is sel-
ling one-of-a-kind handmade and sustainable products and
8. We have to
making them available for the public at large via sales exhibi-
tions.
find a different
approach.
wienett
Consumption has moved to the top of
the list of issues.
What I want to propose is to eventually
talk about what’s happening: about
consumption, about experimental
consumption, about converging con-
sumption and performance-enhancing
consumption. It’s not noble lounge or
seminar room reflection that calls for
the slowdown and selection of informa-
tion streams but the consuming body:
it is the biochemistry of perception, of
fun, of sensomotorics, of recognition, of
the dull or electrifying thought. In this
case switching from communication
to consumption means taking altered
conditions of context seriously. What
takes center stage is learning & selec-
tive consumption. This covers the con-
sumption of data, information, images
and communities. Learning is a change
of behavioral possibilities that outlasts
time. It is initiated by experience and
observation, use and reflection. It won’t
be immediately and easily make sense
to everyone to hear of the consump-
tion of informational group life. But for
a couple of years already the problem
hasn’t only been about data, image,
film and information streams that peo-
ple expose themselves recklessly to.
Meanwhile it seems that communities
and content networks represent a haz-
ard similar to the immense volumes of
data.
We are talking about content overload
(Steve Hardagon), content overdose
(Rob Blatt), or social network overdose.
In the context of the social media hype
we are talking of overload caused by
social networks, of an overdose of rela-
tionships. Who would have thought five
years ago that at some point in the fu-
ture an overdose of the social is brought
forward as criticism of digital changes
of the world as we know it? Overdose?
Wasn’t the social of the past centuries
to be continued on page 36
Creative Industries Convention
2011
Biography
handwerk 3.0
wienett was founded as an online marketplace for
handicraft and design created by small businesses.
More than three years ago, its two founders, Anita
Posch und Martina Gruber, had the idea to create a
sales platform for local products. What wienett aims
for is selling one-of-a-kind handmade and sustainab-
le products and making them available for the public
at large via sales exhibitions.
At the same time wienett is a community of small
businesses and creative people who jointly run and
further develop the online platform.
On the basis of our experiences with wienett and in
collaboration with a large number of small-scale pro-
ducers we created the manifesto Handwerk 3.0 for
the wienett platform in summer 2009.
New Work
What lasts longer is what counts for us.
In the wienett online shop you find a large selection of
sustainably produced products from the region. Nei-
ther people nor the environment have been exploited
for the products we bring to market. This is what we
consider important.
RELATED LINKS
wienett.at
Photo: Susanne Jakszus
- Production in the region
- Fair working conditions
- Ecological aspects
- Products that last
- Handicraft products, i.e. handmade products
- Guarantee the continued existence of the small
businesses
New Crafts
We, the wienett team, coined the term HANDWERK
3.0 in the frame of a project and as the title of a sales
exhibition in summer 2009. What we mean with
HANDWERK 3.0 is the renaissance of crafts among
the ‘neue Selbstständige’ (i.e. the new self-employed, a
term that only applies to Austria) and entrepreneurs.
These include crafts such as bookbinding, shoe mak-
ing, jewelry design, textile and furniture design etc.
HANDWERK 3.0 demands independent and high
quality design, product sustainability and ethical
manufacture. 3.0 refers to the appreciation of work as
we claim it. It must be self-determined and positive,
and it must create values – for the producers too. Thus
we ask for the end of the exploitation of all the people
working self-employed, not only of those who work in
the creative field. Entrepreneurs create jobs, creativi-
ty derives from diversity.
3.0 also stands for innovation within the crafts –and
here, first and foremost, for the further development
of existing and available manual skills by means of
fresh approaches and with a focus on their actual
application. In this respect we remove creations and
products from their traditionally known contexts and
newly interpret and develop them (as prototypes). The
final result is, ideally, a new, marketable, individual
and local product.
Seite 36 Creative Industries Convention
2011
Continued from page 34
“
The creative
paradox of design
consuming content,
the self-consuming
openness that always
aims for a new
event.
” culture, economy and society, with po-
Manfred Faßler
the Holy Grail of modernity, which is
being invoked now to save what can
still be saved? Hence, no OPENNESS
but conventional CLOSEDNESS? And
what should this be? And how can
OPEN COMMUNITY DESIGN positi-
on itself in this matter?
What we hear from the direction of di-
gital communities are proposals that
only relate to the communities them-
selves – which is logical. A little bit of
technological assistance is added to the
content overdose: ping.fm, for simul-
taneous news updates, TweetDeck, to
select the forwards of the news, RSS,
to be able to read blogs, websites and
updates in a structured way.
Yet there is indeed reason to fear that
we fail in the social aspect of the net-
works; that we fail in the social, as if
social software betrayed the social.
Shall a society which is differentiated
along the lines of class and function be
ideologically activated against social
networks?
Over the past decades of digital over-
whelming we still haven’t learnt to keep
the right distance from the switches,
ports, hard-discs, soft-, hard- and wet-
ware items, information streams and
data that allows us to switch from the
aesthetics of information to intelligent
consumption, to conceive a condition
of life organized around information.
We talked and we are still talking of
interactivity, immersion, participati-
on, deliberative or direct democracy,
creativity – yet there is a fundamental
lack of discourse around the economic,
normative, legal, ethic and competitive
condition of informational contexts.
Manfred Faßler
9. Has this still anything to do with
litics and the public? If yes, in which
sense? If no, is there any change we
can embrace? If no again: What drives
us? Which rules do we follow? Or are
the rules only options anymore, shouts
from the sewer or from the roadside?
And which options do we support? In
2005 Michel Bauwens addressed this
issue in his book Peer to Peer and Hu-
man Evolution, thus discussing what
he called integral processes of infor-
mation use. The gist of it: Leave off all
attitudes of observation from the out-
side. In 2006 Chris Anderson published
The Long Tail, which was subtitled
How Endless Choice Is Creating Unli-
mited Demand. Both approaches shif-
ted our attention to processes whose
formats are unclear or not yet exist-
ing. In a way as if the consumption of
information created the information
economy, which in its turn, creates the
consumption of information, one could
speak of integral consumption and of
“intertemporal consumption” (A. Stob-
be 1991).
This new format of consumption con-
tradicts the classic theory of the pre-
servation of the current working pow-
er – as productive consumption was
formulated from John Stuart Mill to
Karl Marx. Thus neither management
scientists nor socialists got themselves
into this so far. The idea behind the
term “intertemporal consumption“, as
used by Stobbe and others, is a decision
to save up money and accrue interest.
Hence we deal with a rational indivi-
dual decision. Future production and
distribution shall be influenced.
Yet this term can also be used in a dif-
ferent sense, i.e. as consumption with-
out a clear goal in mind, as random or
networked consumption. For this, con-
sumption can be translated from the
individual decision into a network or
group decision. This might not make
sense to everyone: group consumption.
In this way the intertemporal, prepar-
ative consumption could be translated
into interactive consumption. Possibly,
this wording contradicts our common-
sensical feeling for language, as we
are used to understand consumption
exclusively on an individual or micro-
economical level. Interactive consump-
tion focuses on networking and puts the
individual’s satisfaction on the waiting
list. Thus we have achieved a threefold
definition of consumption: As uninten-
tional storing of future possibilities,
as current preservation of the working
power and adaptation to given condi-
tions, and as the production and main-
tenance of interactive group processes.
10. Not user generated content but
content consuming design to achieve
content generated design. It is about
the creative paradox of design con-
suming content or: the openness that
consumes itself, that always aims for
a new event. So, which community are
we looking for, which one do we really
want and dream of, design and pro-
gram? Then openness means: to adapt
to the heterogeneity of both the origin
of ideas and the future of projects. So,
no randomized design but the respon-
sibility to design the forms of open-
ness with an open civilization in mind.
Hence, WHERE is OPEN? In the per-
manently changing forms of collabora-
tion between the people.
Seite 37 Creative Industries Convention
2011
RELATED LINKS
opendesignnow.org
petertroxler.net
Photo: Light bottles http://www.flickr.com/photos/fablabamsterdam/
Peter
Troxler
THE PROLIFERATION OF
FAB LABS
With the advent of digital fabrication technology, what used to be
called ‘shared machine shops’ and hackerspaces are becoming the in-
cubators of the digital age: Fab Lab, short for fabrication laboratory.
Based on a concept developed by Neil Gershenfeld at the MIT,
these initiatives are typically centred around workshops equipped
with relatively inexpensive, digitally controlled fabrication machi-
nes such as laser cutters, CNC routers and 3D printers. Users produ-
ce two- and three-dimensional things that once could only be made
using equipment that cost hundreds of thousands of Euros. They use
digital drawings and open-source software to control the machines;
and they build electronic circuits and digital gadgets.
From a handful of Fab Labs in 2004 the network has grown to
over fifty active labs with as many in preparation. Some of the labs
are part of an educational institution, be it a high school or universi-
ty, some act as business incubators for inventors and tinkerers, and
others have found their place as catalysers for artists, designers and
other creative minds.
The Alpine region has been relatively slow in taking up the con-
cept of Fab Labs. The Ars Electronica Center, Linz, operates a Fab
Lab, equipped with a small selection of digital production tools and
geared more towards playful learning than open design. The Vienna
Happylab – founded in 2006 as an innovation incubator, later hacker-
space – has recently been rebranded as a FabLab. The first Fab Lab
in Switzerland has just opened in Lucerne, and a few more labs are
planned at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and in Munich.
Photo: www.happylab.at © INNOC
Biography
Peter Troxler is an inde-
pendent researcher at the
intersection of business ad-
ministration, society and
technology. His interest and
expertise are in management
systems, such as quality and
knowledge management.
Currently he is editor of the
book Open Design Now – Why
Design Can No Longer Be
Exclusive.
What makes Fab Labs different from just any
shared machine shop is that they explicitly subscribe
to a common charter that firmly institutes Fab Labs
as a global network of local labs, stipulates open ac-
cess, and establishes peer learning as a core feature.
The charter makes Fab Labs the ideal places to
practice open design, as it requires that ‘designs and
processes developed in fab labs must remain available
for individual use’. Beyond that it allows intellectual
property protection ‘however you choose’. Even more,
the charter explicitly continues that ‘commercial ac-
tivities can be incubated in fab labs’. Yet it cautions
against potential conflict with open access, and en-
courages business activity to both grow beyond the
lab. Successful businesses should give back to the in-
ventors, labs, and networks that contributed to their
success.
Fab Labs incorporate an interesting mix of char-
acteristics that might seem contradictory at first, but
might well be considered the best practical approx-
imation of what Yochai Benkler describes as com-
mons-based peer production that gives more people
more control over their productivity in a self-directed
and community-oriented way, essentially the basis of
open design.