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movement in general and 3D printing in particular.
9
(Doctorow
2009
). In a not-too-
distant future, an economic downtown has created rampant unemployment. Two
genius tinkerers, Lester and Perry, help create an era of “New Work,” where rapid
fabrication techniques allow for fast-paced innovation and creativity. Small, local
collectives of Makers create scads of crazy new inventions and throw them on the
open market, knowing at least one will succeed and fund the next cycle of innova-
tion. “New Work” is fun and successful for about a decade, but eventually its bubble
pops under the weight of lawsuits, knockoffs, and poor business decisions by the
not-business-inclined inventors. As a lark, Perry and Lester build a “ride,” a golf-
cart navigable theme park depicting the glory days of New Work, highlighting all
the wacky inventions of those years. Over time, the ride becomes crowd sourced as
people contribute new items to it and vote on what should and shouldn't be included
as they ride through. The next innovation comes when Lester suggests “franchising”
the ride, by opening new locations across the country. Networked together online,
armed with 3D printers and small assembly bots, each ride is updated nightly with
new additions and rearrangements. Narrative and evocative scenes start to appear
instead of just collections of objects and are replicated across the country. Everything
seems great until pieces of a recently dismantled Disney attraction are “contributed”
to the ride and Disney cracks down, suing for copyright infringement. While legal
(and physical battles) are waged, a Disney executive named Sammy comes up with
an idea inspired by the ride's use of 3D printing and robotics: Disney in a Box
(DiaB), a Disney-made 3D printer that produces miniature versions of the park
attractions, assembled by small robots in people's homes. Each day a new miniature
set is released and printed using Disney's proprietary printers and proprietary “goop.”
[Sammy] outfi tted [his offi ce] with fan photos of their DiaB shrines in their homes, with
kids watching enthralled as the day's model was assembled before their eyes. The hypnotic
fascination in their eyes was unmistakable. Disney was the focus of their daily lives, and all
they wanted was more, more, more…One model a day was all. Leave them wanting more.
Never breathe a hint of what the next day's model would be—oh, how he loved to watch the
blogs and the chatter as the models self-assembled, the heated, time-bound fi ghts over what
the day's model was going to be (Doctorow
2009
, p. 327).
Of course, in Doctorow's world this type of closed system demands liberation,
and so Perry and Lester do exactly that, hacking the printers to accept non-Disney-
licensed designs and use non-Disney-provided feedstock. In doing so, Lester
expresses one of the core tenets of the Maker movement:
So here's this stupid thing which Disney gives you for free. It looks like a tool, like a thing
that you use to better your life, but in reality, it's a tool that Disney uses to control your life.
You can't program it. You can't change the channel. It doesn't even have an
off switch
.
That's what gets me exercised. I want to redesign this thing so it gets converted from
something that controls to something that gives you control (Doctorow
2009
, p. 342).
Unlike the previous three design fi ctions we've looked at,
Makers
was written
with the values and practices of today's Maker and DIY cultures in mind. Fabrication
9
The entire novel is available under a creative commons license here:
http://craphound.com/
