Hey Efe, Hey Bricoleurs!

Thanks so much for this communication―it's so good to hear updates.

For me, things have been progressing, but not necessarily in a straight
line. I left Access Space in 2014, and handed over the leadership of the
media lab to my colleagues led by Jake. This was a huge decision for me,
but, really, I felt like I had done enough. I had manoeuvred the
organisation into a place where it could, in theory, access Local
Government support and European funding, and make academic partnerships. We
had, I believed, established a good argument that engagement with free
software and trash technology, in a creative, self-directed context, could
act as a powerful mechanism for addressing issues of social and economic
exclusion.

We'd also developed our activities from simply "media lab" to that of
"maker space", engaging with technologies like lasercutting, CNC and 3D
print. Our insight was that technologies often provide particular
opportunities when they are reasonably new, before they've been fully
integrated into "business as usual"―I no longer think that ICTs, in
themselves, provide a special opportunity for change―the moment has passed.
Yes, they're still useful, but they don't have the special leverage that
they had in the 2000-2010 period. Why? Because mainstream society has taken
these tools and used them to reinforce the status quo. In order to use
these mechanisms to effect change, we'll have to use them in new and
surprising ways.

So, at the end of my time at Access Space I did a Kickstarter, and raised
funds to buy a laser cutter. (In fact, two!) With this new equipment, my
wife and I set up a shop called "Makers" where we recycled old furniture,
curiosities and antiques, and made things to sell. My conclusion from that
activity is that it's loads of fun, incredibly green, and you can JUST
ABOUT make a living―but only just! There is value left in things that other
people throw away, and the major activity that you get involved with, other
than selling, is cleaning. Simply cleaning old things makes them desirable
in a way that they weren't before.

During this period Makers became registered as an Independent, Non-Academic
Research Centre, which allowed us to participate in an EU-funded project
called MakEY―investigating Maker workshops for VERY young children. We
delivered some workshops to kids who were not yet four years old! We
discovered that the levels of expertise of very young kids varied greatly,
and did not appear to be gendered. One little boy (five years old, I think)
was so intuitively capable, he was able to instruct ADULTS who were
struggling with building and error-checking electrical circuits. It's
educational to discover what happens in an increasingly screen-based
culture. Some children had literally never handled paint, or glue, or even
sticky tape. Well meaning parents would get them an iPad, but not allow
them to play with "messy stuff".

During COVID we shut the shop, and embarked on a massive building project.
It seems like that was a very convenient thing, but actually it was just
chance―we'd bought a huge, very run-down house just before COVID struck,
and we'd planned that maybe it would take ten years to repair it. The
lockdowns and the disruption accelerated the process, so, effectively, we
worked full time as builders for something like three years.

Now, we have just emerged from that process. As well as a new roof,
extensive demolition, new windows, new doors, new insulation, and more, we
built 75 square metres of workshop space beneath the house. I am using it
to run a laser workshop for commercial and creative projects―and research
partnerships are of great interest!

Did you hear that people? RESEARCH PARTNERSHIPS ARE OF GREAT INTEREST!

I should, of course, reflect on the political crises which we have been
through, and which are still manifesting globally. I said I had put Access
Space in a position to work with Local Authorities and Universities and
participate in European research projects. Unfortunately, the Conservative
UK Government cut Local Government Funding, reduced spending on Education,
neglected local services, and left the European Union. The funds which the
Conservatives claimed would replace EU structural funds were one twentieth
of the size, and political, not economic considerations determined where
funds were spent. Funds to address poverty and social exclusion were spent,
in some cases, in the very richest places in Britain!

Has all this had an impact? Yes, absolutely. There has been a huge rise in
hunger―in one of the richest countries on Earth there has been a massive
rise in the number of Food Banks―places that provide free food parcels for
people in need. There are now literally millions of UK citizens who
sometimes need free food. Meanwhile, rents have increased, tenants' rights
have been neglected or reduced, and the price of houses has, according to a
recent study, increased sufficiently that seven out of every eight people
who are currently tenants would be unable to borrow sufficient money to buy
one. They are completely trapped. Did I mention that the Conservatives sold
off social housing? Other public services have collapsed, or are close to
collapse. In the UK there are an increasing number of stories of people
unable to access dental treatment, who are engaging with DIY dentistry.

Can we, as cultural workers, develop strategies of self-reliance,
solidarity and resistance in this sort of situation? As you probably know,
the UK definitively rejected the right in recent elections, but, even so,
the question remains―are bottom-up, DIY approaches to empowerment
sustainable in a context that supports the rich and punishes the poor?

We need to think about the notion of HACKABILITY. In some cases,
repressive, exploitative and reactionary forces are hackable. Their
structures are unstable, like snow before an avalanche, or dominoes, ready
to be toppled―vulnerable to small, ingenious interventions that can change
the state of the system. But sometimes systems can be in conditions that
are stable, self-righting, low energy and regenerative. They may not be
hackable―and it's a waste of effort to try to hack them. If the dominoes
are simply in a bucket, pushing one of them, however cleverly, won't do
anything.

We must put our efforts into recognising when systems are changeable, and
vulnerable to creative exploits, and when they are not, and must simply be
worked around. This reminds me of Isaac Asimov's "Foundation". When
psychohistorian Hari Seldon realises that the regressive vector of galactic
civilisation is simply unstoppable, he creates the Foundation, that will
guard progressive ideas, and keep them safe until, at some point in the
future, they can be usefully deployed.

The good news is that I sense (but I don't know) that UK culture is
emerging from the grinding intractability of Brexit, and Conservative rule,
and becoming more fluid and dynamic again―more susceptible to cultural and
intellectual influence. But this may not be the case in all parts of the
world―I'm looking at you, empires. Now is a moment for us to explore what's
hackable and what isn't. To fight only where we can win, and, where we
can't, to cache resistant ideas and agentive practices until their context
is more dynamic.

Therefore, I am starting to make art again, and to develop new ideas, new
tactics and new projects.

Stay safe. Reduce, reuse and recycle! Keep the Brico flame alive!

James
=====

On Sat, Jul 13, 2024 at 10:41 PM Felipe Schmidt Fonseca <
felipefonseca@???> wrote:

> Hi bricos,
>
> An email similar to this one will have reached some of you who were
> following more closely my PhD research for one reason or another. Still, I
> felt like writing to this nowadays very quiet mailing list to share some
> accomplishments and updates, and perhaps open another conversation or two.
>
> First of all, I finished the PhD (Northumbria University / Mozilla
> Foundation) a couple of months ago. I'm adding more and more documentation
> about it to the research wiki (https://wiki.reuse.city). The thesis will
> be soon online from Northumbria's repository and I'll add it to the wiki
> when it's up. I also wrote a short(er) summary, hit me up in pvt if you
> want to read it.
>
> Right now I'm still defining what comes next. I've been working for a
> couple of years with Bernardo Schepop and other partners on semente, a
> toolkit for community initiatives. It's very much a work in progress,
> perhaps at this point more interesting to trigger discussions than anything
> more practical. We're happy to test and pilot it in projects, if anyone
> sees fit. I wrote a bit about semente here:
> https://is.efeefe.me/stuff/seeds-digital-reforestation
>
> Another path I'm also starting to experiment with is connected to my
> research: creating better ways to collect, organise and access data to help
> reuse, repair, upcycle and redistribute goods and materials. I'm
> particularly interested in helping hands-on takes on second hand and broken
> things, as usual. I know there are some initiatives combining IoT and open
> databases for circular economy, but think that there's nothing yet with a
> clear emphasis on reuse and structurally designed to challenge the
> manufacturers' perspectives.
>
> Finally (not really), I'm interested in how the whole topic of openness
> can (can it?) be relevant again as we face the combined trouble of climate
> change, mass migration, platformised precarious labour, fake news and rise
> of far-right, not to mention LLMs and the like. I'm trying to write
> something about it and will be happy to get feedback from the bricoland
> folk when I have something to share.
>
> Other than that, I'm still living in Berlin and have a high chance of
> remaining here for the foreseeable future. Always glad to host people in
> Friedrichshain, or have a coffee/beer with friends in town. Let me know if
> you have plans of visiting.
>
> I think that's it for now. Abraços from the summer, and share your news
> too!
>
> efe
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