Replicator and Stimulator
One crucial concern of the age of digital fabrication is about Scale, that is supposed to be abundant in both size and quantity, and quality. The revolutionary aspect of the digital fabrication is the overwhelming proliferation that breaks through the limit of production capacity that welcomes an age of post-scarcity. When making is not provoked by desire or rather say market driving, the essence of the social formation will come to a radical democratization--that’s where the title “Digital Fabrication-towards a new political economy of matter” comes from.
The concept is persuasive, especially when concurring with the exercise 7: form making is no longer consuming. The material scarcity and physical constraint are detached from the aim, that once getting familiar with the machine’s procedure and boundary, the creation can become effortless; not mean that the process becomes easier, but the very effort is visible.
The effortlessness and the plentifulness can be the issue. I love the Interactive facet of digital fabrication, that as the Interactive Surface, it is tactile and experiential. However, as described another concern as Distributed, digital fabrication does have the potential and inclination of finally crossing the boundary to achieve production by the Network. Th outcome of that will be unique products that get ridden of the Capitalism, however, will also be extremely mundane ones that no longer about what I want but what we want. That is the network: shared resources, methodology, logistics, and thinking. At that point, society would not need a profession of architect, or any; person will no longer be considered well-being but a molecule of an organism.
Greenfield’s tone is prospecting since first he thinks it is a fantasy still and second he lives a capitalism and despises of it; However, the concept of the digital fabrication based on the network is promising based on its nature of effortlessness: I will use it for studio when I am exhausted since the method generates super interesting form in a short amount of time.
However, isn’t the art the effort? On the other hand, human’s cognition is irreversible; before Instagram coming, none judge people by how many followers they get, or do they get an account. Human’s will is so fragile that can they have a voice when digitalization starts? However, undertaking the chance of redefining ownership and changing social hierarchy, the world made of digital fabrication sounds unnecessarily a bad one.