I will be giving a talk at Makerfaire Rome on: "Maker movement -Creating knowledge through basic intention." I will be talking on both Saturday and Sunday at 11:00 AM. If you happen to be in Rome come and say hi!

Here's a short abstract of the talk:

This talk focuses on the knowledge making process in the maker movement. Following Finnish craft professor Kojonkoski-Rännäli's philosophy on making by hand. For Kojonkoski-Rännäli making by hand is existing in the world. Kojonkoski-Rännäli backs her theory with Martin Heidegger’s philosophical analysis on being. Making by hand is both a bodily experience where knowledge is acquired by doing, by grasping and making, but also requires knowledge of the material, process, etc. When both immediate grasping -being in the world, happens together with comprehension acquired through practice and intellectual knowledge, Kojonkoski-Rännäli calls the act of making a basic intention. This basic intention is crucial in making as it creates deep knowledge of the subject and also involvement and responsibility of the created object. Kojonkoski-Rännäli separates basic intention from instrumental intention, where the process of doing does not generate deep knowledge nor responsibility. Kojonkoski-Rännäli describes industrial processes as instrumental intention. In that, she also includes digital fabrication as part of it.

In this talk, I describe the philosophies of doing by hand and then examine if and how maker movement brings basic intention into digital fabrication and why this is important.

Our Art & Craft School Robotti is also giving a workshop aimed at preschoolers there.