Maker Faire
2010-05-24 03:05:51.036241+00 by Dan Lyke 0 comments
Had a fun time at Maker Faire, it was awesome to see Diane again after sooo many years, and sit and chat with Shawn and Katrina. And I enjoyed it and don't want to take anything away from it, we were blown away by the Bulatov Abstract Creations Wooden Sculptures, it was awesome to see the Spark Fun booth that I didn't feel comfortable asking after folks who I may know there (does Brennen work there?), seeing the ELEN 4193 guys screenprinting EL displays was way cool, it was a worthwhile day, and yet...
I wrote on my FaceTwit feed that "Maker Faire = Burning Man + vendors - environment - nudity."
I first had this feeling of unease at the Crucible Fire Arts Fest a few years ago, there was a guy with a beautifully restored old CASE steam tractor, may very well be the same one that was at Maker Faire today, and I thought "cool", but I'd also been to visit my sister in Ohio and had seen row upon row of such devices at the Threshers convention.
And for every person who put a washtub around a fat-old-people scooter and turned it into a mobile cupcake, which was very cute, there are ten people welding up last minute repairs at the dirt track on a a Saturday night.
The activities at Maker Faire are very cool, and I want to see more of them, but there's only so much steampunk I can take, and the whole thing seems to me a symptom of a deeper issue. Our grandparents' generation had these things called "hobbies". In many areas of the country they still do these things, still build mechanical contraptions, still sew and embroider, they compost and grow stuff and...
Yeah, TV took over a lot of that, but...
...and it seems like the Maker Faire is a subset of the world in which that element has dwindled to the point where it happens only alongside steampunk cosplayers. So I hope that the throngs go home and bolt something together, and do something that actually involves building and creating. And I don't want to be angry at the Maker Faire because I want to celebrate the creativity and amazing that was happening there, but I'm unsettled about it.
And maybe that's the hallmark of good art.