Reconfiguring the Playful Maker

While “maker culture” is usually closely linked to recent technological developments, it is also, at it’s heart, a playful approach to the act of creation. You might think making is fun because of 3D printers, laser cutters and robots, but the primary attraction is the opening up of new arenas for playfulness. Making is rarely very interesting when it’s controlled, when you follow a manual or when the outcome is predetermined, but rather when you tinker, explore, experiment – and play.

Making is not only tied to new digital technologies, but also takes on a variety of analogue forms – people have always engaged in creating and making. As argued by David Gauntlett, the importance of making and everyday creativity is often overlooked, and this is problematic because in the playful processes of making we rethink and reconfigure the ways in which we connect with and shape the world. The playful maker thus holds great social and even political significance

You will find several areas in Dokk1, where you can engage in playful creation with everything from cardboard to bits and pixels, and in a number of workshops and playful events we explore the ways in which making is a way of “dealing with the world”.