The political economy of 3D printing Σχολιάστε σε αυτό το άρθρο !

3D printing

by Vasilis Kostakis and Michalis Fountouklis


Customisation and variance seem imperative in a fast changing world.


It has been a common assumption during the last decade or two that the world has been shifting towards information- and networked-based structures, with information production in the limelight.[1] During the installation period of the current techno-economic paradigm, based on and led by Information and Communication Technology (ICT),[2] two parallel shifts have taken place: not only did the economically most advanced societies move towards an information-based economy, but the declining costs of ICT also made them available to a much wider part of the world population.[3]


This has led to the creation of a new communicational, interconnected and virtual environment from which new social productive models are emerging, which seem to be radically different from the previous industrial ones. These models are being formed by and form, disperse communities of experts and amateurs which collaborate towards the realisation of certain information production projects.   read more..


Areti Markopoulou - Towards the democratization of production: Additive and personal fabrication in Fab Labs

Areti Markopoulou - Towards the democratization of production: Additive and personal fabrication in Fab Labs

If we are able to produce locally the majority of what we need to consume then the transmission of physical goods (present economic model) become obsolete and the key opportunity is the transmission of data, knowledge and ideas that lead to innovation.

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Johan Söderberg - The unmaking of the working class and the rise of the Maker

Johan Söderberg - The unmaking of the working class and the rise of the Maker

New avenues for contesting economic redistribution are opening up, namely on the consumer side of the balance. If we are not paid for our labour, by what right can anyone ask us to pay for the products stemming from it?

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Dimitris Papalexopoulos - The 3d printing technology fantasy

Dimitris Papalexopoulos - The 3d printing technology fantasy

A knowledge-intensive instead of capital-intensive approach paves the way for the development of smaller-scale and specialized 3D printers while design software projects are being collaboratively developed.

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Sarah Griffiths - The amateur at play: How Fab Labs nurture sociable expertise

Sarah Griffiths - The amateur at play: How Fab Labs nurture sociable expertise

Where post-industrial manufacturing relies on economies of scale, personal fabrication allows for customised designs to be produced individually or in small runs, where the complexity of design is limited only by the skills of the user, rather than issues of cost.

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Smooth Slider


Re-public: re-imagining democracy – english version

Call for papers – The politics of the unrepresentable

Online journal Re-public invites contributions for its upcoming special issue entitled “The politics of the unrepresentable”.[1] From the French banlieu riots in 2005 to their 2011 UK counterparts, from the politics of disruption and contagion of the Lulzsec and Anonymous hacking groups to the politics of “occupy everything” adopted by some strong tendencies within the global occupy movement, there seems to be a growing presence of contemporary radical political dynamics that are largely untranslatable in existing political terms and that cannot be easily represented within the existing political sphere.


A common strategy of these new politics is the refusal to articulate political demands in the existing public sphere. The “no demands” or “infinite demands” strategy is the embodiment of the call for no mediation, a refusal to utter a discourse that can be mediated through representative political bodies (be it pro or anti-government, right or left wing), and, the argument goes, for preventing their ultimate appropriation by existing power structures, or capturing by financial and political interests. more .. »

Call for papers – Porno-graphics and porno-tactics: desire, affect and representation in pornography

Pornography’s inscriptions in representation have troubled feminist writers, who since the 1970s have been critically addressing issues related to the presentation of the female body. Porn, it was contended, is for the most part a heterosexist genre, and its market circulation serves male libidinal pleasure, fixing the position of pleasure for both wo/men and abiding by patriarchal, gendered and sexually imposed norms. Later, the term was reclaimed under a critical re-perception of porn, cast as a gaze upon different others. This time race, religion, class came to the forefront. From Rosi Braidotti (m.s.) who addresses issues of racism in islamophobic representations such as the documentary ‘Fitna’, to the many commentators who related pornography to acts of torture, most notably in Abu-Ghraib (McClintock 2009) – pornography becomes a ‘concept metaphor’ that haunts autonomy (the laws of the self) through an heteronomous (laws of the other) affect (cf. Nancy 2007). Similarly, in debates over forced sex-work, the voyeuristic humanitarian gaze produces its Others either by sexualizing the other’s body, or by desexualizing the human in it. more .. »

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