[hackerspaces] Differences between hackerspaces and fablabs

Tue May 13 02:16:07 CEST 2014

From: Andrew Schrock <aschrock at usc.edu>
Subject: Re: [hackerspaces] Differences between hackerspaces and fablabs
Date: Mon, 12 May 2014 13:29:09 -0700

> Here's my take. The Fab Lab branding originally came from Gershenfeld and was oriented around high-cost tools first and people
> second. In hackerspaces it's more the other way around -- the membership dictates the kind of stuff you do in your space. 
> 
> I've always considered Fab Labs to be overtly institutional efforts started by universities or companies either locally or in other
> countries as a form of institutional social responsibility. Fabs labs are not a grassroots movement in the same way as hacker and
> maker spaces, which arise from grassroots origins and are run by the collective (rather than deep pockets of a university with paid
> staff). 
> 
> Rarely do you see people say "hey let's go to (fill in place) and start a hackerspace" although they might try to encourage one to
> grow there. Like Jake Applebaum visiting (a prototype version of) Protospace in Toronto and laying down the first $20 to fund it.
> Hackerspace backers might try to encourage people to make one of their own but it's not the same thing. And obviously… although some
> hackerspaces embrace more overtly civic goals, that's not true of all of them. 
> 
> Off the top of my head, a few things happened over the last few years outside of the hacker/maker space community that make
> distinctions kinda confusing. First, Gershenfeld started talking a lot more about personal fabrication and less about Fab
> Labs. Second, Fab Labs never really caught on in the kind of numbers that hacker and maker spaces have. Then Chris Anderson started
> talking about BOTH fab labs and hackerspaces as "makerspaces." Third, more labs that call themselves hacker and maker spaces were
> created in academia, and people started creating "fab labs" that are more or less equivalent to hackerspaces. 

Great points, Andrew!  It is enlightening to capture categories in their movements and transformations, rather than as metaphysically stable entities.  Also, thanks for all the input from people (even the one liners)!

Florencia, if you look at the archive of this list you can see that we have similar conversations about categories every half a year on this list, and when you ask such a seemingly naive question you open a can of worms and see incoming answers every dozen or so minutes.  I guess this is because people have put thought and effort into caling themselves this and that and some are passionate about the words they use.

I am mostly interested in a historical perspective ("long view") of how what we call shared machine workshops evolved.  From this point of view, if your initiative a hackerspace you align yourself with a vibrant and yes, controvertial culture which is as old as computers.  In fact, as Levy's really really awesome Heroes of the Computer Revolution (1984) documents, the whole concept of the "personal computer" was born out of the immense dedication of the hobbyists like the Homebrew Computer Club who build them and the almost sick addiction of hackers at universities like the MIT to use mainframes for their personal projects.  It was a struggle, which was later followed by criminalisation and now in surveillance and restrictive laws.  At the same time it was also fun, and created bonds between people which went beyond sharing the tricks of the trade.  As people said here before, it is a culture where subversion (testing the limitation of systems) is the rule rather than an exception.

I am not strictly an expert on makerspaces and Fab Labs, but I don't see such a clear line of reference there, and the evolution of an organic culture rooted in the community.  If anything, makers relate to the craft tradition, which is obviously older than computers.  It is interesting to check out the Arts and Crafts Movement which was based mainly in the UK, associated with William Morris and John Ruskin.  You will find that in fact they were good socialists seeking to work with the common people against the ills of factory mass  production which degraded both people and their products.  In many other countries (such as Hungary where I was born) such "folk" tendencies were part of popular leftist movements from the 1960s to the 1980s.  They were not as "spiky" and "edgy" as hackers but had their political programme non the less.  The current enthusiasm of empowering people to make things on their own is largely reminiscent of these traditions.

Having said that, the political self-understanding of these two groups went the opposite ways.  While hackers increasingly realise that "with big power comes big responsibility", many more makers & co. tend to paper over politics, or straightforwardly embrace the logic and rhetorics of capital, and sometimes even the state.  When I am in a bad mood, I would argue that everything that came after hackerspaces is merely capitalising on the struggles and works of hackers to invent an attitude to technology which prooved to be immensely innovative and incredibly excititing, while deluting its politics and denying their roots because they don't have to figth for it the same way any more.  In the article which webmind already cited I argue similarly about hacklabs and hackerspaces.  All organic subcultures get absorbed in the mainstream and reproduced from plastic (now: additively!) -- this is one of the ways in which they make an impact on society at large.  In these dark moments I am convinced that if you are looking for the real thing you stay true to the old school. :P

I will not dwell on the topic of governance because others pointed out before me that hackerspaces would be run largely by hackers for hackers while others would have managers, owners, directors and bosses.  I would be actually very curious about the US experience about this, because I read many times on this list mails from people who claim to be "community managers" or "directors".  But I didn't have time to look into this further, since European hackerspaces are far too coplex on their own...

In any case, in terms of technological uptake I think it is true that hackerspaces were born out of the cheap availability of microcontrollers largely thanks to Atmel, as well as their usability thanks to the creators of Arduino (Massimo Banzi & co.).  The next generation of spaces like makerspaces and Fab Labs joined the next wave of major update to the DIY technology toolbox: additive fabrication.  Johan Söderberg analysed this story extensively.  Lately I realised that some patents by S. Scott Crump on additive manufacturing expired around this time.  Of course you will see microcontrollers and 3D printers everywhere, and you will see microcontrollers inside 3D printers and soon even 3D printers printing microcontrollers -- it is more about the political economy and culture which comes with these devices.

On a more scientific take, I recommend two other pointers from the Journal of Peer Production (as board memnber, hehe):

1. Jarkko Moilanen organised some community surveys which explicitly targeted the Hackerspace and Fab Lab communities.  If you are interested in a qualitative look (with 100-200 participants) about the differences and similarities between these and others, it may be worth a look.  I usually quote the folllowing sentence to argue that in these spaces socialising is as important as working on projects: "The social factor of peer production communities seems to be the key element. The results have been almost the same for three  annual surveys."

http://surveys.peerproduction.net/2012/07/mapping-hackers-diy-community-survey-2012-results/6/

2. The other is more of a plug: we are hopefully publishing the next special issue of the journal on Shared Machine Workshops, which include all the categories mentioned above.  Since I am a hackerspace guy and my co-editor Peter Troxler is a Fab Lab guy, there will be lots of articles dealing with one or the other, and some dealing with both.  I am looking forward to Peter's article describing how the Fab Labs escaped the grip of the MIT and developed in a more self-organised direction.

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