Probing the potential of post-anthropocentric 3D printing

Abstract

The growth of small scale manufacturing technologies associated with the "maker movement" has captured the attention of artists, innovators, educators, and policy makers. This paper critically examines how one core technology of the maker movement, a 3D printer, materializes assumptions about makers and their preferred ways of working with machines and materials. We describe how existing designs can be seen as anthropocentric, framing the human maker as visionary and commander of passive machines and materials. We then present an alternative system for 3D printing, called Redeform, which explores how a post-anthropocentric framing of makers as collaborators with machines and materials changes the design of 3D printers. We place our system within a lineage of performances that have explored relationships between humans and nonhumans since the 1950s. In doing so, we explore and speculate on the opportunities for operationalizing post-anthropocentric theories within the specific context of the maker movement.