Abstract
Making is Connecting reframes the definition of creativity by looking into the act of crafting; the Arts and Crafts movement, hands-on making, Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and more contemporarily the culture of Web 2.0. In this book, Gauntlett reflects on Web 2.0 and off-line craft-making in order to form a definition of creativity. In the introduction, Gauntlett claims a different position from many other books on Web 2.0; considering it both as a platform for collaboration in the traditional sense, and as a metaphor for the collaborative and creative activities which are enabled by people’s passion and which exceed the sum of its parts as a whole (p. 7). The introduction also informs the reader about the course of the book, suggesting that communities can and are moving away from a ‘sit back and be told culture’ of passive imposition, toward a ‘making and doing culture’ of active, creative collaborations of making and connecting.
With the first chapter, Gauntlett gives a historical outline, starting with the founders of the Arts and Crafts movement William Morris and English writer John Ruskin, both of whom rejected, in their respective views, the effects of industrialism on creativity and community. Gauntlett points out that these thinkers founded a form of expression of unique creativity in making and crafting quality objects and suggested an alternative cultural practice where people can express themselves and connect on a more personal level with the environment as well as with each other.
In Chapter 2 the author follows the trail of Arts and Crafts movement to America, where the ideas of Morris and Ruskin are transformed into a democratized, open-source type DIY culture. DIY is analyzed next as a creative movement and pleasurable activity of making. Examples such as zines, knitting and craftivism are explored in order to discuss the pleasure of the homemade, tangible craft versus easily obtained, industrial solutions, trailing up to today’s underlining notions that lead to crafting, environmental awareness, domestic togetherness or empowerment that is reflected upon in the process of creativity. Gauntlett proceeds to reframe creativity through these accounts, with the maker and making in focus, as opposed to its outcomes and impacts on society.
Contemporary online platforms are explored in Chapter 3. The digital world of participation, making and sharing, and community building provide insight into the crafters and their experiences, as well as the author’s own experience as a content producer. The YouTube video platform and blogging are explored, with an emphasis on community building, participation, and turning personal anecdotes into digital content. The author focuses on the more intimate and personal pleasures of engaging in these activities, finalizing the chapter with a focus on communities that get together and plan offline activities.
Chapters 4 and 5 shift the focus from making and creativity to connecting and having social connections. These chapters provide a look into research on personal happiness and social capital. Chapter 4 offers an account of the science of happiness from economic and psychological perspectives referring to economist Richard Layard’s seven factors of happiness. The author concludes that family, community and personal fulfillment through meaningful connections and projects are the main elements of happiness, as opposed to material comfort. Relating the aspect of meaningful social connections that create happiness to social capital, Gauntlett explores the research on social capital with a focus on Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone (2000), which focuses on American social capital and argues the fourfold reasons of its decline, concluding that social structures around one’s everyday life actually affect social behavior, and are therefore essential when considering personal well-being.
Drawing on Ivan Illich’s views on the educational system and schooling, in Chapter 5, Gauntlett investigates tools that are necessary for the act of making to provide social change. Prior to the conclusion, the author provides an outline of the criticism directed at Web 2.0, positing views that suggest that the individual and effort-demanding nature of Web 1.0 is less unifying and more individually expressive. In conclusion, the reader is offered four future scenarios where communities can make meaningful, collaborative changes to institutions and everyday life for a better, healthier, more proactive and pleasurable existence.
Gauntlett reframes creativity in the framework of making. Craft-makers are quoted to emphasize their motivations, processes, spirit of community and connectedness. Switching from researcher to lecturer, from zine producer to blogger, Gauntlett also presents his own experiences, offering a glimpse into his many self-expressed identities. Through his and others’ accounts, the reader takes a look at different views of craft making, community building and collaboration, use of tools, materials and technologies, and personal happiness. Making is Connecting provides a systematic historical outline of how crafts came to be defined, redefined and remade throughout different eras and cultures. Gauntlett uses a reader-friendly language, engaging in a dialogue with the reader. He provides clear, elaborate and to-the-point anecdotes on the experiences of crafters in addition to his own experiences as a scholar, crafter, writer and blogger (as such, this book has a website).
The author is critical of immersive virtual worlds. The criticism is based on his experiences with avatar creation and navigation in Second Life (SL) and the perspectives of writer and activist Douglas Hine (p. 110). In his critical approach to virtual worlds, Gauntlett associates the experience of SL with the sit-back format of television audiences, using the analogy of the dull, unhealthy media users. However, in this criticism Gauntlett does not reflect any further than on the interactions between avatars; whereas content creators like island builders, virtual artifact designers, and machinima producers make use of the virtual worlds for its building and rendering functions, which they can share with others.
Although Gauntlett is critical of virtual worlds, I argue that the notion of crafting, especially with the emphasis the author places on the process of making, the experience of bringing materials and resources together, creating self-expressions and thus connecting with similarly interested people, is a concept relevant to research on virtual worlds. As a medium, the strength of virtual worlds lies in multiple users interacting in the same platform through creating not only avatars, but also artifacts, dwellings and visual narratives. Crafting and making to connect with others who share one’s interest can provide a simple and thereby effective frame to look into virtual worlds. User-generated content in virtual worlds where participants connect around events that focus on producing virtual artifacts, such as machinima events, design competitions or other gatherings, are some of the activities that can exemplify how participants in virtual worlds in a number of ways also display connecting via making.