Published by : Em

Maximum Nerdery at EMF Camp and Nine Worlds

I spent the past couple of weekends getting my geek on at Electromagnetic Field, a camping festival for hackers and makers, and Nine Worlds, a fan culture convention that covers everything from Joss Whedon to roller derby. EMF camp has been running every two years since 2012 but I’d never made it along before: it’s

Bridging the Gulf: The New Era of Art/Science Collaborations

One of my favourite things about the maker community is how it brings artists and scientists together under the same banner. I recently spoke to a few artists who are collaborating with scientists in more traditional locations—in labs, in libraries, in research groups—to find out more about their work and how collaborations between art and

Seriously, Why Do We Still Have Different Academy Awards for Male and Female Actors?

I hate gender-specific job titles with the power of a thousand suns. As well as perpetuating the idea that there are only two genders that everyone has to fit themselves into, it seems so derogatory to shove an ‘-ess’ on the end of a regular job title just because somebody who identifies as a woman

Thinking About the Past, Present and Future of the Maker Movement

A strong thread of reflexivity has run through the maker movement since its birth around a decade ago in the mid-2000s. Neil Gershenfeld, creator of the first FabLab at MIT, heralded personal fabrication as a “coming revolution on your desktop”; Cory Doctorow tempered this with a utopian/dystopian (and just barely fictional) vision of making in

Brighton Mini Maker Faire 2015 Production Review

This year’s Brighton Mini Maker Faire was produced on somewhat of a shoestring, with reduced funding available both from public grants and from private sponsorship compared to some previous years. Despite this we were able to produce our core event (minus a few bonuses) and attract a wide range of makers from many and varied