From Mind to Matter

ID: 050406.1416

I was listening to Neil Gershenfeld's 28 March 2005 talk at the Library of Congress, From the Library of Information to the Library of Things. It was an amalgam of his October 2004 article in Scientific American, The Internet of Things, and bits of his forthcoming book, FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop — From Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication.

What Gershenfeld's been prototyping is a desktop fabrication unit; a "fab lab." It consists of software to create three-dimensional images, then translate those images into instructions for a laser-based device to create corresponding real-world objects. If you can imagine a shape, it can be created.

This is a revolution. Even if I think of a simple one-part object, such as a spoon, while I can draw my vision of it, I have no skills to create it as a real-world object. I don't know how to bend metal, run a lathe, or operate other equipment to produce a symmetrical, curved, rigid shape. At best, I could hire a machinist to do the work for me, but at a cost that inhibits me from experimenting; trying different designs.

In some respects, this mirrors pre-desktop publishing; before the internet. There was a time, not so long ago, when publishing one's work involved layers of complexity — editors, publishers, printers, binders, gallery owners, record executives, movie producers, film developers, and the like — that effectively barred entrance to many voices. I am always reminded of Edgar A. Poe's remarks about anastatic printing — an early type of photocopying:

… authors will perceive the immense advantage of giving their own manuscripts directly to the public without the expensive interference of the type-setter, and the often ruinous intervention of the publisher. All that a man of letters need do will be to pay some attention to legibility of manuscript, arrange his pages to suit himself, and stereotype them instantaneously, as arranged. He may intersperse them with his own drawings, or with anything to please his own fancy, … In the new régime the humblest will speak as often and as freely as the most exalted, and will be sure of receiving just that amount of attention which the intrinsic merit of their speeches may deserve.

Now add to that, things. It won't be just words, sounds, images, and video, but things — tangible things you can hold in your hand — that we'll be exchanging. I'll create an earring, publish fabricating instructions on the internet, where you and others download those instructions to make wearable copies. Can you imagine?

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