"The idea is to take stuff out of the everyday world and demystify it in the making of it. That's incredibly powerful. It still enthralls me now and enthralls other people, too."
Chris Hackett (or just Hackett) – artist, engineer, TV personality, editor, but most importantly, maker – sits across from me with big, bulging eyes scanning the room, his dusty elbows planted on a work table littered with pliers, drills, scrap metal and a pack of Marlboro Reds.
"The maker movement isn't about the mighty maker on the hill. It's about the maker space. It's about a group," he adds.
Hackett, 43, is part of the rapidly exanding maker movement. A founding member of a somewhat-organized conglomerate of Brooklyn makers, artists and engineers dubbed the Madagascar Institute, Hackett has been in the game for some time. Previously, he's divided his time between short- to long-term TV stints with the likes of Discovery Channel's Junkyard Wars, his own Stuck With Hackett, and editorial contributions to Popular Science — which have manifested into his latest project, The Big Book of Maker Skills.
For Hackett, the Madagascar Institute acts as an "art combine," specializing in large-scale projects and art events for the various and disparate members of the Brooklyn maker movement — which itself is gathering steam, with 3D printing alone boasting an estimated manufacturing growth to $12.8 billion by the time 2018 comes around, according to last year's Wohlers Report, a review and analysis of additive manufacturing and 3D printing.
Though it's directly tethered to the flow of capital and industrial growth, the maker movement and its central ethos prefers to exist outside of these mechanisms. The rise of technologies like 3D printing, however deeply rooted in maker-mannerisms, hasn't been an easy pill for Hackett to swallow.
"Reject the consumerism," Hackett says. "You don't need the tool. That could be a fancy power drill, or a 3D printer, or a computer — you don't need all those things. You need the knowledge and the experience, because that's the best way to get knowledge about physical things.... Instead of buying the thing, why not just make the thing?"
Needless to say, many have disagreed with Hackett's views. The maker movement's relationship to capitalism can seem incompatible, but it is one that has bolstered its growth in the mainstream.
In the last year, the movement and its various permutations have attracted major industry players from the corporate and technology spheres. Companies like Atmel, Intel, NASA and Texas Instruments are just a few interested parties. The ideology has seeped into the retail industry as well, with companies like Etsy and Inventibles championing the handmade retail cause. Even brands like Quirky and Levi's have joined in with their own spin on things.
But does this expansion go against the heart of what makers like Hackett believe in? According to TechShop CEO Mark Hatch's Maker Movement Manifesto, the fundamentals of the maker ideology stand on nine tenets: make, share, give, learn, tool up, play, participate, support, and change.
Hackett expresses a growing skepticism toward maker mannerisms expanding into the realm of business and profit:
"At the core of my withered punk-rock heart, one thing that remains is a deep dislike for consumerism. A deep dislike for branding and the idea that you need more, buy this thing. Spend, spend, spend! That's what a lot of our world runs off of now. That's what we have now. Instead of faith and civics, we have sports fandom and consumerism."
The words come from a place of genuine frustration. When I ask him where he gets the funds to keep the making alive, he chuckles, "mostly TV stuff."
So what does that mean for makers? With the Maker Faire coming to New York later next month, it's hard to imagine an ecosystem without small-time, independent makers and big brands present. The two don't necessarily have to be in opposition, but they must find a way to co-exist without threatening one another (or rather, to keep small-time makers from getting swallowed up entirely).
Hackett rummages through his arsenal of almost-things and pulls out a collection of handmade knives, built partially from melting various coins into wood. He scatters these over the table and fiddles with them, exhibiting the quiet confidence of someone who knows what's within.
"One thing I realized early on is that everybody wants to be a part of something great," he says, "but the opportunities to be a part of something great are super limited.... So if you give people the opportunity to be a part of something like that, the answer is usually yes."
That's what Hackett and many like him are making for — to try to do the impossible as regularly as possible.
