Green City FabLab @ PICNIC08

Yesterday I joined the Green City Lab at Picnic08 in Amsterdam; a workshop organized by FabLab Utrecht and FabLab Amsterdam on personal fabrication. In the morning we improved the Shakelight by adding some more Lorentz to it. In the afternoon we visualized a fantastic concept called monergy, a monument for energy which started for me in Darjeeling, India.

Recently I joined an expert discussion on FabLab’s in The Netherlands organized by the Eindhoven initiative. One question was if any innovations already took place in the FabLab’s sofar. And to be honest, I could not come up with any, at least not the ones here in Holland. In India, yes; look here. At the same time, what is innovation? For me the whole innovative thing of FabLab is it’s enabling capacity to have people start sharing their personal fabrication narratives on a worldwide basis by uncovering the wealth of creativity within them. I remember attending the Greencity Lab and constantly confronting myself with the question “Am I going to find somebody to do the soldering for me or am I going to do it myself?” So very me… on my way to empowerment.

Following people’s struggles, reinventing themselves over and over on their paths towards success, is for me so very fascinating that really I can’t care less about FabLab’s themselves producing innovative products at this moment in time or not. After all, isn’t it all about the person realizing an imagined product idea? For instance Alex turning a garlic into a building after struggling for hours figuring out how rhino works.