'In the making': a co-constructed mapping and feasibility study of digital fabrication labs and their potential to catalyse cultural change.

Digital fabrication is a new technology which is growing in popularity. It allows us to print three-dimensional objects from computer files. We want to find out whether this technology can help to improve the lives of disabled people, their families and the communities in which they live. There are already examples of disabled people using this technology to design and produce objects, such as ramps, that make day-to-day life easier. We want to know if we can take this further. Could people make things that others want to buy? Or make things that draw attention to disability rights? Or make art? Working with disabled people, we want to offer access to, and training in, digital fabrication. We will bring mobile equipment to community venues so that people don't have to go out of their way to use it. Disabled people will help us with every stage of the research, and the insights that we produce together will be used to explore how people can make changes for themselves, rather than waiting for 'official' responses. By generating positive images and narratives about the skills of disabled digital fabricators, we hope to counteract the often negative coverage in the mainstream media of disabled people as passive, deserving of 'pity' or relying on benefits.

This project intends to investigate whether, via mapping current inclusive 'Fab Lab' provision in the UK, and via the co-construction of inclusive Fab Lab opportunities, it might be possible for disabled people to lead cultural change, improving their own social and economic environments. If we can find ways to re-frame the experience and perception of disability through proactive entrepreneurial, political and creative activities, the economic competitiveness of the UK, the effectiveness of public services and policies, and quality of life, health and creative outputs will all benefit. This project uses inclusive digital fabrication facilities to stage a pilot investigation into how this might happen: what helps people to become self-empowered solution makers, rather than being perceived as a passive, resource-hungry, homogeneous group?
We combine the social and political insights of a national campaigning organisation with emergent technology, applying academic expertise in arts practice and human computer interaction to investigate the possibilities for both practical impact and academic development. We believe that a number of innovative syntheses will result from this co-constructed investigation. We will:

1. Explore the concept of 'entrepreneurial making'; how 3D fabrication might place disabled makers at the forefront of the digital economy, selling products and services via the worldwide web, and/or offering their skills to UK manufacturing.
2. Investigate different models of digital entrepreneurship, co-constructing pathways towards commercialisation.
3. Extend the concept of 'critical making' beyond its current use as a design-based process, exploring its potential as a political activity and applying those insights into 'real world' campaigning. In so doing, we may develop ways to change the nature of campaigning, from the traditional model of asking or demanding something of government, to actively leading change by the act of 'making'.
4. Co-construct opportunities for collaborative making with novice FabLab users (disabled and non-disabled) who, we hope, will experience improved levels of satisfaction and self-esteem in creating and exhibiting work, generating positive narratives of disability which will help to change perceptions.
5. Co-construct documentary, reflective and evaluative practices to elicit rich, complex data on the lived experience of disability. Arts practice therefore becomes a key interface between technological developments and social change, establishing a route to impact by generating 'human' evidence that policy-makers can use to inform their decisions.

These findings will be co-evaluated and synthesised into recommendations that will be presented to policy-makers and UK manufacturing representatives with the intention of scaling up the successful elements, seeking further funding and partnerships to expand and enhance activities.