Maker Movement: Creating knowledge through basic intention

This article focuses on the knowledge making process in the maker movement following Finnish craft professor Kojonkoski-Rännäli's account of making by hand. Basing her theory on Martin Heidegger’s philosophical analysis, Kojonkoski-Rännäli sees making by hand as an essential way of existing in the world. Making by hand is a bodily experience where knowledge is acquired by doing, by grasping and making, but it also requires knowledge of the material, process, etc. When immediate grasping-being in the world happens together with comprehension acquired through practice and intellectual knowledge, Kojonkoski-Rännäli calls the act of making a basic intention. This basic intention is crucial in making as it creates profound knowledge of the subject and also involvement and responsibility of the created object. Kojonkoski-Rännäli separates basic intention from instrumental intention, where the process of doing does not generate deep knowledge nor responsibility. Kojonkoski-Rännäli describes industrial processes, including also digital fabrication, through instrumental intention.
In this paper, I describe Kojonkoski-Rännäli's philosophy of doing by hand and then examine if and how maker movement brings basic intention into digital fabrication and why this is important.