Science Artisans and Open Science Hardware

Abstract

Open science hardware (OSH) are prototypes of laboratory instruments that use open source hardware to extend the purely epistemic (improving knowledge about nature) and normative (improving society) ideals of science and emphasize the importance of technology. They remind us of Zilsel’s 1942 thesis about the artisanal origins of science and instrument making that bridged disciplinary and social barriers in the 16th century. The emphasis on making, tinkering, and design transcends research, reproducibility, and corroboration in science and pushes to the forefront educational, emancipatory, and aesthetic and exploratory uses. I will use two recent projects, OpenDrop electrowetting platform and Open Source Estrogen that make but also reflect OSH’s playful, expressive, and performative strategies and define the present practices as “artisanal science.” These hybrid and ambiguous practices bridge divides between present disciplines and skills but they also define science as an everyday activity directly connected to the private and public interests of the citizens. To describe this epistemic and normative ambiguity of artisanal science, I employ Hannah Arendt’s 1958 critique of homo laborans and homo faber and claim that science artisans (citizen scientists, geeks, makers, and hackers) offer an alternative to professionalization of science as practiced in the university and R&D laboratories. Science artisans design and build instruments to engage in civic “vita activa” over instruments but also leisurely “otium” outside of the work and science labor. OSH in this sense empowers individuals and communities to explore new connections between scientific practices, public actions, and private interests (leisure). The science artisans strive for and explore sovereignty, dignity, and freedom in an age immersed in science and technology controversies by bridging the divides between art, science, engineering, and humanities.

Towards FAIR Principles for Open Hardware

“…Hardware is generally less documented than software, even though consistent documentation is crucial for complete and accurate OH [13,46]. Bonvoisin et al referred to the completeness of OH documentation in terms of the freedoms of FOSS: freedom to study can be exercised by the schematics publication (see Fig.…”

Abrir la ciencia para cambiar el mundo

“…Y lo vamos a hacer de la mano de H. Lefebvre (1996), reclamando un novedoso derecho a infraestructuras (Corsín, 2013). Bien entendido que nunca caeremos en la tentación de considerarlas neutrales, pues abunda una literatura de naturaleza postcolonial que nos urge a construirlas inclusivas (Okune, 2018;Kera, 2017).…”

"Short on time and big on ideas": Perspectives from Lab Members on DIYBio Work in Community Biolabs

“…In the years after the launch of DIYbio.org in 2008, community biolab spaces were launched in the US and internationally [19,46]. DIYbio has been suggested, among other things, as a movement to forge "bottom-up" [41] pathways to knowledge production and technology creation, as well as a movement to critique institutional technoscience [40], or both at once [71]. Unlike institutional technoscience, DIYbio tends to embrace the aesthetic qualities of laboratory biology practices, recognizing the meaning and value these qualities bring to biological knowledge making and blurring the lines between bioscience and bioart [41,72].…”