Why manufacturing? Because it’s inevitable!
by Bruce Sterling

Design is about ideas. Then come words, sketches, full drawings, three-dimensional renderings, scale models — and the manufacture of the thing itself.

For decades, computers have been climbing that chain. The Internet, a tool of science, spread ideas. Words became virtual with the word processor. Computer graphics started as simple, angular, glowing green lines, mere sketches. Then came shaded images in color, then polygons…. Then raytracing programs for the effects of light, then animated motion, photo-realism, three-d simulation, hyper-photo-realism.… With 3-D design programs for objects and products, computers do rendering.

And what about models? The child of the desktop printer is the three-dimensional printer — the “rapid prototype machine.” Rapid prototype machines make scale models that can be altered, shared, modified — computer-generated models with a real-world existence, beyond the screen.

That left just one step — the computerized creation of the final thing itself. That’s digital manufacturing.

It’s here. The day is at hand. Yesterday’s Internet was a net, but today’s is a “platform.” It’s a platform for publishing, music, cinema, commerce, government… and, yes, of course the net is also a platform for manufacturing.

Digital manufacturing tools now come in wide varieties of prices and capabilities. There are simple computer-controlled saws for the home garage, and powerful drills that can chew programmed forms from solid ingots of metal. Computer-controlled lasers blast transparent plastic liquids into solid opaque shapes. Digital forges heat-blast metal dust into solid metal objects.

Their prices are dropping, their abilities are expanding. And, they’re being hooked to the net and made available to artisans in studios. The virtual is actualizing. When? Now!

In Piemonte, the objects fabricated by Provel are among the world’s most sophisticated — as you will see. The web-start up company Ponoko proves that anyone with the capacity to program a web-page should be able to program a simple fabricated object — and sell it worldwide. As we demonstrate in SHARE 08, digital artists will even program the programs that program the art-objects!

Computer manufacturing was once elite, difficult and expensive. Also, its models mostly mimicked previous forms of manufacturing. Not any more. Computer manufacturing is a new production method, advancing rapidly, with new tools, new approaches, and new ideas. Tomorrow, computer manufacturing will produce objects, tools, products and fine-art works impossible to make through any other way.

So, why ManufacTURINg, and why Turin? Turin is the World Capital of Design 2008, and a world manufacturing center. If not us, whom? If not here, where? If not now, when?