About

A media for DiYers, full of info on labs, from free tinkering to university fablabs. A brand new website based on experimentation. Makery is a project in perpetual beta testing, operating in DiY mode, brick by brick.

Media for all labs

Makery is an online information media (newsletter, website, social networks) founded by Digital Art International in June 2014. It is led by Anne-Cécile Worms, hosted at Ekluz, 13 rue des Ecluses Saint-Martin, Paris 10th arrondissement. It aims to cover the dynamics and inform on the emergence of the lab scene: fablabs (fabrication laboratories, terminology that originated in the U.S. at the MIT Medialab in 2001), hackerspaces (spaces self-managed by people who are reappropriating technology), medialabs, living labs (also known as third places, they encompass industry in processes of innovation and experimentation), biohacklabs (the scientific and biocomputing version of hacklabs).

It is a media in DiY mode: with its small team, Makery progressively grows in an open, transparent and participative manner, following the principles of digital ethics born from the lab movement.

Team

The Makery project is supported by a small team (intending to grow!) brought together by Anne-Cécile Worms in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.

Anne-Cécile Worms, managing director

Entrepreneur and editor, graduate of the “Institut d’études Politiques de Paris”, Anne-Cécile Worms, who co-founded her first start-up in electronic music in 1999, has been publishing MCD Magazine of Digital Cultures since 2003 with special issues including Europe of medialabs, The Internet of Objects, Free culture, Net-art…, guides and books such as Art and Digital Culture(s), international panorama. She is an expert in digital arts for the French Institute. Founder and director of Digital Art International created in 2009, she sells the Digitalarti and Artlab brands in June 2013 to launch two new brands, Art2M (Art to Machine) and Makery. Art2M is specialised in the production and distribution of exclusive or tailor made digital works of art, connected objects and innovative design. In June 2014, she brings together the Makery founding team in order to create the media of all labs.

Aurélien Fache, programmer – @mathemagie

Aurélien Fache is a key person in the history of the French Internet. Having worked as a programmer in the early 2000s at Multimania, Lycos and Caramail, he took part in the creation of Dailymotion in 2004 (even though the video sharing website was still called Short TV), then co-founded the online media Owni (2009-2012) and also participated in Netvibes, a bookmark-sharing platform. He set up the APIdays for Faber Novel, an innovation agency. In October 2013 he joins the collective We love the Net that develops with Happy Trucs dreamlike connected objects. For Makery, he is in charge of all the technical great ideas and the IT deployment of the project.

Annick Rivoire, chief editor – @poptronicsfr

Journalist and critic, this new media specialist has followed its evolution for the daily newspaper Libération since the Web first appeared in 1995. In 2007, she launches Poptronics, an online media and cultural agitator in many events (Island-Cneai, Gamerz, Sonor, Nuits de l’Ososphère, ArtRock…). She provides the editorial design for exhibitions (Play Again, Imaginarium de Tourcoing, 2013, Do it Yourself, le labo des bricodeurs numériques, Imaginarium, 2012, MuseoGames, musée des Arts et métiers, 2010). She is in charge of editorial design and acts as chief editor for Makery.

Quentin Chevrier, content & community manager – @unquentin

Pure offshoot of lab culture, he was a coordinator of the Artlab (creative lab dedicated to digital art, Paris), organised the hack machine events (2012-2014), gravitated slightly around interactive communication before finding his path in the tinkerer community. Jack of all trades and DiYer himself (he can handle an Arduino kit), photographer and skier, Quentin provides content for Makery, gathers contacts, and generates atmospheres for communities. He is in charge of content and social networks (Twitter and Facebook).

Ada Fizir, marketing and communication manager

Ada Fizir graduated from Info-com in Toulouse. In 2003 she joins Qualcomm (QCO-Nasdaq) as European marketing & communication executive where she specialises in corporate and financial communication until the end of 2011. Concurrently, she co-founds and directs the association Musiques & Cultures Digitales and is the publishing manager for the Magazine des Cultures Digitales. The association produces workshops on digital creation and fabrication, led by new media artists. Ada Fizir signs an agreement between MCD and Ville de Paris in order to manage and lead the Ekluz cultural and digital factory in the 10th arrondissement of Paris as of May 1, 2014. At the end of 2013 she joins the Art2M team as marketing and communication manager. She is the initiator of the Makery project.

VNBC, artistic directors

VNBC, collective of freelance graphic designers, is in charge of the graphic design for Makery. Just the opposite of the large agencies where they earned their spurs, Victor Nioré and Benoît Champy assert their multidisciplinality with detachment and humour. Their 360° artistic direction work seduces the press and communication business for which transversality is henceforth the rule. VNBC also alternate mainstream and confidential projects such as VJ sets (real time visual performances) or interactive video set-ups.

Cherise Fong, correspondent in Tokyo, translator

Cherise worked in web start-ups in New York, Monaco and London before she became an independent journalist. Since then she has worked at CNN.com International in Hong Kong and contributed to MCD, Poptronics… For Makery, she brings news of labs and maker culture from Japan, while translating articles into English.

Carine Claude, journalist – @carine_claude

Carine worked for ten years in institutions before making a radical career change by choosing the path of a Professional Masters Degree in cultural journalism at Paris III University. She has been working as an independent journalist since 2003 for l’Express, la Tribune, Poptronics and from now on, Makery.

Ewen Chardronnet, artist, writer – @ewenchardronnet

Ewen Chardronnet is an artist, journalist, writer and curator. Since 2000, he has been broadening his activities as an author and organizer of numerous intermedia productions, exhibitions and events planning. He directed the e-book Artisans Numériques («Digital Craftmen», Hyx, 2014).

Nathalie Ignaccolo, bilingual independent translator

Nathalie, Franco-English, created NathLuke, her translation company, in 2007 following ten years of work experience in sales and human resources in high tech industries (IT and Telecommunications) in London and the Paris region. She has a passion for horses and incidentally counts the French equestrian federation among her clients.

Tools

Sandbox and information on work progress, call for participation and the will to rely on a network of medialabs, hackerspaces and fablabs in order to get feedback: we want to work with the tools of the lab generation: preferably open source, mainly shared and efficient. The Makery newsletter is powered by Mailchimp (because it is the most efficient tool to manage multiple mailings on multiple platforms). The Makery.info website is hosted at OVH and powered by WordPress, the open source CMS that is also the most solid and international website publishing platform. The map of labs (under construction) is based on databases of hackerspaces and fablabs platforms and on our personal research. It relies on Open Street Map.

The economic model

The economic model of Makery is also under construction and subject to evolution. The Art2M company is financing the launch of Makery in complete independence. The search for public funding (French, European, international) will be supplemented by a reflection on the development of private partnerships and services offered to companies.