distinction of actor and audience can boost each other, as in football, but also dis-
solve, as in the Freire-inspired “theatre of the oppressed” where the audience are
co-actors in the play.
To apply this problem of participation on DIY activities, many would argue that
building IKEA furniture or choosing your pension funds follows the same abstract
machine as the DIY culture where we are offered material and tools to build our
own end-product. In these cases I would argue otherwise, for what we usually see
in this type of work distribution is the delegation of unpaid work, where we are
“offered” a lower price, or shorter queues, and we must instead spend time and ef-
fort at home to do-it-ourselves. This can indeed often be practical, but what is of-
ten hidden in these delegations is that responsibility is distributed, but not the
skills or the potential action spaces. I cannot build the full potential that the IKEA
kit is offering, there is only one model, and, as I argued earlier, I do not learn any-
thing. Similarly, I am not offered to do what I want to do with my pension money
but just to choose from a set of existing funds or banking services. I cannot buy a
bike for the money here and now. In this type of DIY the producer or sender delib-
erately limits the action spaces for the consumer.
&
To become “able” is a question of access to skills, tools and action spaces. Some-
times they are augmented with a basic form of transparency or plan that helps us
to orientate through the action space. This type of DIY and its goal for self-en-
hancement is, from my perspective, more often than not a good thing. As Richard
Sennett already said in the beginning: “The emotional rewards craftsmanship holds
out for attaining skill are twofold: people are anchored in tangible reality, and they
can take pride in their work.” (Sennett 2008: 21)
Of course not everybody can reach all action spaces, and not everyone can be a true
craftsman as defined by Sennett. Yet, the more action spaces we open, and the more
pride we can take from them, the more they can anchor self-esteem. In regards to
information and sharing, this also offers a wider possibility for raising “publics” in
Dewey’s sense (1991), and a radical democratization of information and low-level
DIY modes of production. Help could also be offered through sharing tools and
services. Indeed, services can also have the opposite effect and de-skill people, but
often consumers in consumer society are already de-skilled, and when not these
“holes” are often plugged by laws and regulations, as seen in the on-going discus-
sions in the world of digital culture. We also see it in the case of numerous con-
sumer products where there are no longer any screw that can be loosened and
consequently access to the workings of the product are almost impossible. In our
consumer culture most things are “ready-made” or “ready-to-wear”.
From this perspective, a designer role promoting skills of engagement and partici-
patory empowerment can still do good, even though the results might be employed
by any side of the ideological struggle. On the contrary, one can argue that most
often access to skills or tools is still the most well kept secret of most companies,
and one that excludes consumers from participation and engagement. It should
also be said that the “between” state of being sandwiched is not a passive state, but
instead an opening for new action spaces, if used correctly. As argued by Deleuze
and Guattari, a middle state “is by no means an average; on the contrary, it is where
things pick up speed. Between [is] a transversal movement that sweeps one and the
other way, a stream without beginning or end that undermines its banks and picks