Presenting a Symptomatic Approach to the Maker Aesthetic

For the past decade, the maker movement—a rising interest in working with one’s hands within collaborative, interdisciplinary environments that combine a variety of tools and technologies—has been on the rise throughout the United States and around the world. In the past few years, incorporating the practices of the maker movement into the educational sphere has become of increasing interest to educators, administrators, parents, and policy makers. While there are many important outcomes that derive from maker-centered learning, the aesthetic dimensions of this work may be disorienting to educators with traditional perspectives on aesthetic education. In this theoretical essay, I consider the aesthetic dimensions of projects developed in maker spaces and maker-centered classrooms by presenting a symptomatic approach to the maker aesthetic. After providing a brief introduction to symptomatic understandings of complex phenomena, I present each of my proposed symptoms of the maker aesthetic in detail. Following a brief discussion, I address the limitations of this study and offer suggestions for further research.