#mayke

Yesterday I gave a 5 min talk at Dorkbot Bristol "#mayke special" about what Mayke is, and a little bit about why we've been doing it. Here's a slightly expanded version.

Ma(y)ke Manifesto
------------------------------
Grasp the means of production
 and
Make something, big or tiny, every day in May
unless
 You want to slack off for the day.
There is no fayle, only mayke

A few of us are doing #mayke this year, sharing on mastodon and discord (because of the "slack off" clause, you absolutely can start now even though we're nearly half way through May. Join us!)

I think I invented mayke? maybe? I had a sudden doubt as I said it yesterday - I definitely remember talking to Richard about it - but in any case it has a lot of history and precedent so "inventing" is rather a strong word.

Jason Marc Taylor's year long project

Sometime in 2017 I came across Jason's site somehow and just thought - what an amazing idea! Jason made a thing every day for an entire year.

"So it's a silly idea but a challenge for me to make an object a day for the whole of 2012…. I'm going to try and transform everyday objects in someway (cause that's what I do) then post the results, I'm not saying they will be any good but hopefully they will spark my imagination in some way…so as I write this there is one day left. Enjoy 2012, make it great!"

His things are lovely, funny things made of household objects. I thought it was a great idea and so for a few months in 2017 I had a go at making a thing a day and putting it on tumblr (I've since rescued it from tumblr and put them here). My job at the time didn't feel very creative so that was part of why I wanted to do it then. Quite a few of the things I made were a bit shit, but I was making lots of things and some I was quite proud of.

This time coincided with me spending a lot of time at Bristol Hackspace. When I was stuck, there were people to help and lots of bits and pieces to make things with, and the general spirit of "half a thing is ok".

#makevember

In 2018 there was #makevember. Dominic Morrow's idea, inspired by Inktober and much more fun than doing it alone. We all talked about it on twitter when twitter was fun. Robert made a bot that retweeted #makevember and so we actually saw each others' work.

Dominic thought very carefully about what #makevember was, and how to balance the momentum of doing it every day with the pressure of having to do it every day:

"Every day in November make a thing – if you can’t do it every day then do what you can, but the idea is to push yourself to work daily and with less procrastination. Do not attempt to put your ducks in a row first.

Try to make something extra – art, craft, code, robots, video… anything…( but not your lunch or a mess or something you’d normally make anyway) something different with methods and materials that you don’t often try. #makevemeber is not for promoting your ETSY or tindie page or your everyday work #makevember stuff shouldn’t be FOR SALE. Make something different.

Don’t take more than a day to make it – if you only have 5 minutes that’s enough

Use what you have to hand, limiting your choice makes it easier – if you only have some mud and a stick, what would you make? Paper and a pen, what would you make? If you only have the stuff in your waste paper basket, what could you make?

Do it wherever you find yourself – working outside your usual space is good. If you find yourself on a train or plane, at the beach or in a hotel… what can you make?

Share it online with a photo or video – Instagram/twitter/facebook whatever, you know what to do #makevember

Be kind to yourself – it is more than okay to share something that is not going to change the world or that is a little bit squiffy or half-formed, even something that didn’t work.

Done, is good enough – You’ve been locked in a room you have only what’s in your pockets and in the room and a short time to make something, ask yourself, what would MacGyver do?"

Unfortunately I don't have very good pictures for this - I'm not on twitter any more, but here's a few I found (check out that lovely automata!)

#mayke now

As I was speaking yesterday I thought - for the first time - but why do it? It seemed such an obvious thing to me to do once it was suggested, I didn't question it. But there are some interesting effects of doing it, if you're thinking about joining in. It depends a bit on your approach.

My favourite way of doing it is just to see where life takes me, very much the makevember idea, to not think about it too much and just see what I can make with what I have around me. This has a lovely side effect that everything becomes a potential material for making, you kind of see the world differently. Zool has been using Concretedog's idea of "unconscious making" for this which I love.

But that's quite hard - you really need to be up for it. And I have a lot of unfinished things and things I want to start. So this time I've been doing a few multi-day experiments towards those. Barney did this for makevember one time ("Mechanical sequencer") and Oliver and Martin are doing it now and coming up with some ace stuff (web control of 3D printing in real time and a manga translation device respectively). Mine (so far) are "Spring simulator" and "Cube accounts music (cont.)", documented here. The benefit here is to start stuff or finish it, and keep going. Interim steps in public are great with a supportive community.

Another thing you can do is explore something, maybe a technique or technology with no particular aim. Tiff's been inventing "shonkoprinting" and Richard often does this kind of experimentation too.

I think it's a way to not procrastinate, to do something, maybe learn something, and keep your creative muscles exercised. Good things I think. Join us! Go on!

[later]

I realised this is related to a book I have been reading, Meditation for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

The answer is: you just do them. You pick something you genuinely care about, and then, for at least a few minutes - a quarter of an hour, say - you do some of it. Today. It really is that simple.