[00:02.730 --> 00:04.330]  Very, very exciting.
[00:04.630 --> 00:06.010]  Thanks to everyone for showing up.
[00:06.130 --> 00:15.810]  Thanks for braving the lack of express elevators, the long registration lines, the funky new badges, and it's going to be a fantastic weekend.
[00:15.990 --> 00:19.370]  Get ready to stay energized and learn a whole lot.
[00:19.570 --> 00:22.010]  So a few generic announcements.
[00:22.010 --> 00:30.410]  As usual, please do consider dimming the sound on your mobile device so that we don't have dings and beeps and stuff like that going off.
[00:30.610 --> 00:31.690]  Good time to do it.
[00:32.870 --> 00:36.550]  This is also a good time to think about whether you want to be involved in the U track.
[00:36.810 --> 00:39.630]  The U track, we named the rooms after famous people.
[00:39.810 --> 00:42.970]  The U track is a fourth unscheduled track named after U.
[00:43.270 --> 00:45.330]  There will be lightning talks there from 4 to 6.
[00:45.550 --> 00:49.390]  You can also sign up to do a talk if you're not on the schedule and would like to be.
[00:49.570 --> 00:56.050]  There's a sign up sheet back in the U room that's mapped out in your diagram and it's just back in the hallway there.
[00:56.150 --> 00:58.190]  It's known as the Madison room by the hotel.
[00:58.190 --> 01:02.070]  So without further ado, this is the repair panel.
[01:02.390 --> 01:05.770]  We have a number of panelists that are going to talk about the repair movement.
[01:05.910 --> 01:06.430]  Very exciting.
[01:06.670 --> 01:07.790]  Welcome and take it away.
[01:07.930 --> 01:08.670]  Welcome to HOPE, everyone.
[01:14.150 --> 01:14.630]  Hi.
[01:15.010 --> 01:15.810]  Thank you, Greg.
[01:16.510 --> 01:18.250]  Super exciting to be at HOPE.
[01:18.350 --> 01:23.590]  I'm just going to give a very quick introduction to our panel and then I will pass the mic to Tiffany.
[01:24.030 --> 01:35.690]  So we are all people who are very deeply concerned with the stuff in the world with mass production and the flow of goods unidirectionally.
[01:36.050 --> 01:43.190]  And one way to intervene or at least signal the overconsumption is to go in and see what we've got and fix it.
[01:43.330 --> 01:58.950]  And this is especially relevant for a hacker conference because so many electronic devices as well as computer laden things like cars have become less and less fixable, which takes away ownership.
[01:58.950 --> 02:08.150]  And I was just sort of interested in the latest copy of Make Magazine to see Kyle Wiens writing about this same issue.
[02:08.390 --> 02:10.330]  And it's just, it's of the moment.
[02:10.570 --> 02:12.770]  So without further ado, I'm going to pass the mic to Tiffany.
[02:16.650 --> 02:17.050]  Hi.
[02:17.050 --> 02:18.370]  I'm glad to be back at HOPE.
[02:18.530 --> 02:24.110]  I've given some other presentations here in the past, actually eight years ago, I think was my first time here presenting at HOPE.
[02:24.430 --> 02:28.430]  What we're going to do is each one of us has prepared about a ten minute presentation.
[02:28.430 --> 02:35.210]  I'm going to be talking to you about something that I do with cars and an interesting project I did with piano.
[02:35.970 --> 02:39.350]  And I'm adding some computers to some stuff that I have that is old.
[02:39.550 --> 02:44.590]  But one of the themes that we're going to be discussing is a question of when you buy something, do you really own it?
[02:44.670 --> 02:46.330]  And how much of it do you own?
[02:48.570 --> 02:56.490]  So, this is not my car, but I didn't want to offend any particular manufacturer, so I put one that looked very obnoxious, but it's a vehicle.
[02:56.890 --> 03:00.910]  And below, if you can see, that is a piano from the Civil War era.
[03:01.250 --> 03:04.550]  And I'm going to tell you a story about how I work on both of these.
[03:05.450 --> 03:06.750]  Why pianos and cars?
[03:07.110 --> 03:08.950]  I am repairing one of these two.
[03:09.890 --> 03:11.210]  And the other one I'm hacking.
[03:11.450 --> 03:15.310]  I've worked for the past few years accessing car computers.
[03:15.570 --> 03:23.870]  And one of the things that I want to get from this when I access a car computer is ownership of your privacy, of where you go, GPS locations, things like that.
[03:23.970 --> 03:25.270]  How much of that do you own?
[03:26.270 --> 03:35.490]  And the truth of the matter is, when you buy one of these two, and it's pretty obvious which one it is, you don't own the software that's running in your vehicle.
[03:35.610 --> 03:36.850]  You have a license to it.
[03:37.090 --> 03:51.110]  So while you spend a great deal of money purchasing your car, when it comes to what you want to do with your car's computer, if you want to turn things off or on, there are times when you may violate the warranty on your car, if there are things that you don't want being accessed,
[03:51.230 --> 03:53.910]  such as your location, things like that.
[03:54.250 --> 04:05.510]  Your car, most likely, if it's newer than, well, actually over the past 10 years, if it's older than 10 years old, you probably have a car before this time period that I'm talking about, but there are hundreds of computers on your car.
[04:05.870 --> 04:10.330]  And there's one sort of big brain in the car, that's the best way to describe it, called the CAN bus.
[04:10.790 --> 04:14.150]  And being able to access that is actually quite tricky, and I'm going to tell you why.
[04:14.410 --> 04:25.890]  But the higher end vehicle that you have, the more computers that it has in the car, the more that you have a license to a lot of different pieces of the computers and software that's running in it.
[04:27.270 --> 04:36.710]  So, one of the questions I often get, and one of the things that when I got into talking about car hacking, was can you legally access your car's computers?
[04:36.990 --> 04:52.570]  And I'm going to tell you about a new agreement between the OEMs, the original manufacturers of the vehicle, and some parts manufacturers and some organizations that really said, listen, I, you know, you may have a car, whatever it might be, American or foreign,
[04:52.810 --> 05:05.430]  if you don't want to take it to the dealer, and you want to take it to like the auto mechanic down the street, because you want that person to fix it, or you want to fix it, one of the problems that you're going to have, and I think everyone in here that owns a vehicle and drives it,
[05:05.550 --> 05:18.730]  except for all of you in New York, I suppose, you're going to come across the problem where the car computer, just having the dealer or a mechanic plug it in to the diagnostic computer, that's $100 right there.
[05:19.370 --> 05:30.450]  And then some of the codes that need to be removed from your car, once the repairs have been made, you know, when that thing pops up like check engine light or whatever, to turn that off, it often requires that diagnostic computer to do it.
[05:30.670 --> 05:34.970]  That diagnostic computer usually costs between $15,000 to $20,000.
[05:35.370 --> 05:44.470]  So for a small mechanic, he's not going to buy one for every manufacturer of the, you know, this one's American, this one's, you know, Japanese, that's what it would take.
[05:44.470 --> 05:55.210]  So a lot of the parts manufacturers got together and told the OEMs, we don't want this anymore because we, you're destroying our opportunity to repair our own vehicles and for the mechanic down the street.
[05:56.190 --> 06:00.830]  So what they did is they got together and they said, we're going to have something called the Right to Repair Act.
[06:00.910 --> 06:07.730]  And the Right to Repair Act at this point effectively is kind of a moot point, meaning it's not actively discussed anymore.
[06:07.770 --> 06:15.790]  And I'll tell you why, and it's a good reason why, but I think that we need more, more legislation on this, especially when it comes to our vehicles and what does it store about us.
[06:16.130 --> 06:25.470]  If you go beyond a certain point accessing your car computer, such as if you have to break cryptography, you are triggering a part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
[06:25.690 --> 06:30.450]  And what that says is if you break this, there can be civil and criminal measures against you.
[06:30.590 --> 06:33.410]  And you probably may have avoided the warranty on your car.
[06:33.410 --> 06:39.070]  So actually getting into the computer and making repairs that way is very hard for the average consumer to do.
[06:39.470 --> 06:43.830]  And frankly, for those of us that do do car hacking, this is complicated as well.
[06:44.410 --> 06:52.490]  So, like I mentioned, some independent parts chains, such as Jiffy Lube and AutoZone in particular, were very active in this.
[06:52.630 --> 07:00.750]  But they lobbied for laws that would allow some standardization to be shared with consumers and shared with the Jiffy Lube and AutoZone.
[07:01.010 --> 07:07.690]  So, as an alternative to the Right to Repair Act, which passed in Massachusetts and Oregon, there is something else now.
[07:07.910 --> 07:12.250]  And what this is, is this was a great thing so far.
[07:12.370 --> 07:21.390]  We have further to go, but as of January 2014, independent repair shops, excuse me, can access these diagnostic codes.
[07:21.530 --> 07:23.830]  And these codes are specific to each manufacturer.
[07:23.830 --> 07:29.730]  There are some that are standardized for federal emissions control standards, but most of them are very specific.
[07:29.950 --> 07:35.730]  So if you don't know what Ford uses for, like your transmission slipping, this type of stuff is going to be shared.
[07:36.170 --> 07:38.630]  Now, here's the question that a lot of people have asked me.
[07:39.070 --> 07:41.970]  Okay, so this is going to be available soon.
[07:42.210 --> 07:44.170]  It's not all available just yet.
[07:44.570 --> 07:45.770]  But what does this mean?
[07:46.390 --> 07:48.410]  If you're a car hacker, you're...
[07:48.410 --> 07:52.490]  One of the questions is, are you considered to be covered under this agreement?
[07:52.490 --> 07:55.250]  And the answer to this is, not exactly.
[07:55.530 --> 07:59.070]  You're not an independent car, you know, mechanic.
[08:00.110 --> 08:08.310]  Some of the states for the Right to Repair Act wanted mechanics, and they had a licensing procedure for that, to be able to access some of this information about your car.
[08:08.970 --> 08:12.450]  I don't have a mechanics license, but I'm accessing this about vehicles.
[08:12.470 --> 08:16.530]  But I do know that they're research vehicles, we void the warranty, you know, oh well.
[08:17.670 --> 08:20.750]  But one of the problems is, the dealers still have control.
[08:21.030 --> 08:25.330]  Now, some have gone to some independent repair shops.
[08:25.690 --> 08:31.650]  But as a consumer, that you purchase your vehicle, you may not be able to get access to all of these.
[08:31.990 --> 08:33.950]  So, that's still a little bit unfortunate.
[08:34.390 --> 08:37.790]  So, one of the other questions people ask me is, all right, what about other consumer goods?
[08:37.890 --> 08:39.850]  Do I own the right to stuff that I buy?
[08:40.090 --> 08:41.790]  And generally the case is yes.
[08:42.070 --> 08:43.530]  When there are computers in it, maybe no.
[08:43.530 --> 08:50.610]  So, one of the projects that I wanted to do is, I also like to salvage and repair old things, antiques.
[08:50.890 --> 08:54.030]  And sometimes it's fixing up antiques.
[08:54.190 --> 08:56.750]  And I find, you know, personal satisfaction in doing that.
[08:56.910 --> 09:01.570]  And when I looked at something like this that was for sale on eBay, this is a square grand piano.
[09:01.890 --> 09:06.330]  They were very popular in the late 1800s, and the one I got was from 1857.
[09:06.630 --> 09:08.050]  So, Civil War era.
[09:08.190 --> 09:09.550]  I mean, this was a beautiful instrument.
[09:10.290 --> 09:14.270]  Often this is purchased, and it's scavenged for the ivory keys.
[09:14.810 --> 09:16.770]  The wood is rosewood.
[09:16.950 --> 09:19.890]  So, that has, I guess, value in it if people chop it up.
[09:20.010 --> 09:23.050]  But I found a woman that was selling this on eBay, and I said, you know what?
[09:23.090 --> 09:24.150]  I like fixing things.
[09:24.170 --> 09:25.190]  This is a challenge.
[09:25.190 --> 09:26.570]  I am not a musician.
[09:26.770 --> 09:28.890]  I can play the piano, but not very well.
[09:29.170 --> 09:30.230]  But I had this idea.
[09:30.230 --> 09:32.950]  I'm going to buy this, and I'm going to add some computers to it.
[09:32.950 --> 09:35.070]  Some servo motors, maybe a Raspberry Pi.
[09:35.350 --> 09:40.790]  And I want to create sort of like an open-source player piano project.
[09:41.870 --> 09:45.870]  So, I saw this online, and I went ahead and bought it for $300.
[09:46.430 --> 09:50.070]  And I said, if I can do this with cars, can I do this with something like a piano?
[09:50.850 --> 09:54.510]  And there's my piano in the top picture sitting in my living room there.
[09:54.630 --> 09:55.870]  And I love this.
[09:56.070 --> 09:57.290]  It's quite wonderful.
[09:57.290 --> 09:59.770]  All the keys work, except in moving it.
[09:59.990 --> 10:02.030]  One key doesn't work, but I'm going to figure it out.
[10:02.590 --> 10:04.990]  But that's the challenge with this stuff, with repairing.
[10:05.350 --> 10:07.750]  It's a shame when people throw this out.
[10:07.830 --> 10:09.590]  I mean, this is a very beautiful instrument.
[10:09.830 --> 10:15.730]  Or strip it for its parts, when you can put a little bit of time into it, and you can make something yours, and something that's very unique.
[10:16.070 --> 10:19.090]  I found out that there are two screws underneath the keyboard.
[10:19.210 --> 10:21.890]  When you take those out, there are knobs in front of the keyboard.
[10:21.990 --> 10:25.110]  You can pull everything, like the guts of the piano out, and work on it.
[10:25.110 --> 10:29.970]  And that's where I plan to put the servo motors and some information from that project.
[10:30.310 --> 10:33.570]  I'm going to be releasing as much as I can, you know, that's useful online.
[10:34.870 --> 10:36.730]  This is what's incredible about this.
[10:36.890 --> 10:40.690]  When I bought this piano, I didn't quite know a whole lot about it, except I wanted to try this.
[10:40.770 --> 10:41.770]  I love player pianos.
[10:41.910 --> 10:44.390]  So what I did is, I love the sound of this.
[10:44.550 --> 10:47.230]  And I couldn't, I didn't want this to be thrown out.
[10:47.290 --> 10:48.150]  I hope you can hear it.
[10:49.350 --> 10:50.070]  Maybe not.
[10:50.770 --> 10:52.470]  I have the audio plugged in, but...
[10:53.010 --> 10:53.730]  Okay, there you go.
[10:54.290 --> 10:56.870]  Alright, so this is not my piano.
[10:57.650 --> 11:02.190]  There is a company in North Carolina that buys up these old pianos on eBay.
[11:02.430 --> 11:04.750]  They say, don't throw it out, we'll buy it from you.
[11:05.070 --> 11:07.110]  And they fix them up and they sell them.
[11:07.450 --> 11:14.770]  And so this is where repairing things, in addition to being like a very personally rewarding project, it can actually be financially rewarding too.
[11:14.890 --> 11:17.390]  And this was a great surprise to me.
[11:17.390 --> 11:22.270]  So what I did is, I love this piano, and this is my piano.
[11:22.830 --> 11:24.070]  So I bought it for $300.
[11:24.510 --> 11:28.750]  Now, this was selling, and it actually sold, it looks like, for $45,000.
[11:30.870 --> 11:32.490]  So I'm not going to sell mine.
[11:32.490 --> 11:33.390]  I have no plans to.
[11:33.510 --> 11:43.470]  But when you buy something that's scrap or junk, and you put the time to fix it up, whether because you love it or it is a financial investment in repairing things, this was quite shocking.
[11:43.510 --> 11:47.570]  And what I'd like to do is computerize it and make it a player piano in my house.
[11:47.570 --> 11:57.390]  So I'm taking something very old, adding some stuff that's very new, and I'm going to release as much as is useful to all of you, if you're interested in an open-source project for player pianos.
[11:57.950 --> 12:04.170]  So that's my project about repairing things new, like vehicles, and old.
[12:04.390 --> 12:12.490]  And it's useful to preserve things instead of throwing them out, I think, at times, and saving things from the junk pile that have historical value.
[12:12.770 --> 12:23.390]  And with vehicles and things that you buy that have software running in it, just be aware of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and you may not own as much of the new products that you think you do.
[12:23.830 --> 12:24.510]  Thank you.
[12:30.840 --> 12:32.880]  So Vincent Lai will be speaking next.
[12:34.380 --> 12:36.260]  So, thank you all for coming here.
[12:36.700 --> 12:40.700]  And I wanted to introduce myself as the head of the Fixers Collective.
[12:40.840 --> 12:41.960]  My name is Vincent Lai.
[12:42.240 --> 12:44.740]  I came on board in 2010.
[12:44.740 --> 12:45.880]  I didn't start the group.
[12:45.880 --> 12:49.480]  Somebody else did after having their U.S.
[12:49.620 --> 12:52.580]  flag torn up after Obama got elected in Union Square.
[12:53.460 --> 13:00.180]  So after the exhibition season for MEND, M-E-N-D, was finished, people still wanted to fix stuff.
[13:00.260 --> 13:06.580]  So as a result, the Fixers Collective portion of the gallery exhibit continued on.
[13:08.120 --> 13:12.060]  Me, I had embraced repair culture.
[13:12.820 --> 13:17.240]  I think it kicked off during my first HOPE in 2000.
[13:17.620 --> 13:26.460]  On the second floor, there were bunches of 386 computers running Linux, and there was your email access over wired Ethernet.
[13:26.980 --> 13:31.280]  And towards the end of the conference, I think people were having trouble trying to figure out what to do with these items.
[13:31.280 --> 13:35.700]  So we all tried to put on an open call to try to scavenge them.
[13:35.820 --> 13:42.280]  And I took some stuff home, and I had been scavenging and using computer parts ever since.
[13:42.820 --> 13:48.920]  I had also, at one point, volunteered to help collect them for recycling here in New York.
[13:49.820 --> 14:05.080]  Around 2010, my executive director, after legislation got passed for recycling, wanted to send a clear message to the manufacturers who were going to give her money to help with their program.
[14:05.360 --> 14:10.100]  The message was, we're going to shred and dispose exclusively.
[14:10.100 --> 14:22.580]  And even though she told me, I still willingly, consciously, and deliberately took stuff home to fix.
[14:23.300 --> 14:27.120]  And so in September, I was booted out of the program.
[14:27.800 --> 14:34.700]  But that helped, that gave me time and capacity to devote myself to repair activities.
[14:34.700 --> 14:42.520]  And since then, we've been meeting once a month in Proteus Gowanus, corner of Union Nevins, every third Thursday.
[14:42.800 --> 14:44.940]  Our last session was last night.
[14:45.100 --> 14:55.920]  Somebody brought in a vacuum cleaner, a USB speaker, oscillating fan, a 4x5 large format camera, and a watch.
[14:55.920 --> 15:14.140]  So, in the few years that I've been running the group, I had noticed some pretty strong parallels with the repair movement, along with the maker and hacker movement.
[15:14.380 --> 15:21.160]  So much so that I almost thought that they would coincide.
[15:21.160 --> 15:28.220]  I think one of the biggest departures between the two comes when you encounter an object.
[15:28.660 --> 15:37.140]  I think fixers would ask themselves, what can we do to bring this item back to its original functional working condition?
[15:37.460 --> 15:45.120]  And I think a maker and a hacker would first ask themselves, well, what else can we do with it?
[15:45.120 --> 15:56.120]  So, if we were to look at a bike, a fixer would probably focus on derailleurs and chains and make sure everything's looped up and tight in the right places.
[15:56.760 --> 16:02.460]  And a maker and hacker may think of creating a pedal-powered video game with that same bike.
[16:02.460 --> 16:14.780]  So, we've been branching out in other venues also, and I think that's another big point with the fixer movement.
[16:15.020 --> 16:21.480]  We see ourselves in very comfortable positions in several different forms.
[16:22.240 --> 16:28.320]  Like here, we feel just as much in place in a maker and a hacker form.
[16:28.720 --> 16:39.440]  We also see ourselves in an educational setting where each item that's in front of you is a project-based learning experience.
[16:39.440 --> 16:53.340]  You know, that alone will motivate people to just try to figure out how it works, what happened to it, and you know, what can we do to change its condition, change its behavior, and bring it back to working condition.
[16:56.420 --> 17:07.740]  Another thought that we had is that since we came out of a gallery exhibition, we're just as comfortable in an artistic setting and almost to the point where we consider ourselves as performance artists.
[17:08.040 --> 17:11.920]  Where the performance is the fixing session that we host.
[17:12.140 --> 17:16.440]  Sometimes the work of art is the repair process itself.
[17:17.020 --> 17:18.600]  Sometimes it's the thing in front of you.
[17:19.060 --> 17:37.380]  For the Mend exhibit of Proteus Gowanus, we actually took Plexiglass and covered our work in progress so that people who came by the next day can just see what happens in a snapshot-type setting.
[17:38.720 --> 17:51.810]  Naturally, we also can think of ourselves as environmentalists because we also believe that reuse and repair really, really needs to be part of a truly sustainable process.
[17:51.980 --> 17:58.820]  And I think one of the big problems with computer electronics recycling is that it is volume-based.
[17:58.820 --> 18:03.640]  The more stuff they churn, the more money they make.
[18:04.240 --> 18:12.240]  And I'm thinking about a conversation I had informally with somebody who consulted with one of the recyclers.
[18:12.760 --> 18:15.640]  This company was getting money from the manufacturers.
[18:15.880 --> 18:19.920]  And there was something really, really sneaky that I heard.
[18:19.920 --> 18:38.640]  And I heard was that the manufacturer would pay the recycler to help them comply with New York State law on the one condition that they would not take their products and insert them into the secondary reuse markets.
[18:39.380 --> 18:45.240]  I can't tell you which manufacturer that is because all I have is that one conversation.
[18:45.900 --> 18:48.540]  And I've been looking for hard evidence ever since.
[18:49.660 --> 18:54.860]  But as an aside, anybody like Macintosh apples?
[18:57.700 --> 18:58.420]  Okay.
[18:58.900 --> 19:01.940]  So, yeah, I can't mention the manufacturer by name.
[19:02.420 --> 19:12.200]  So, that's something that we're trying to fight because not everybody believes in what we're doing.
[19:12.520 --> 19:20.060]  Partly because, as my executive director put it, reuse is diametrically opposed to recycling.
[19:20.060 --> 19:25.440]  And I feel strongly enough to avoid the word recycling altogether.
[19:25.920 --> 19:27.740]  People often confuse it with reuse.
[19:28.020 --> 19:31.480]  I just use the term shredding and outright disposal.
[19:31.900 --> 19:40.740]  Because at that point, when you shred that item, when you shred that phone or your iPhone or your share, reuse is not realistic at that point.
[19:40.740 --> 19:49.120]  So, we continue to reshape ourselves in several ways.
[19:49.280 --> 19:55.680]  And most recently, we also consider ourselves as urban renewal agents.
[19:56.480 --> 20:06.660]  We, the Fixers Collective, and also the Poplar Repair Shop have entered into a competition to help revitalize the Persborg section of Malmo, Sweden.
[20:06.660 --> 20:24.060]  We have both submitted proposals about how we can, in effect, change the definition of the opposite of gentrification from urban decay to, if you will, a better path.
[20:24.400 --> 20:43.640]  So, I think repair can be a part of that as people come in with their broken things and we have meetings to share skills informally and just get together to help get their things fixed up.
[20:43.880 --> 20:58.740]  And I think the biggest part of the repair movement comes from everybody here, where manufacturers try to improve on recovery rates for the stuff that they shred, which are going to fix it, 40 to 60%.
[20:59.560 --> 21:05.160]  And that's another reason why I want to bring in reuse and repair as a bigger part of sustainability.
[21:05.520 --> 21:12.780]  But also, I think there's the bigger... and the biggest part is what I will call casual informal reuse.
[21:13.160 --> 21:18.600]  And I think everybody individually here can participate in that part of the movement.
[21:18.600 --> 21:35.660]  As you see something on the street or you see something that can have great value, if you were to just pick it up and do something with it, I think a lot of that can take place right here individually with everybody in here.
[21:36.280 --> 21:40.040]  So, I think probably everybody is doing it anyway.
[21:40.220 --> 21:45.660]  I still encourage you to just take a look at what's on the floor and what's around you and see if anything is useful.
[21:45.880 --> 21:50.580]  My most recent kick is street-sweeping bristles.
[21:52.180 --> 21:54.440]  Apparently, you can make good lock picks out of them.
[21:55.460 --> 22:04.460]  So, I encourage everybody to reuse and I look forward to seeing you all the rest of the conference today and this weekend.
[22:04.640 --> 22:04.900]  Thank you.
[22:21.350 --> 22:25.170]  So, can we see if I can get this on here?
[22:25.710 --> 22:26.390]  There it is.
[22:26.390 --> 22:31.370]  Hi, I'm Miriam Dym and I'm mostly going to talk about a project of mine, Logo Removal Service.
[22:31.630 --> 22:32.550]  I'm an artist.
[22:32.550 --> 22:36.270]  I have a deep fascination with garbage and waste.
[22:37.230 --> 22:45.270]  I've evolved this project as a kind of hopeless gesture against a tide of consumer goods.
[22:45.690 --> 22:57.770]  One thing I'm really interested in is mass production and the enormous amount of stuff such that one can go to a thrift store and buy a 100% organic cotton t-shirt for $2.
[22:59.150 --> 23:07.590]  When I do that as a way of getting material for this project, I have to actually consciously remind myself that a real human being cut that fabric.
[23:07.610 --> 23:08.610]  Well, probably a machine cut it.
[23:08.690 --> 23:14.210]  But a human being sewed it on a machine and somebody else packed it up and somebody else unpacked it.
[23:14.210 --> 23:18.190]  And it went through this whole long-hand line of labor.
[23:18.530 --> 23:29.950]  And yet, all of that labor and all of the waste from that labor, because industrial manufacturing is 90% of solid waste as against the 3% of municipal waste, which is all the stuff that we recycle.
[23:30.570 --> 23:33.590]  So, all of that to me is in that individual t-shirt.
[23:33.750 --> 23:38.790]  So, what I do, and I mostly do t-shirts, but I'm happy to remove a logo from anything really.
[23:39.710 --> 23:45.790]  And what I do, I do this because I want to push back against omnipresent advertisements.
[23:45.790 --> 23:49.070]  I feel like companies have enough power right now.
[23:49.250 --> 23:50.350]  I'm not interested personally.
[23:50.350 --> 23:50.890]  You may be.
[23:50.990 --> 23:52.270]  It's really a personal thing.
[23:53.110 --> 23:56.190]  I don't particularly want to be a walking billboard for a company.
[23:56.370 --> 24:00.710]  And so, this is my way of saying, okay, well, this object, however minimal, is valuable.
[24:00.710 --> 24:05.990]  So, I'm going to reassert value by acting on it with hand labor.
[24:06.770 --> 24:11.830]  And for me, it's, again, it's this dream to fix a broken system.
[24:14.350 --> 24:23.210]  So, what I'm interested with this is when I remove a logo, particularly on something like a garment, if you just take the logo away, you'd be left with a hole.
[24:23.230 --> 24:26.290]  And that would make the garment not so functional.
[24:26.530 --> 24:32.150]  So, what I try to do is I try to replace the missing material with a weird shape.
[24:32.150 --> 24:35.330]  And I do that because I'm an artist and I like shape and color.
[24:35.330 --> 24:39.190]  And it turns out that that part of getting a weird shape is really the hardest.
[24:39.470 --> 24:42.250]  I've had a couple of people do this technique.
[24:42.490 --> 24:45.790]  One, just a friend of mine showed up in one before, now he's a friend.
[24:46.170 --> 24:47.490]  And he had just figured it out.
[24:47.590 --> 24:52.190]  But his craft was suboptimal and his aesthetic wasn't so great either.
[24:52.450 --> 24:56.970]  And it made me realize that there is something to be said for visual training.
[24:59.710 --> 25:02.790]  So, again, this goes back to what I said before.
[25:03.050 --> 25:06.850]  So, this is about how we can intervene in our environment.
[25:06.850 --> 25:10.030]  And it's one way for me to slow things down.
[25:10.230 --> 25:14.170]  I'm also happy to remove logos though from any object.
[25:14.170 --> 25:19.870]  And if you send me a picture, as a friend of mine did, I sent back the same picture with the logo removed.
[25:20.050 --> 25:24.710]  I wasn't able to get to the airport in Honolulu in time to do the logo removal on the bottle.
[25:24.850 --> 25:26.050]  But I did the best I could.
[25:26.250 --> 25:28.750]  And I'm really happy to take the logo off of anything.
[25:29.310 --> 25:34.270]  You know, here at this conference I have my logo removal service stationed down in the vendor area.
[25:34.270 --> 25:36.430]  And I will, of course, remove your logo.
[25:36.490 --> 25:42.130]  If it's a really complicated one, not textile based, we may have to make an appointment for future removal.
[25:44.810 --> 25:49.330]  So, you can see that there are companies that are producing these things.
[25:49.490 --> 25:56.350]  And then, of course, there are many, many other companies who are churning out this stuff at a million miles an hour.
[25:57.150 --> 26:11.070]  And one thing that is hard for me to deal with is that most of this monumental amount of stuff, both in terms of actually like the quantity of it and the manufacturing of it, is completely invisible to us.
[26:11.190 --> 26:14.030]  And so, we can walk by a logo text thing.
[26:15.750 --> 26:20.730]  But, you know, I feel like, again, my actions are symbolic at best.
[26:22.130 --> 26:25.750]  So, here's just a shot of a few of my pieces of equipment.
[26:26.870 --> 26:29.590]  And I did remove the logo on my sewing machine.
[26:29.610 --> 26:34.870]  And I felt kind of bad doing it because I feel like the brand that made the sewing machine, they did a quite good job.
[26:35.190 --> 26:37.070]  I, you know, I worked that thing to death.
[26:37.350 --> 26:38.930]  And so, I have some guilt about it.
[26:38.970 --> 26:43.750]  It just seemed really weird to have a logo removal service with a brand name on the machine.
[26:43.770 --> 26:49.010]  And you can't tell because I put little blue words over it saying, the logo on this sewing machine was somewhere around here.
[26:49.530 --> 26:54.910]  But it is possible, certainly, to remove a logo and not insert a weird, loud shape.
[26:56.590 --> 27:02.850]  I will say, as an aside, I did the logo removal service at the Oakland Museum a year ago.
[27:03.130 --> 27:08.770]  And someone who got one ended up writing a whole piece about how odd it was.
[27:08.890 --> 27:11.350]  That people kept asking him, what was that thing on his T-shirt?
[27:11.410 --> 27:13.890]  And his teenage children protested.
[27:13.950 --> 27:21.990]  They were just appalled that he would have the brand name removed in order to have, like, some, like, undefinable thing.
[27:22.290 --> 27:24.010]  Like, they just, it disgusted them, actually.
[27:24.290 --> 27:26.450]  So, you know, each to his own.
[27:26.610 --> 27:29.370]  So, I just want to run through my frequently asked questions.
[27:29.470 --> 27:31.750]  What does logo removal service do with removed logos?
[27:32.050 --> 27:33.330]  We store them forever.
[27:34.770 --> 27:36.110]  It's important to save them.
[27:36.110 --> 27:36.830]  It's a good record.
[27:36.830 --> 27:37.550]  It's our archive.
[27:37.750 --> 27:39.230]  But we do not display them.
[27:40.230 --> 27:42.370]  Do we ever repeat a logo removal?
[27:42.510 --> 27:43.190]  No, we do not.
[27:43.330 --> 27:45.230]  Each logo removal is absolutely unique.
[27:45.230 --> 27:51.370]  So, even though there are batches and batches of the same T-shirt, as we all know, each one would be handled differently.
[27:51.530 --> 27:58.230]  And this, again, points out the difference between the mass-produced object and the very individualistic intervention in something.
[27:58.450 --> 28:01.610]  And it still doesn't make it a valuable object.
[28:01.770 --> 28:02.710]  And that's the irony to me.
[28:02.810 --> 28:04.350]  It's still a ridiculous T-shirt.
[28:04.890 --> 28:05.970]  However, it is unique.
[28:07.450 --> 28:09.610]  Why do we want to remove the logos in the first place?
[28:09.610 --> 28:12.530]  Because not every surface is appropriate for a logo.
[28:12.530 --> 28:15.110]  We will also remove stains with the same technique.
[28:15.390 --> 28:17.550]  It's not a chemical process, usually.
[28:20.230 --> 28:21.390]  Will I show you?
[28:21.470 --> 28:23.490]  Will logo removal show what logo was removed?
[28:23.590 --> 28:24.330]  Absolutely not.
[28:24.590 --> 28:26.970]  The advertisers can do their own advertising.
[28:28.150 --> 28:30.630]  Anyway, logo removal is just a tiny project.
[28:31.590 --> 28:37.370]  I'm really interested in what it would take to get at the root of mass production, really.
[28:37.510 --> 28:39.130]  Mass production leads to mass consumption.
[28:39.130 --> 28:41.090]  That part's a closed loop.
[28:41.170 --> 28:44.910]  The thing that's an open loop is all materials are being extracted from the environment.
[28:44.910 --> 28:47.590]  They're being rapidly consumed and then thrown out.
[28:47.790 --> 28:53.890]  And I don't know if you've ever seen a time-lapse video of the deforestation of the Brazilian rainforest.
[28:54.510 --> 28:58.930]  But that, to me, is the symbol of this flow.
[28:59.810 --> 29:01.670]  So, how will degrowth begin?
[29:01.830 --> 29:02.230]  I don't know.
[29:02.390 --> 29:03.510]  Maybe degrowth will never begin.
[29:04.730 --> 29:05.670]  Thank you very much.
[29:16.130 --> 29:16.770]  Hi.
[29:19.450 --> 29:20.450]  I don't need one.
[29:21.390 --> 29:21.730]  Sorry.
[29:22.330 --> 29:23.190]  It's just me.
[29:23.230 --> 29:23.630]  No pictures.
[29:24.650 --> 29:25.290]  Hi.
[29:25.430 --> 29:28.730]  My name is Sandra Goldmark, and I'm the founder of Pop-Up Repair.
[29:29.150 --> 29:33.490]  Pop-Up Repair is an itinerant repair service for household items of all kinds.
[29:33.830 --> 29:40.890]  We very simply provide convenient drop-off service in small neighborhoods, and we fix people's broken stuff.
[29:42.970 --> 29:44.270]  It's really exciting to be here.
[29:44.390 --> 29:49.270]  This is kind of an awesome range, I think, of the many things going on in the repair movement.
[29:49.370 --> 29:54.610]  And I just wanted to share with you guys a little bit about how I fit in and my project fits in.
[29:55.050 --> 30:01.210]  And so, in addition to founding Pop-Up Repair, I am a theatrical set designer and an assistant professor at Barnard College.
[30:01.370 --> 30:02.030]  I teach...
[30:02.030 --> 30:03.090]  I'm a set designer.
[30:03.190 --> 30:05.650]  I design scenery and costumes for theater, and I teach design.
[30:06.510 --> 30:19.290]  And through Barnard, I have a research grant to take the information I'm getting from my repair project and investigate the relationship between repair and our cultural habits of consumption and waste.
[30:19.750 --> 30:22.350]  So, kind of everything we're all struggling with up here.
[30:25.830 --> 30:27.890]  So, theatrical design and repair.
[30:28.090 --> 30:30.470]  How did these two wind up coming together for me?
[30:30.850 --> 30:40.370]  Basically, over the past several years, I became increasingly frustrated personally at home with the lack of alternatives for broken things in our house.
[30:40.370 --> 30:42.150]  Basically, you know, we're busy.
[30:42.230 --> 30:42.510]  We work.
[30:42.630 --> 30:43.210]  We've got two kids.
[30:43.350 --> 30:45.890]  When things break, we can either fix it ourselves.
[30:45.890 --> 30:46.730]  I can fix it.
[30:46.790 --> 30:48.150]  I can hound my husband to fix it.
[30:48.510 --> 30:49.770]  Or it can sit in the corner.
[30:50.830 --> 30:52.370]  Or we can take it to Vincent in Brooklyn.
[30:52.730 --> 30:53.970]  But as many of you know...
[30:53.970 --> 31:01.490]  Well, actually, probably a lot of the people in this room are like my husband and myself in that you can probably fix it yourself if you've got the tools, the time, and it's in your skill set.
[31:01.890 --> 31:04.610]  But there are a lot of people out there who don't have the skills.
[31:04.830 --> 31:07.530]  A lot more of them who don't have the time and the tools.
[31:07.530 --> 31:17.530]  So it occurred to me, if I, somebody who spends my entire professional life working with stuff, making things, breaking them, fixing them, is frustrated at home, how do other people feel?
[31:17.670 --> 31:18.930]  They must be going totally nuts.
[31:20.630 --> 31:23.690]  I also found at home that we were drowning in stuff.
[31:24.090 --> 31:32.010]  We have two small children, and it's just like with the gifts and the toys, I feel like there's a wave of stuff coming into our home.
[31:32.010 --> 31:39.230]  And I don't like shopping, I don't want to get this stuff, but you all know this, it just comes in, it like sneaks in under the door sill and then it's there.
[31:41.890 --> 31:48.450]  So, I thought, gosh, that must... and I look on my neighborhood listserv and I see people frantic for places to get rid of their stuff.
[31:48.730 --> 31:54.590]  Free crib, free dexter saucer, free coffee machine, you know, we don't know what to do with it all.
[31:54.710 --> 31:56.770]  And definitely in New York, we don't have room for it all.
[31:59.090 --> 32:01.530]  But at work, I thought about... so that's home life, right?
[32:01.630 --> 32:03.310]  And I thought, look at what we do at work in theater.
[32:03.750 --> 32:05.350]  We fix things all the time.
[32:05.610 --> 32:07.550]  We make, we adjust, we adapt.
[32:07.850 --> 32:08.430]  That's what you do.
[32:08.490 --> 32:13.030]  You have no money in theater, you need a certain thing, so you make it or you fix it or whatever.
[32:13.190 --> 32:20.270]  You need a monkey with purple glitter fur, you need an 18th century chair that plays music, you need a computer that makes toast, whatever.
[32:20.990 --> 32:21.930]  You make it work.
[32:22.090 --> 32:24.230]  I mean, I think theater is all about hacking in many ways.
[32:24.230 --> 32:28.370]  I didn't sort of realize it until I came to this conference, but that's sort of what we do all day long as well.
[32:29.090 --> 32:38.610]  So I thought, well, let's take this professional habit of basically creative problem solving and hand skills, and let's match it up.
[32:38.690 --> 32:39.750]  Let's take it to the streets.
[32:39.770 --> 32:53.170]  Let's try to provide a service that addresses the frustration with stuff, the lack of repair alternatives and people's general feeling that they don't know what to do with their broken stuff and that they have no option except to throw it away.
[32:54.450 --> 33:02.170]  So in order to do this, we very simply started opening little repair shops, short-term repair shops in local storefronts and farmers markets.
[33:03.510 --> 33:08.590]  By opening these shops, we call them pop-up repair, we are asking a series of questions.
[33:08.970 --> 33:12.410]  The first is, are other people dissatisfied with using discard?
[33:13.090 --> 33:14.550]  I.e., would they show up?
[33:15.470 --> 33:17.230]  Or would they rather go get their new thing?
[33:17.910 --> 33:20.690]  The second question we're asking is, could we fix it?
[33:20.870 --> 33:24.570]  Would we have the skill set, the range of skill set to fix what we wanted to fix?
[33:24.970 --> 33:26.610]  More importantly, could we get the parts?
[33:27.230 --> 33:36.990]  How much of what we got would be unrepairable through things like the issues that Tiffany brought up or simply the many issues surrounding broken plastic, which I'm sure you guys are all familiar with?
[33:37.750 --> 33:38.810]  So could we fix it?
[33:39.770 --> 33:41.310]  The next question was a little bigger.
[33:41.310 --> 33:51.110]  How did the action of repair, small, local, individual, and one object at a time by definition, how does that affect or challenge the larger cycle of use and discard?
[33:51.670 --> 33:54.850]  What are people's motivations for bringing their stuff to our shop?
[33:55.230 --> 34:00.230]  And would the act of repair at all affect their habits of consumption, of waste, and of discard?
[34:00.870 --> 34:04.190]  And the last question, finally, is could we make this economically viable?
[34:04.430 --> 34:06.890]  Could we pay ourselves to fix people's broken stuff?
[34:09.050 --> 34:11.650]  So we've spent the last year tackling all these questions.
[34:11.890 --> 34:15.590]  We've opened five pop-ups for a combined total of about 12 weeks of repair.
[34:16.190 --> 34:20.770]  We staff our shops with fellow theater artists and like-minded artisans and tinkerers.
[34:20.870 --> 34:25.490]  I bet you there is like staff in this room for 12 pop-up repair shops.
[34:25.650 --> 34:26.230]  It's kind of exciting.
[34:27.090 --> 34:33.750]  It's all people who like to make things and do things and love the physical world and know how to deal with it.
[34:34.890 --> 34:37.530]  So we had a bunch of people like us and we opened these little shops.
[34:37.750 --> 34:39.990]  And we have people bring in whatever they've got.
[34:40.150 --> 34:41.770]  We don't do pianos.
[34:42.270 --> 34:43.330]  We don't do cars.
[34:43.350 --> 34:44.030]  We don't do bikes.
[34:44.090 --> 34:44.790]  We don't do shoes.
[34:46.010 --> 34:47.090]  We don't do software.
[34:47.470 --> 34:51.930]  But basically, everything else, we want people to bring those things at home that there's nowhere to go anymore.
[34:52.010 --> 34:55.290]  You've got a cheap IKEA lamp, a chair, an antique cushion.
[34:56.470 --> 35:00.710]  Some of our favorite items, we got a little toy antique drumming bear.
[35:00.710 --> 35:02.270]  It sort of went like this and his eyes lit up.
[35:02.370 --> 35:02.870]  He was awesome.
[35:03.330 --> 35:09.330]  We got someone's UV light box, like supposedly for seasonal affective disorder.
[35:10.870 --> 35:13.190]  We fixed it for her and said, have fun, go to Colorado.
[35:16.270 --> 35:19.050]  Basically, every time we've opened one of these shops, we've been swamped.
[35:19.990 --> 35:24.670]  We've received over 1,100 items for repair with a success rate of over 80%.
[35:25.430 --> 35:31.070]  And more importantly, we've learned that people are hungry for us, for the service.
[35:31.290 --> 35:33.110]  There is a huge frustration out there.
[35:33.710 --> 35:37.370]  People come to our shop or they look at our little table at the market and they do a double take.
[35:37.830 --> 35:40.150]  And they come back and they're like, you fix things?
[35:41.530 --> 35:42.970]  And we're like, yeah, like what?
[35:43.090 --> 35:47.670]  And they literally, they go home and they get a bag and they put all their broken crap in it and they bring it to us.
[35:47.670 --> 35:57.010]  And it is, I mean, it's comical, but it's also kind of amazing because what it's telling me is that people are not satisfied with the cycle.
[35:58.430 --> 36:00.990]  Over and over again, people tell us they prefer their old stuff.
[36:01.130 --> 36:02.810]  They just want the thing they have to work.
[36:03.230 --> 36:05.990]  And this is not just like specialty items or antiques.
[36:06.930 --> 36:09.690]  The drumming bear, for example, was, I would say, irreplaceable.
[36:09.850 --> 36:11.730]  The UV light box was a one of a kind.
[36:11.930 --> 36:16.770]  But this applies to like people bring cheap plastic fans that you could get one at Target for 20 bucks.
[36:16.770 --> 36:19.490]  electric toothbrushes, tea cuddles, Ikea lamps.
[36:19.690 --> 36:21.930]  They do bring some unique one of a kind items.
[36:22.170 --> 36:32.110]  But we have discovered that despite our culture's overwhelming move over the past 50 years towards disposability, replaceability and planned obsolescence, people are resisting.
[36:32.910 --> 36:35.430]  And if given an alternative, they will take it.
[36:36.670 --> 36:39.090]  So why are there so few alternatives right now?
[36:39.370 --> 36:41.210]  Why are there so few repair shops?
[36:41.310 --> 36:45.530]  And why are the ones that exist specialized often or holdouts like Crown?
[36:45.530 --> 36:47.910]  And you guys from New York, you know Crown Repair on the Upper West Side?
[36:47.950 --> 36:48.630]  They're amazing.
[36:48.810 --> 36:50.870]  They've been there for years and years and years.
[36:51.790 --> 36:54.090]  But they're now becoming a sort of a one of a kind thing.
[36:56.290 --> 36:58.210]  The obvious answer is economic.
[36:58.530 --> 37:00.350]  We are flooded with goods.
[37:00.350 --> 37:05.430]  As Miriam said, we are flooded with goods manufactured and shipped at unbelievably low cost.
[37:05.430 --> 37:10.110]  And repair is slow, labor intensive, and hard to systematize.
[37:11.310 --> 37:14.630]  It's hard to beat the cost of new goods when you're fixing things.
[37:15.730 --> 37:20.810]  So this goes to the heart of the final question my project is asking is can repair compete economically?
[37:21.190 --> 37:25.810]  Will people pay enough to hold onto their plastic fans and tea kettles and Ikea lamps?
[37:25.990 --> 37:28.070]  Or will the new cheap stuff always win out?
[37:28.770 --> 37:30.910]  The answer so far is not clear.
[37:31.430 --> 37:34.370]  On the one hand, it's hard to beat the replacement cost of these items.
[37:34.810 --> 37:36.490]  Every item breaks in a different way.
[37:36.670 --> 37:42.010]  If you bring me 10 Ikea chairs, the same, you know, ecthorpe or whatever it is, it will break in 10 different ways.
[37:47.010 --> 37:51.410]  But we have found that there's another factor that seems to work in repair's favor.
[37:52.450 --> 37:59.470]  The answer that I think, and this is what I'm sort of investigating in my research, lies in our emotional and cultural relationship with stuff.
[38:00.010 --> 38:02.930]  On the one hand, we come from a culture of plenty.
[38:03.130 --> 38:06.530]  We have a history of endless resources, linear growth.
[38:07.050 --> 38:12.910]  And we are bombarded with messages to buy, buy, buy, which inevitably leads to waste, waste, waste.
[38:14.090 --> 38:21.070]  But we also have a history of thrift, of mending, and it seems to me a growing dissatisfaction with our culture of stuff.
[38:21.610 --> 38:23.670]  I compare it often to the food movement.
[38:24.230 --> 38:36.510]  The stuff movement, if you will, or the repair movement, and I think these are all cousins, the food movement, the maker movement, the hacker movement, the repair movement, this is all about changing our relationship, changing the way we live, really,
[38:36.790 --> 38:38.890]  particularly our relationship with the physical world.
[38:40.190 --> 38:43.890]  So in the mid-1970s, the first farmer's market opened in New York City.
[38:44.270 --> 38:45.630]  It was swamped.
[38:45.890 --> 38:51.150]  People were hungry for alternatives to industrialized food, and they were willing to pay a premium for it.
[38:51.470 --> 38:53.930]  And look at where we are today in terms of food.
[38:55.210 --> 38:59.190]  Yes, we still have a big culture of agribusiness, of waste, and of overconsumption.
[38:59.590 --> 39:09.790]  But we also have an enormous movement that is changing the way we farm and eat, from farmers markets, to slow foods, to organic foods, to Michelle Obama, like with her school lunch program.
[39:10.090 --> 39:10.990]  It is happening.
[39:12.130 --> 39:15.190]  And I see that same hunger every time we open up a pop-up.
[39:15.530 --> 39:18.970]  I see a hunger for change in our relationship with stuff.
[39:20.330 --> 39:25.610]  You can look at things like minimalists, people giving away their stuff or getting rid of it.
[39:25.970 --> 39:34.870]  Even perversely in shows like Hoarders, there's a kind of horror with the overabundance that is starting to come out in our mass culture.
[39:35.870 --> 39:37.590]  And I think there's a shift happening.
[39:37.710 --> 39:40.650]  People are beginning to realize that stuff is a lot like food.
[39:41.150 --> 39:44.090]  We harvest the ingredients, we make it, and we consume it.
[39:44.270 --> 39:53.070]  And as Miriam points out, it's in the consuming leads to waste when you have to discard stuff, but it's really actually the manufacture that the bulk of the waste comes from.
[39:53.170 --> 40:00.710]  Every time we buy a new thing, yes, we throw away the old one, and that's a little bit of waste, but there's an enormous amount of waste in the manufacture of the new thing.
[40:05.890 --> 40:10.570]  But I think people are realizing more and more that new doesn't necessarily lead to...
[40:10.570 --> 40:18.350]  that more and more new stuff doesn't necessarily lead to a happy or healthy life, just the way more and more food doesn't necessarily lead to a happy or healthy body.
[40:19.570 --> 40:24.470]  I believe that repair will be at the heart of a reshaping of our relationship with stuff.
[40:24.710 --> 40:26.490]  In some ways, it has to be.
[40:26.490 --> 40:29.850]  How can we continue to manufacture and consume at this rate?
[40:30.210 --> 40:32.270]  Our landfills are staggeringly huge.
[40:32.510 --> 40:34.770]  We export millions of tons of garbage overseas.
[40:35.190 --> 40:37.690]  And on the more personal level, our homes are full.
[40:37.870 --> 40:39.590]  They're full of stuff we don't want or need.
[40:40.330 --> 40:43.030]  But we can't necessarily all go totally minimalist.
[40:43.290 --> 40:45.650]  We do need some stuff, and we do want some stuff.
[40:46.390 --> 40:50.250]  Repair, by definition, is part of a healthy relationship with our physical world.
[40:50.470 --> 40:53.570]  When we are lucky enough to have something, we take care of it.
[40:53.970 --> 41:05.190]  Whether it's a toaster or the planet, repair is a way to rethink and reevaluate the way that we see and the way we interact with the world we live in.
[41:17.970 --> 41:18.450]  Questions?
[41:20.770 --> 41:22.050]  There's a mic there, I think.
[41:26.830 --> 41:33.290]  So there are two real-world examples of reuse and repair, but both of them share the characteristic of scarcity of resources.
[41:34.530 --> 41:35.610]  Cuba, for one.
[41:36.250 --> 41:43.050]  There's been a number of reports on, for example, the old cars that that they are able to keep running for such a long time.
[41:43.370 --> 41:50.470]  And the other example is the one laptop per child example, where kids themselves become the repair shops for their own computers.
[41:51.510 --> 41:57.770]  But both of them have to do with the fact that there is nothing else available or there's no other way to get parts or something like that.
[41:58.330 --> 42:02.970]  And I'm not sure... For me, I always have to buy two of something because I take it apart and then it breaks.
[42:03.530 --> 42:05.170]  And I can't get it back together again, right?
[42:06.030 --> 42:14.730]  But I spend a lot of time playing around with things to see what else I can make them do and to repair them.
[42:16.490 --> 42:19.110]  But if I can't, I just go buy another one.
[42:19.410 --> 42:21.890]  And I think that's part of this issue here.
[42:22.290 --> 42:30.450]  One thing that I think might be interesting is if you can combine with your repair shops, teach you how to repair your stuff shops.
[42:32.290 --> 42:36.610]  Yeah, this is sort of where Vincent's project and mine are... We're cousins.
[42:36.870 --> 42:39.330]  They have a much stronger teaching component.
[42:39.450 --> 42:42.050]  We have done some workshops and we're definitely interested in doing more.
[42:42.370 --> 42:44.670]  But you want to talk a little bit about the teaching and outreach?
[42:44.870 --> 42:49.210]  Yeah, part of our mission is to bring everybody into the process.
[42:49.710 --> 43:03.150]  So if somebody brought in their item, you know, we're going to sit them down, we're going to give them the tools and we're going to point, you know, take the screwdriver, let's, let's, you know, take that out, take that out.
[43:03.310 --> 43:04.690]  All right, there's a snap there.
[43:05.050 --> 43:06.350]  Let's twist it open.
[43:06.510 --> 43:10.470]  And so we hold their hands as much as possible.
[43:10.470 --> 43:18.770]  And if they reach a point where they're a little uneasy, you know, we try to guide them in slowly or maybe at one point we'll take over.
[43:18.970 --> 43:27.910]  But having everybody participate is a key component of our own mission along with improvisational fixing.
[43:27.910 --> 43:29.330]  We're not going to have everything.
[43:29.490 --> 43:30.610]  We're not going to know everything.
[43:30.990 --> 43:40.670]  And so that's another reason why we always look down on the ground to see what can we use to fix stuff that people may have thrown away.
[43:41.490 --> 43:44.070]  So yeah, that's a big, big part of what we do.
[43:44.870 --> 43:46.050]  Can I add something?
[43:50.570 --> 43:56.810]  Are there, are there any manufacturers that are even discussing making things that are more repairable?
[43:57.870 --> 44:07.490]  Because I, I went and tried to buy a washing machine because I had to replace mine because a coin got stuck in the drum and the repair was $1,200 and a new one was 900.
[44:08.350 --> 44:13.750]  So when I go to look for one, I'm like, how do I buy a washing machine that is durable, that is repairable?
[44:13.870 --> 44:14.750]  And they're, it's not there.
[44:17.410 --> 44:22.970]  There are, there are some manufacturers out there that are interested in repair.
[44:25.450 --> 44:26.170]  Patagonia, Timbuktu.
[44:26.850 --> 44:29.010]  They're not, it's not, I wouldn't say there's a groundswell.
[44:29.130 --> 44:29.870]  Do you guys know of others?
[44:30.470 --> 44:37.450]  I'm thinking about an upcoming conference for the Reuse Alliance in Austin, Texas in October.
[44:37.710 --> 44:40.870]  And I think we want to try to bring Dell on board.
[44:41.070 --> 44:42.710]  Headquarters is there after all.
[44:43.030 --> 44:46.970]  So yes, indeed, Patagonia is a very, very big partner.
[44:47.710 --> 44:58.530]  Both of us have participated in essentially an anti-Black Friday event where you drank beer, you listened to live music, and you could get free iPhone batteries.
[44:58.530 --> 45:00.230]  You just have to change them yourself.
[45:00.930 --> 45:03.030]  So, that was last Black Friday.
[45:07.720 --> 45:08.960]  Would you like to use the mic?
[45:09.200 --> 45:10.340]  It's like a little more light.
[45:10.340 --> 45:11.040]  All right.
[45:11.040 --> 45:11.360]  All right.
[45:11.700 --> 45:12.260]  Yeah.
[45:12.740 --> 45:28.620]  I'm curious, like, I lived in Berkeley for about 10 years, and they, and I noticed that in New York, I have a tremendous problem with access to tools, defining, like, reasonable tools there.
[45:28.760 --> 45:38.880]  What they had was a tool library that, like, people would donate tools to a central, like, library.
[45:39.040 --> 45:42.460]  People would take a card and, you know, have them for a limit.
[45:42.620 --> 45:51.880]  Because, I mean, if a person has a power drill, he very frequently uses it, like, 15 minutes a year, something like that.
[45:51.880 --> 45:55.260]  And the rest of the time, it just lies there, unused.
[45:56.620 --> 46:04.820]  And, like, I talk to people here in New York about this thing there, and I feel like I moved into an aquarium.
[46:04.820 --> 46:12.340]  You know, I'd like to get some kind of, like, verbal feedback on this kind of idea.
[46:12.340 --> 46:18.700]  Because, like I say, the use of tools could readily circulate.
[46:18.700 --> 46:26.640]  Because very few people, you know, every, you know, every day use their tools.
[46:27.120 --> 46:29.260]  Frequently, they just lie unused.
[46:30.140 --> 46:38.540]  And, you know, and the whole, I, and I'm wondering, has there been any response to this here?
[46:40.140 --> 46:41.580]  I'm not sure about here.
[46:41.760 --> 46:41.980]  I'm not sure about here.
[46:41.980 --> 46:45.480]  I am thinking about other places like West Seattle.
[46:45.840 --> 46:47.220]  They have a tool library.
[46:47.480 --> 46:53.920]  And the concept of a tool library, along with what I call picture spaces, are starting to pop up and grow.
[46:55.600 --> 47:04.020]  I think even public libraries that have traditionally housed books are now starting to house power tools.
[47:04.020 --> 47:06.600]  I'm not sure how the model works exactly.
[47:06.780 --> 47:10.540]  That's something that I've been meaning to examine myself.
[47:10.800 --> 47:16.400]  And I think that if we had more space at our own gallery, we'd probably start one up, too.
[47:16.580 --> 47:19.360]  I know that we're kind of cramped for space.
[47:20.140 --> 47:25.860]  The electrical system in a 19th century building isn't really up to par.
[47:26.300 --> 47:27.580]  I hope it's up to code.
[47:28.060 --> 47:32.220]  And that's something that we've been meaning to discuss.
[47:32.220 --> 47:36.180]  So, kind of on the back burner, but it's always been on our minds.
[47:36.540 --> 47:37.560]  Can I just comment?
[47:37.720 --> 47:39.180]  The tool library is still in Berkeley.
[47:39.340 --> 47:40.500]  And as far as I know, it's thriving.
[47:40.660 --> 47:41.180]  They redid it.
[47:42.700 --> 47:47.180]  It hasn't stopped the flow of people to the stores to buy their own tools.
[47:47.180 --> 47:55.860]  And so, to me, the woman who spoke about scarcity of resources driving people to repair, I think, is more telling.
[47:55.900 --> 48:04.540]  Because until we recognize that actually materials are scarce, but the truth of the scarcity is masked, there's no incentive, I think.
[48:04.940 --> 48:05.900]  Sorry, there's one more question.
[48:05.900 --> 48:07.340]  And actually, let me comment on that, too.
[48:07.580 --> 48:19.920]  If you have something that's big and expensive, like a vehicle, there used to be some shops that were popping up around the country where you could buy a membership to go in to use, like, a car lift and hook it up to these expensive computers.
[48:19.920 --> 48:31.500]  Unfortunately, a lot of those were put out of business by lawsuits, either for insurance costs or astronomical, or lawsuits about, you know, being able to access the car's computers.
[48:31.740 --> 48:37.140]  However, in New Hampshire, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, there's a makerspace, hackerspace.
[48:37.320 --> 48:46.620]  And one of the new things that they're putting in there is for people to bring their cars in, access the car computer, repair things on the cars, and they work together to fix each other's vehicles.
[48:46.620 --> 48:48.520]  So, this does exist.
[48:48.620 --> 48:54.820]  But I have seen only, so far, one hacker makerspace that has the space to have, like, a bay for vehicles.
[48:54.820 --> 48:57.460]  But I think it's very promising to see that.
[48:59.180 --> 49:01.980]  I run an electronic repair shop in Mayberry.
[49:02.500 --> 49:06.040]  And the dinosaurs are not all extinct.
[49:06.360 --> 49:13.440]  But one of the weird contradictory trends is that the older an item is, the more repairable it is.
[49:13.440 --> 49:23.000]  That I have had to explain to customers over the years, as products have made that transition from repairable to throwaway, that it's evolution.
[49:23.360 --> 49:29.580]  That you must squeeze the labor cost out of your product to compete with your adversaries in the market.
[49:29.580 --> 49:32.960]  This means that fewer parts with more engineering in each part.
[49:33.620 --> 49:40.320]  Everything you do to squeeze the labor out of building it piles more labor onto the process of taking it apart and doing anything to it.
[49:40.520 --> 49:46.220]  So that, sooner or later, everything becomes so highly developed that you've got to throw it away because you can't get that part.
[49:46.440 --> 49:52.000]  But, if it's old enough, it's made of things that were bought in bulk interchangeably.
[49:52.000 --> 49:56.620]  Every manufacturer used the same capacitors, the same resistors, the same this.
[49:57.240 --> 49:59.540]  But, in this era, everything is custom.
[49:59.700 --> 50:02.200]  Every component inside it was made for this product.
[50:02.400 --> 50:03.820]  And, where do you go to get it?
[50:05.000 --> 50:06.900]  The people who built the whole thing.
[50:07.460 --> 50:13.020]  So, yeah, this is the hidden trend, the weird, dirty secret.
[50:13.020 --> 50:16.960]  The older something is, the lifelier it is to actually be put back to use.
[50:18.500 --> 50:19.720]  I think that's a good comment.
[50:19.820 --> 50:22.180]  Actually, the question about the washing machine.
[50:22.620 --> 50:25.460]  I actually, I have a washing machine that's from the 1980s.
[50:25.580 --> 50:29.560]  And, as much as I see, like, my family members have these $2,000 washing machines.
[50:29.560 --> 50:32.840]  When the computer goes on that, it's expensive to fix.
[50:33.120 --> 50:39.600]  And, with the old one, I bought, I think, a part for 50 bucks and fixed my old 1980s washing machine.
[50:39.680 --> 50:42.420]  But, I'm reluctant to buy, sometimes, the newer things.
[50:42.420 --> 50:46.040]  And, when it comes to vehicles, as well, my cars are not new.
[50:46.240 --> 50:47.420]  Not even close to being new.
[50:47.540 --> 50:56.440]  But, I'm also reluctant, because the newer the vehicle, the more computers, and the more you don't know about what those computers are tracking and storing about you.
[50:56.560 --> 50:59.520]  It just works like that with some of the new cars for convenience.
[50:59.800 --> 51:03.560]  But, if you're interested in privacy, as well, which I think is part of this discussion.
[51:03.800 --> 51:06.720]  At least, it is for me with repairing old technology computers.
[51:07.420 --> 51:13.760]  I'm sticking, as long as I can, with my older vehicles until I fully know, and people have researched, what some of the newer vehicles have in them.
[51:16.520 --> 51:20.060]  I'd love to hear more about the feasibility of pop-up shops.
[51:20.200 --> 51:21.080]  I like the idea of it.
[51:21.400 --> 51:24.320]  Where did you find sources of income to make that happen?
[51:24.440 --> 51:25.680]  Like, is it just donation based?
[51:25.720 --> 51:26.780]  Is it just on your grant?
[51:26.920 --> 51:29.040]  Like, where do you think sources of income could be?
[51:29.820 --> 51:31.140]  So, here's where we are.
[51:31.380 --> 51:33.820]  We did our first pop-up with an Indiegogo, basically.
[51:34.040 --> 51:44.000]  We raised about $10,000 for an Indiegogo, and that was enough to kind of rent our little storefront, pay people not that much for a month, and, you know, cover our costs.
[51:44.080 --> 51:47.380]  And we did the Indiegogo because I had no idea if anyone would show up.
[51:47.660 --> 51:54.140]  Like, literally, I brought all my broken stuff from home for the first day, because I thought it would be so embarrassing if we were all sitting there, like, doing nothing.
[51:55.560 --> 51:57.060]  So, that was not the problem.
[51:57.360 --> 52:02.720]  So, where we are right now in terms of the economics of the little pop-ups is we are on the knife edge.
[52:02.880 --> 52:11.200]  Like, we're basically just able to cover our costs just barely, which I actually think is pretty good for 12 weeks of operation.
[52:11.600 --> 52:21.180]  Our costs are super low, but one of the things that we're hoping to do is help people open their own pop-up repairs in their neighborhood, because I obviously, you know, I got scenery to design.
[52:21.180 --> 52:23.200]  I can't do it all over the country.
[52:23.200 --> 52:24.580]  And I've had a lot of interest.
[52:24.760 --> 52:33.180]  So, we are working on a way to basically share what we've learned so that people don't have to, you know, totally reinvent the wheel and do their own.
[52:33.420 --> 52:36.980]  And right now, I wouldn't say that you're going to go home from a month of pop-up and, like,
[52:40.400 --> 52:44.360]  you know, buy yourself a new piano, or maybe the piano, but not a new car.
[52:45.800 --> 52:53.560]  But you... I'm hoping that we can get people who are excited enough to do this on their own and that they can cover their costs and pay themselves a little, and their friends a little.
[52:55.440 --> 52:56.400]  We charge people.
[52:57.280 --> 52:58.760]  And we are charging...
[52:58.760 --> 53:01.920]  We did this very consciously as a thing of charging people.
[53:02.040 --> 53:04.300]  Because, first of all, we know that there are things that exist.
[53:04.460 --> 53:05.280]  There are repair cafes.
[53:05.440 --> 53:06.800]  There are things like the Fixers Collective.
[53:06.800 --> 53:11.700]  And we were very curious about the economics of would people pay and how much would they pay.
[53:12.680 --> 53:21.320]  Especially for things that there was very little market comparison out there, like a cheap plastic fan or some of the clothing.
[53:21.500 --> 53:24.360]  There were a lot of mending things that we did that are really not done.
[53:24.440 --> 53:27.520]  And this is sort of part of our research, is what will people pay?
[53:27.520 --> 53:36.600]  So, we charge for every item and we have a whole pricing scheme that is hopefully more and more designed to make sure that we can pay the Fixers.
[53:37.120 --> 53:38.980]  Because, ultimately, what we're doing is...
[53:39.500 --> 53:43.900]  I believe it's sort of a celebration and a revaluation of these skills.
[53:44.080 --> 53:47.520]  Like, I believe very deeply that the ability to fix something is kind of amazing.
[53:48.240 --> 53:51.020]  And so, I want to make sure that that has...
[53:51.020 --> 53:53.540]  I believe it has economic value as well.
[53:53.640 --> 53:58.260]  And when I have a friend who comes in and, like, you know, stitches t-shirts with us for a month, I want to pay that person.
[53:58.320 --> 54:00.920]  I don't want them to, you know, give up their month of work in theater.
[54:01.860 --> 54:03.960]  All right, we've been told we're out of time.
[54:04.460 --> 54:04.980]  Oh, sorry.
[54:04.980 --> 54:08.900]  So, thank you very much for attending our panel and we'll take questions outside.
[54:08.900 --> 54:08.920]  Thank you very much.
[54:09.060 --> 54:09.320]  Thank you very much.
[54:09.320 --> 54:09.560]  Thank
[54:18.090 --> 54:21.470]  you very much.
[54:21.850 --> 54:22.850]  Thank you very much.
[54:23.550 --> 54:24.950]  Thank you very much.
[54:25.210 --> 54:25.270]  Thank you very much.
[54:25.650 --> 54:26.130]  Thank
[54:52.940 --> 54:53.080]  you very much.
[54:53.080 --> 54:53.500]  Thank you very much.
[54:53.680 --> 54:53.840]  Thank you very much.
[54:54.100 --> 54:54.540]  Thank you very much.
[54:54.580 --> 54:55.880]  Thank you very much.
[54:56.420 --> 54:56.800]  Thank you very much.
[54:56.800 --> 54:57.300]  Thank you very much.
[54:57.300 --> 54:57.740]  Thank
[55:36.940 --> 55:37.260]  you very much.
[55:37.320 --> 55:39.120]  Thank you very much.
[55:39.520 --> 55:39.840]  Thank you very much.