Uma nova revolução industrial: graus de autonomia e articulações com a criatividade e a tecnologia

Abstract

Since the final decades of the 20th century there has been a transition from an industrial society to a knowledge and information society articulated with a creative Economy. This new context includes changes in technology, society and dominant paradigms, and the on-going revolution modifies the references that attribute value to products with effects on consumption and production. It involves sharing as well as interaction and connection made possible by innovative technologies – CNC, laser cutting, 3D scanners and 3D printing machines – and software of low complexity, such as Arduino. Formerly depending on the engagement of artisans or “makers”, production is now open to an alternative environment, enabling the emergence of a situation of autonomy. Companies are starting to acknowledge these transformations and their impact on the market and have been changing their way of doing business. New types of interaction articulate big and smaller firms as well as individuals and these transformations amount to what some analysts describe as a new Industrial Revolution. This paper discusses the mutations that have been occurring due to this reconfiguration of the relationship between businesses, people and production. The concept of autonomy is adopted as an operator of the analysis, which investigates the relations between production and consumption in the 20th and 21st Centuries and identifies the emergence of a new Ethos, within which individuals have different possibilities of exercising their autonomy.