ABSTRACT
Making and assembling produce an odd pairing of terms. Making derives from the short vocalization ‘mek’ from an Anglo-Saxon word, and hearkens to the Germanic verb ‘machen’ meaning to do or to make. It has both a universal application, in the sense that everyone from children to adults makes sound, while on the other hand, it aligns with specialists who form unique or distinctive works, such as a fine machine or a beautiful painting. Making, or doing, also leads us directly to processes whereby materials become transformed by an action, such as a person making a cocktail or the weather making us feel hot. On the other hand, assembling is Latinate, as with the French verb ‘assembler’, in English also to assemble, as in the putting together or gathering of people, objects or things. Etymologically, this latter term relates then to the important notion of ‘assembly’ as a site of public cultural enactment, as well as to the assembly line of Fordist manufacturing. We might also have a more prosaic view of assembling in contemporary culture when we consume the plasticity of a robotics toy, a piece of IKEA furniture, or a Facebook page. Thus, we might conceive of a sharp contrast between making and assembling as methods, in the sense that making suggests creating, and something more primal, fashioned even from mud, whereas assembling tends towards order, and something more civilized, or institutional. We do not assert this dichotomy in any cultural hierarchy because we prefer to examine these terms operating in relation to one another, and as moving generatively between the social and linguistic, or human and non-human, in contemporary research.
