The MAGIC Center is a project driven place. Nearly everything we do is based in part (or in total) on the act of making things. In fact, this is our primary academic purpose on the RIT campus with respect to digital media: to preserve (as Ian Horswill of Northwestern so eloquently put it) “making as a mode of inquiry:” We make things in order to understand something, be it technical, social, or expressive. We make things to convey meaning, to impart message, and to reflect upon the human condition. Trying to understand digital media and its applications without making things is impossible: the act of creation is what informs our understanding of how things operate and the effects they have upon us.
There are many myths of making, chief among them the lone creator locked away from society focused on his or her craft to the exclusion of all. In today’s world of digital media, creators are in constant contact and collaboration around the globe, exchanging ideas, content, source code, and materials. They are continually tinkering, breaking, improving, and remixing. The making of things is not a single, finite step, but a cyclical process that builds upon itself, upon every iteration and milestone, every release, in a symbiotic way between the author and the public. When we say the MAGIC Center is a place for making things, we mean just that: it is a community, first and foremost: a community that promotes the making of things as a core value.