Ask Art Center faculty and alumni what changes they think the next 80 years of art and design will bring, and you’ll get no shortage of compelling answers.

Autonomous cars! Augmented reality! Networked schools of fish! (No, I’m not making that last one up.)

David Erven, Dihedral Tile, detail (2008)

All topics worthy of in-depth exploration, but there’s one emerging trend that keeps kicking at the door. It’s a trend that appears across many disciplines and fulfills deep-seated human needs, ensuring it won’t be going away anytime soon.

This trend doesn’t have a name per se. It goes by many names: DIY (“Do it yourself”), hacking and open-source are just a few of its monikers. Whatever you call it, this trend represents a paradigm-shift for the creators of intellectual property.

It’s a trend where end-users are increasingly expecting more control over their products and experiences, and where creators are shifting from designing finished products to designing spaces where user-driven expression can occur.

And it’s a trend, which—although it has numerous historical antecedents—is about to explode thanks to both current technology and technology just around the bend.

Read more of this story at the DOT magazine website.