For the Ian Dury & The Blockheads album see Do It Yourself (Ian Dury & the Blockheads album). Ian Robins Dury ( 12 May 1942 &ndash 27 March 2000) was an English Rock and roll singer songwriter and Bandleader Do It Yourself is a 1979 album by Ian Dury & The Blockheads It was the first album to be credited to Ian Dury & The Blockheads rather than Ian Dury alone although

Do it yourself, often referred to by the initialism DIY, is a term used by various communities that focus on people creating things for themselves without the aid of paid professionals. The notion is largely made possible by living in a modern industrial society, and is related in philosophy to the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Arts and Crafts Movement was a British, Canadian, and American Aesthetic movement occurring in the last years of the 19th century and the Many modern DIY subcultures take the traditional Arts and Crafts movement's rebellion against the perceived lack of soul of industrial aesthetics a step further. The Arts and Crafts Movement was a British, Canadian, and American Aesthetic movement occurring in the last years of the 19th century and the Aesthetics or esthetics ( also spelled æsthetics) is commonly known as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values sometimes called DIY subculture explicitly critiques modern consumer culture, which emphasizes that the solution to our needs is to purchase things, and instead encourage people to take technologies into their own hands to solve needs.

The actual activity of DIY goes back through the ages: since the beginning of time, people have used their own abilities and available tools and technologies to take care of their own needs, make their own clothing, and so on.

The phrase "do it yourself" came into common usage in the 1950s in reference to various jobs that people could do in and around their houses without the help of professionals. A very active community of people continues to use the term DIY to refer to fabricating or repairing things for home needs, on one's own rather than purchasing them or paying for professional repair. In other words, home improvement done by the householder without the aid of paid professionals. Home improvement or home renovation is the process of renovating or making additions to one's home

In recent years, the term DIY has taken on a broader meaning that covers a wide range of skill sets. Today, for example, DIY is associated with the international alternative and hardcore music scenes. Alternative rock (also called alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative; known primarily in the UK as indie) is a genre of Hardcore punk (now usually referred to as simply hardcore) is a subgenre of Punk rock that originated in North America in the late 1970s Members of these subcultures strive to blur the lines between creator and consumer by constructing a social network that ties users and makers close together.

There are various communities of media-makers that consider themselves DIY, for example the indymedia network, pirate radio stations, and the zine community. The Independent Media Center (aka Indymedia or IMC) is a global participatory network of journalists that reports on political and social issues The term pirate radio usually refers to illegal or unregulated radio transmissions A zine (an abbreviation of the word Fanzine, or magazine ziːn "zeen" is most commonly a small circulation non-commercial Publication

DIY home improvement

Large hardware stores have capitalized upon the DIY ambitions of North Americans

The home improvement DIY scene we know today is actually a re-introduction (often to city and suburb dwellers) of the old pattern of personal involvement in home or apartment upkeep, or the making of clothing, or maintaining of cars, computers, websites, or any material aspect of living.

A comment by philosopher Alan Watts (from the "Houseboat Summit" panel discussion in a 1967 edition of the San Francisco Oracle) reflected a growing sentiment of the times:

Our educational system, in its entirety, does nothing to give us any kind of material competence. Alan Wilson Watts ( January 6, 1915 &ndash November 16, 1973) was a British Philosopher, Writer, speaker and The Oracle of the City of San Francisco, also known as the San Francisco Oracle was an Underground newspaper published from September 20 1966 In other words, we don't learn how to cook, how to make clothes, how to build houses, how to make love, or to do any of the absolutely fundamental things of life. The whole education that we get for our children in school is entirely in terms of abstractions. It trains you to be an insurance salesman or a bureaucrat, or some kind of cerebral character.

In response to this sort of insight, in the 1970s, DIY spread through the North American population of college- and recent-college-graduate age groups. In part, this movement involved simply the renovation of affordable, rundown older homes. But it also related to some extent to various projects expressing the social and environmental vision of the '60s and early '70s.

A young American visionary named Stewart Brand, working with friends and family, and initially using the most basic of typesetting and page-layout tools, published the first edition of The Whole Earth Catalog (subtitled Access to Tools) in late 1968. Stewart Brand (born December 14, 1938 in Rockford Illinois) is an Author, editor, and creator of The Whole Earth Catalog The Whole Earth Catalog was an American Counterculture catalog that granted "Access to Tools" published by Stewart Brand between 1968 and

The first Catalog and its successors used a broad definition of the term "tools". There were informational tools, such as books (often technical in nature), professional journals, courses, classes, and the like. And there were specialized, designed items, such as carpenter's and mason's tools, garden tools, welding equipment, chainsaws, fiberglass materials, etc. — even early personal computers. (The designer J. Baldwin acted as editor for the inclusion of these items, writing many of the reviews himself. James Tennant Baldwin (born 1933 (whose books and articles have been published under the names J )

The Catalog's publication both emerged from and spurred the great wave of experimentalism, convention-breaking, and do-it-yourself attitude of the late 1960s. Often copied, the Catalog appealed to a wide cross-section of people in North America and had a broad influence.

For decades, magazines such as Popular Mechanics and Mechanix Illustrated offered a way to keep current on useful information. Popular Mechanics is an American magazine devoted to Science and Technology. Mechanix Illustrated was an American magazine founded in the first half of the 20th Century to compete against the older Popular Science and Popular DIY home improvement books began to flourish in the 1970s, first created as compendiums of magazine articles. One of the earliest extensive lines of DIY how-to books was created by Sunset Books, based upon articles derived from the pages of Sunset Magazine in California. Time-Life, Better Homes & Gardens, and other publishers soon followed suit. In the mid-1990s, DIY home-improvement content began to find its way onto the World Wide Web. HouseNet was the earliest bulletin-board style site where users could share information. HomeTips. com, established in early 1995, was among the first Web-based sites to deliver free extensive DIY home-improvement content created by expert authors to Internet users. Since the late 1990s, DIY has exploded on the Web through thousands of sites.

In the 1970s, when home video (VCRs) came along, the potentials in demonstrating processes audio-visually were immediately grasped by DIY instructors. PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THAT THIS IS A GENERAL ARTICLE ABOUT VCRs/VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDERS As with television programs, presentation could be dynamic and was not limited in the ways that still photos and written text might be.

The DIY industry has grown markedly since the 1980s as DIY has become a popular weekend pastime for people wanting to improve their living conditions (and the value of their house) without the expense of paying someone to do it. There are many DIY stores to supply materials and tools. A broader definition of a tool is an entity used to interface between two or more domains that facilitates more effective action of one domain upon the other

In 1994, the HGTV Network cable television channel was launched in the United States and Canada, followed in 1999 by the DIY Network cable television channel. Home & Garden Television ( HGTV) is a cable TV network in the US that carries a variety of Home and Garden improvement maintenance The DIY Network is a channel owned by Scripps Networks Interactive that focuses on Do it yourself projects at home Both were launched to appeal to the growing percentage of North Americans interested in DIY topics, from Home Improvement to Knitting. Home Improvement is a American television Sitcom starring actor/comedian Tim Allen, which aired 1991 to 1999 "Knit" redirects here See also KNIT and Knitted fabric. Such channels have multiple shows showing how to stretch one's budget to achieve professional-looking results ("Design Cents", "Design on a Dime", etc. ) while doing the work yourself.

Beyond magazines and television the scope of home improvement DIY continues to grow online where most mainstream media outlets now have extensive DIY focused informational websites such as This Old House, Martha Stewart, and the DIY Network that are often extensions of their magazine or television brand. This Old House is an American Home improvement Magazine and Television series which is aired on the American public Martha Stewart (born Martha Helen Kostyra; August 3, 1941) is an American Business magnate, Television host, author The DIY Network is a channel owned by Scripps Networks Interactive that focuses on Do it yourself projects at home The growth of independent online DIY resources is also spiking^[1] and the number of homeowners who blog about their own experiences continues to grow along with Do-It-Yourself websites from smaller organizations. A blog (a contraction of the term " Web log " is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary descriptions of

Common DIY home-improvement tasks

Common DIY home-improvement projects include:

• putting up shelves
• painting and decorating
• plumbing work:
  • replacing washers
  • replacing sink, bath or basin taps or fitting an outside tap^[2]
  • fitting a shower
  • extending or installing central heating
• decking
• building an extension
• extending or replacing electrical wiring
• automotive repair:
  • changing engine oil
  • changing spark plugs
  • fitting or replacing a car radio or audio system
• Major appliance and small appliance repair
• Modifying or upgrading computer equipment, known as modding or tweaking. For the Grand Central Records albums see Central Heating (Grand Central album and Central Heating 2. In Architecture, a deck is a flat surface capable of supporting weight similar to a Floor, but typically constructed outdoors often elevated from the ground and A spark plug (also very rarely nowadays in British English: a sparking plug) is an electrical device that fits into the Cylinder Refrigerator1svg|left|100px]]A major appliance, or domestic appliance, is usually defined as a large Machine which accomplishes some routine housekeeping task which Small appliance refers to a class of Home appliances that are portable or semi-portable or which are used on tabletops countertops or other platforms Modding is a Slang expression that is derived from the verb " modify " Tweaking refers to fine-tuning or adjusting a complex system usually an electronic device ^[3]
• Building a white box PC from scratch. In Computer hardware, a white box is a Personal computer or server assembled from off-the-shelf parts
• DIY audio/video equipment. DIY Audio means " Do it yourself " audio. Rather than buying a piece of possibly expensive audio equipment such as a High-end audio amplifier
• building/restoring cars, boats or aircraft

DIY as a subculture

The term 'DIY' or 'Do-It-Yourself' is also used to describe:

• Self-publishing books, zines, and alternative comics. A boat is a Watercraft of modest size designed to float or plane on water and provide transport over it Self-publishing is the Publishing of Books and other media by the Authors of those works rather than by established Third-party A zine (an abbreviation of the word Fanzine, or magazine ziːn "zeen" is most commonly a small circulation non-commercial Publication The term "alternative comics" is one of several labels applied to a range of Comics that have appeared since about 1980 in the wake of the Underground comix
• bands or solo artists releasing their music on self-funded record labels
• creating crafts such as knitting, sewing, handmade jewelry, ceramics, etc. In the Music industry, a record label can be a Brand and a Trademark associated with the Marketing of music recordings and Music A craft is a Skill, especially involving practical arts. It may refer to a Trade or particular art "Knit" redirects here See also KNIT and Knitted fabric. Sewing or stitching is the fastening of Cloth, Leather, Furs Bark, or other flexible materials using needle and Handmade jewelry is Jewelry which has been assembled and formed by hand rather than through the use of machines Ceramics and ceramic art in the art world means artwork made out of clay bodies and fired to form a ceramic. ^[4]
• creating punk, indie, or hipster musical merchandise through the use of recycling thrift store or discarded materials, usually decorated with logo art applied by silk screen. The punk subculture is based around Punk rock. It emerged from the larger Rock music scene in the mid-to-late-1970s in the United Kingdom, the United In the late 1990s the 1940s slang term hipster began being used to describe young urban Middle class and Upper class adults with interests in non-mainstream fashion Recycling involves processing used materials into new products in order to prevent the waste of potentially useful materials reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials reduce A charity shop, second-hand shop ( UK) thrift shop, thrift store, hospice shop ( U A logo ( Greek el λογότυπος = el-Latn logotypos is a graphical element ( Ideogram, Symbol, Emblem, Icon, Sign) Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink blocking stencil ^[5]
• Independent game development and game modding. Indie games are Video games that are created independently of the financial backing of a large Video game publisher. Mod or modification is a term generally applied to Computer games especially First-person shooters RPGs and Real-time strategy games

DIY as a subculture arguably began with the punk movement of the 1970s^[6]. Instead of traditional means of bands reaching their audiences through large music labels, bands began recording themselves, manufacturing albums and merchandise, booking their own tours, and creating opportunities for smaller bands to get wider recognition and gain cult status through repetitive low-cost DIY touring. The burgeoning zine movement took up coverage of and promotion of the underground punk scenes, and significantly altered the way fans interacted with musicians. A zine (an abbreviation of the word Fanzine, or magazine ziːn "zeen" is most commonly a small circulation non-commercial Publication Underground culture, or just underground, is a term to describe various Alternative cultures which either consider themselves different from the Mainstream Zines quickly branched off from being hand-made music magazines to become more personal. A zine (an abbreviation of the word Fanzine, or magazine ziːn "zeen" is most commonly a small circulation non-commercial Publication Zines quickly became one of the youth culture's gateways to DIY culture, which lead to tutorial zines showing others how to make their own shirts, posters, zines, books, food, etc. DIY (or Do It Yourself culture is a broad term that refers to a wide range of Grassroots political activism

DIY as political action

With the rise of the modern multi-national corporation, North American and European DIY culture has increasingly become a social and political ideology as well as a hobby and fashion aesthetic. A corporation is a separate legal entity usually used to conduct business DIY (or Do It Yourself culture is a broad term that refers to a wide range of Grassroots political activism Similar to the Arts and Crafts movement of the 1900's, the modern DIY movement is viewed as a reactionary response on an individual scale to modern industrial society's reliance on mass-production. The Arts and Crafts Movement was a British, Canadian, and American Aesthetic movement occurring in the last years of the 19th century and the In response to the perception and belief that these large multi-national companies exploit labor in developing countries, (such as Gap, Nike, and Coca-Cola), the DIY subculture has increasingly seen its choices as consumers motivated in part to not support such perceived cruelty and abuse. The Gap Incorporated ( is an American clothing and accessories retailer based in San Francisco California, and founded in 1969 by Donald Fisher Nike Inc ('naɪki ( is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. Coca-Cola is a carbonated Soft drink sold in stores restaurants and Vending machines in more than 200 countries A common sentiment expressed in DIY culture is to "think globally, act locally," meaning that support of multinational corporations supports exploitative labor and environmental practices, so to purchase goods and services made locally in effect boycotts these organizations. In addition, the making, recycling, or otherwise following a doctrine of "non consumption" as part of DIY subculture lessens the amount of sales taxes one pays, such taxes being viewed as similarly aiding such morally repugnant institutions as governments which wage war. This view of "consuming less as political statement" is not agreed upon in the subcultures it is found in, but is a motivating force for many of its adherents.

DIY culture is not limited to hand-making items such as clothing and housewares, but extends to choices of public transportation such as biking and bike repair, walking, taking public transportation, making electric, hybrid or bio-diesel vehicles and modifying existing vehicles, to avoid supporting traditional car companies, which are perceived to be amoral. Cycling is the use of Bicycles or - less commonly - Unicycles Tricycles Quadricycles and other similar wheeled Human powered vehicles Walking (also called ambulation) is the main form of Animal Locomotion on land, distinguished from Running and crawling A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV is a Hybrid vehicle which combines a conventional propulsion system with a Rechargeable energy storage system (RESS Biodiesel refers to a non-petroleum-based Diesel fuel consisting of short chain Alkyl ( Methyl or ethyl) Esters made by Listening to and making community radio, pirate radio, and watching and making community television instead of advertising-filled traditional media is also common. Community radio is a type of Radio service that caters to the interests of a certain area broadcasting material that is popular to a local audience but is overlooked by more The term pirate radio usually refers to illegal or unregulated radio transmissions Australia's Community Television is a form of Citizen media much like Public Access Television in the United States and the Community Channel in Canada

Groups and publications associated with DIY subculture

• Bazaar Bizarre
• Church of Craft
• Craft
• Craftster
• CrimethInc.
• Distros of zines and music, such as Cometbus
• Make
• Microcosm Publishing
• ReadyMade
• Popular Mechanics
• TechShop

See also

• DIY culture/DIY ethic
• Handyperson
• Instructables
• Prosumer

References

Weblinks

• Wikiants.org is a Non Profit, mediawiki-based, free content encyclopedia for D. A non-profit organization ( abbreviated "NPO" also "not-for-profit" is a legally constituted Organization whose objective is to support or engage MediaWiki is a web-based Wiki software application used by all projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, all wikis hosted by Wikia, and _____ __ / ___/ / /_ ____ ____ \__ \ / __/ / __ \ / __ \ ___/ / / /_ I. Y. projects that anyone can edit.