Kayle Brandon reporting on DIY / CONVERSION / OIL / SHIT /EDUCATION

Kayle Brandon reporting on DIY / CONVERSION / OIL / SHIT / EDUCATION
at DIY_Culture 2005 January 21st-23rd: Birmingham UK

http://irational.org/kayle/DIY_culture/


Lots of people I know love abit of DIY, weather its putting up a shelf or
making their own teeth.

DIY_Culture 2005 was organised by Steve Crozier and Simon Griffiths,
offering a programme of how-to-and-why in DIY domestic infrastructure,
encompassing a broad range of issues from Linux computing to shit
composting.

"The intention was to create an atmosphere of practical hobbyism combined
with theoretical apocalyptic preparations. DIY could be seen as the
hidden side of resistance in a confrontational and obvious manner, and
acting as if ourselves and the environment around us is independent of any
power structures. Ignoring through existing rather than resisting in the
traditional sense.

There was also a breakdown between workshops, participants and audience,
which was interesting and is one area that should be pushed as far as
possible. Otherwise this becomes another commodified area of
entertainment for people to attend and consume."
Steve Crozier

http://stuffit.org/diy/



CONVERSION

Many of the workshops in DIY_Culture were about converting from one
process to another, replacing defunct damaging systems with processes and
approaches that clearly represent attempts at more sustainable symbiotic
relations.

The alchemy of conversion can be a radical learning experience. Changing
and trying things out on ourselves and surrounding, enables us to
analyse and reconsider the total effect a process is having on a
situation.

http://www.onlineconversion.com/



OIL

The diesel engine was originally designed to run on peanut oil. So the
conversion process is more about revisiting the inventors intention rather
than rethinking it.

Conversion of the engine is relatively easy depending on the vehicle type.
The action liberates the user from crude oil agents. We may endlessly
dispute the oil companies ethics and protest the detrimental effect of
using such a fuel, but until we stop buying, stop using we are aiding and
abetting.

The user and instigator for the change detaches from auto pilot. Relations
to vehicle, supply and politic all shift. Maintaining and committing to
the new situation requires a level of responsibility that most may find
undesirable. The decision to go against the norm tends to place the user
in a minority position, access to materials, information, and support may
be in shorter supply.

During DIY_culture Hannah got her diesel engine converted, it took Ian
all-day. After a day of mechanical manhandling the van was ready for
test drive.

Kayle Brandon: What's changed since the conversion?

Hannah Searnley: My exhaust smells like pakoras, which is great, nice to
be different. Hopefully, my particulate output is less. In a
well-functioning car running on new veg oil (rather than filtered used veg
oil) the particulates are considerably less, which is cool because they
are a big problem, especially in towns, for people's breathing. And of
course the emissions are much cleaner and don't include greenhouse gases.
So I guess I can feel better driving about now. I have to start the van on
diesel and get the engine up to a certain temperature to ensure that the
veg oil is thin enough to pass through the engine without clogging the
pump up. This can take about 15 mins, so I'm starting to think that if I'm
not doing a long enough journey to be able to turn over to veg, then maybe
i should be walking or cycling it. It's not illegal to run your car on
veg, but you have to make sure that you are up to date with paying the
fuel tax. Apparently, it's very rare that you will be pulled over, but
it's best to have a receipt for oil with the taxed pre-paid in your
glovebox.

www.vegburner.co.uk
www.bio-power.co.uk



SHIT

Will maintaining my own shit make me a better person, more whole, more
pure more real, more able to deal with my own death ?

The dominant waste disposal system is a shit to filth process; the
compost toilet is a shit to fertiliser process.

Social constructs of perceived civil society keep us from engaging with
natural symbiotic relations. The popular misconception of shit as 'waste'
instead of 'resource' necessitates replacement of a high functioning
bio-dynamic system with a waste control and management process.

Kayle Brandon: has the experience effected ways you view your own body ?

Graham Burnett: Not really, but i think it has made it more tangible for me
the
awareness of how we have broken the cycles of nature, IE that we flush
perfectly good quality fertiliser out to sea, thus creating a problem
rather than using a solution. I knew this on an intellectual level, but
our compost bog project has made that realisation more 'solid' if you
like…

KB: Can a city dweller do it?

GB: I don't see why not as long as you have a reasonable sized
garden, probably not very practical if you live in a block of flats or
something. We need more sensible broad scale sewage solutions in cities
rather than flushing shit out to sea. It could be returned to the land via
larger scale composting projects.

http://www.weblife.org/humanure/default.html
http://www.gb0063551.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/bog/compostbog.htm



EDUCATION

Ultimately DIY culture is about self governed learning. Autonomous,
education via independent study and research. Experimenting, playing and
producing to enrich daily life and challenge the status quo.

"DIY_Culture 2005" is one example of events, projects and situations set
up by groups and individuals with DIY ethics.

"The human mind is inquisitive, enquiring; it is stimulated by the
process of learning new skills and knowledge. There is really nothing all
that special in feeling empowered enough to teach ourselves some new skill
or piece of knowledge. This is what the mind does, how it functions.
Unfortunately in much of western society, this is often not the case. A
direct correlation can perhaps be discerned between this situation and the
manner in which learning comes to be institutionalised under the banner of
education.

If we perceive of our society of mass production and consumption in terms
of a system, we can note that in order for such a system to be
predictable, manageable and therefore efficient, the units that it depends
upon need, in themselves, to be regular, calculable and predictable. The
production of such units is the service that institutionalised education
or school provides for modern society. It achieves this by nurturing an
environment of low-level anxiety and fear. The use of continual
examinations, competitive grading systems, divisions according to age,
separation from the adult world and any meaningful responsibilities, and
an enforced elongation of the period of childhood, all serve to foster an
immaturity of thought and emotion that extends well into adulthood.
Schools, in this manner, are able to produce, for industrialised society,
people, or workers, who have been leveled off, deliberately stunted in
their growth as human beings, denied the opportunity to learn to think and
feel for themselves. In other words a regular, calculable and predictable
workforce, fit for the requirements of industrialised mass production and
consumption.

In this sense educating both yourself and your children through means
other than school is perhaps one of the most radical acts possible. "
Simon Griffiths

The University of Openess (UO) is a self-institution for independent
research, collaboration and learning. Lottie Child is a UO producer and
user, working specifically in the faculty of Physical Education.

Kayle Brandon: I've been considering going into further education would you
recommend UO?

Lottie Child: I think it depends what kind of people you've got access to,
the way I'm approaching my MA (master of arts) at the UO is to use it as a
contact to people I want to talk to, and as a framework for the research
that I'm doing… If you you want to carry on developing your work, you can
conceptualise an MA at UO in anyway you want.

KB: Does UO have tutors available that I could access?

LC: No it doesn't, its got a mailing list and a Wiki, the Wiki is edited
anonymously and the people on the mailing list are hard to know who they
are. You can use those places to put info share info ask questions that
kind of thing. Its not difficult to get in involved and figure out who
everybody is and find it if anyone has anything to offer you. The way I do
it is by creating links with people I come across as I research and work.

KB: How does UO work exactly?

LC: I don't know, how it works, I suppose via the mailing list, Wiki,
there's people. I don't know all the people involved, and I don't know what
all the people involved in it think it is. Whatever your collective
imaginations come up with that's what it is. It works in lots of different
ways.

LC: the great thing about the Wiki is that its an ever expanding thing,
that is practically unknowable; it grows because people us it.

http://twenteenthcentury.com/uo/index.php/