Do-it-yourself cellphones
David A. Mellis, Leah Buechley · 2014
This paper describes our do-it-yourself cellphone and our use of it to investigate the possibilities and limits of high-tech DIY practice. We describe our autobiographical approach -- making the phone and using it in our daily lives -- and our work disseminating the cellphone in workshops and online. This informs a discussion of the implications of technology for DIY practice. We suggest an understanding of DIY as an individual's ability to combine existing technologies into a desired product, enabled and limited by ecosystems of industrial actors and individuals. We distinguish different pathways into high-tech DIY practice, consider the relationship between prototyping and production, and discuss the effect of technology on DIY's relevance and tools, and on notions of transparency. We conclude by reflecting on the relationship between DIY and empowerment: the extent to which making devices gives people control over the technology in their lives.