Remixing toys... ever heard of it? Well, you have now! Toy remixing can be a fun process for people of any age to stimulate creativity and build a stronger connection to a toy. My first toy remixing experience was an interesting one! Here's how it went down:
Going into this I was optimistic. I was thrilled to be doing something with my peers that we'd never done before.
First thing to do is get an animatronic toy. You can use an old or a new toy but it's most important that you make sure it works! Then begin to take notes of your original toy, study the build of it and it's movements. Why does the toy do this or that? What is its purpose?
Once you're familiar with the toy, get unfamiliar! Take it apart!
My Toy
This is the toy that I took apart. It's a cute, small baby kitten that meows and purrs when you give it soft and gentle pets. I was lucky enough to be gifted this baby kitten toy from a friend who found it at a local GoodWill.
This cuteness didn't last long! But before I started deconstructing the toy, I was careful to take notes and create some drawings of the toy and what I thought it would look like inside based on how it felt and it's movements.
Let's Deconstruct
I felt many different emotions during the deconstruction process. As a child, I was quite close with my stuffed animals so destroying a cute little kitty cat was slightly disturbing for me, but for some it was hilarious and super enjoyable to see animal skins being removed and fluffy insides spilling out to reveal a little robot underneath.
During this time it's extremely important to watch the movements that the toy makes and try to take it out of context. In my own experience, I got extremely frustrated this part of the experiment and started to lose faith in my ability to make something original and interesting, so here are some questions that you could ask yourself should you end up frustrated, or even before then.
What would this be should you not have known its original state? What other things make these kind of movements? Try to create a new context for your newly taken apart toy. You hold the power here and now you can make it become whatever you'd like! Have fun during this time.
SO here's what happened.
I simply used a pair of scissors to remove the toys skin and this hard, plastic, eyeless shell is what was waiting for me beneath a once cute, fuzzy surface. Creepy, right?? I sure thought so.
You can click this link to my instagram to see a video of a friend enjoying the remains of this poor kitty.
Taking Note
Before I continued taking my toy apart, I took notes and created drawings that explained the parts of the toy, how the parts worked together, and the movements that they made when turned on.
Moving Forward
I decided that I wanted to remove the head/face part of the toy so that I could see less of the original toy and focus on the movement and creating a new context for it. The sounds of cat purring and meowing every time the button was pressed didn't help, so I thought it would be a good idea to remove the sound box as well.
As I was taking the toy apart, I got stuck. The only way to the inside of the toy (where the sound box was) required a screwdriver with a triangle shaped head, which was not a tool that anybody in my classroom had at the time. I had never even heard of a triangular headed screwdriver, so this was an interesting surprise and because of it, I had to settle with cat noises throughout the rest of the project.
Getting Stuck
When I was unable to get inside of the toy, I became discouraged because I had already created an expectation of what I was wanting to do with the toy and having to hear to meowing and purring was NOT apart of my plan.
After a good amount of time wallowing in my self pity, I began to move around the room and observe what my peers were doing. I thought this would inspire me but it really only made me feel worse as everyone was "ahead" of me, and more "successful" than me. So, I gave up...which was a lot more like surrendering. I let go of my expectations and accepted that it just wasn't working out.
That's when inspiration struck.
Getting Inspired
While I was moving around the room I was looking through a box of toys and I saw a little pig driving a car, which caught my attention as it's just too silly to ignore. Mr. Pig looked so satisfied and blissful that I was not convinced that he was feeling this way because he was driving his car around town. There is just absolutely NO way that someone could be that happy driving on a road, so I assumed he was that happy because he was driving a flying car and zooming through the clouds. Only logical, right??
I decided to make Mr. Pig's reality able to be seen by everyone by gluing him to the "crane" part of my toy, which made rotating motions, and then gluing the insides of taken apart stuffed animals to make clouds.
I was happy to have given Mr. Pig a bit more of an exciting life and I was glad to have recreated a toy and have something to show my peers, even though it did still meow and purr when you made it move.
Taking this toy apart helped me learned a lot about my own creative process, patience, and surrender. I don't know when I'll be doing this again, but it was quite a humbling and fun experience.
For anyone looking to learn about their own creative process, revamp some old toys, or just have some fun, this project is definitely one to try!
Happy creating!