I’ve almost completed the vivisection of my original pink cow/pony toy. For now I’ll refer to her as a pony for simplicity sake. The vivisection exercise was designed to introduce us to electronic processes and components, as well as to familiarize us more intimately with the materials, textures, forms and organization of the object at hand. The vivisection has been a painstaking process of cutting and drawing to reveal the automaton within. This pony doesn’t really serve a function beyond amusing small children—most likely, girls under 4. The pony has, however, become a point of departure for my thesis project. The notions of toy, play and interactivity have started to influence an idea for how we might play with our buildings as opposed to in them. When I first brought the pony out of her battered box I was amazed at her range of motion. She is able to prop herself up, lie down and rotate her head from one side to the other while blinking her eyes and laughing. She also has a litany of phrases, giggles and exclamations such as “oh-oh”. “Good morning, Mommy”. “I love you”. “Let’s play!” “Can I have a kiss?” “Yawn, good night!” and “Brush my hair please.” It appears when activated, pony will sit up, lie down, move her head or blink. When she moves, she makes baby sounds or says one of the seven expressions. I’ve included images and video of her talents. The pony also has several accessories: a pacifier, bottle and brush. If you feed her the bottle she'll make drinking sounds, if you press her foot she'll giggle and if you give her the pacifier she proceeds to fall asleep. Each time pony has completed an action and/or expression, you can pat her back, press her foot or re-insert the bottle or pacifier to reactivate her. At first I was repulsed by this strange little creature, but the more time I’ve spent analyzing her, the more I’ve grown attached. Once I remove her over-sized pink head and expose her inner mutant the more attractive she’ll become.
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