‘I’ve got more toys than my kids’: An audio experiment
Toy cars are designed for kids. Toy cars are marketed towards kids. Sometimes, though, it’s adults who end up playing with them.
In this audio experiment, I wanted to explore the relationship between a toy’s intended use and its use by a hobbyist or collector. To think about this relationship, I juxtaposed audio from each of a toy car’s different worlds. You will hear archival clips of children at play put into stark contrast with toy car collector Jason’s thoughts about toys and age.
As you listen, think about how Jason reconstructs the purpose of a toy for his own ends. Even as a father, Jason imagines himself to be the ‘proper’ hobbyist. Younger collectors, he imagines, do not ‘play’ correctly — they do not participate in the hobby according to his rules. How does Jason imagine the shared intergenerational space of toy car collecting?
Source Audio: “Family002.wav” by wjoojoo, From Freesound.org (CC BY 3.0)
