Intervention

Intervention

Who: Me, Myself and I (Emily Duerrwaechter)

What: Intervention of public space with blinking light circuit

Where: Destin Commons

When: Early Evening, Monday February 13th

How: Incorporate circuit into a stuffed animal and place it in one of the planted ledges where high foot traffic is noted.




The Setup

At first I required a "body" for the light circuit, so while at Target I stopped in at the pet section and found a cute fox toy with a sqeeky ball in it. The space between the eyes was ideal for the LEDs so I went ahead and bought it. I made a 3 inch incision in the back and removed the stuffing, then made two small holes in the eyes for the LEDs to fit through. Once I placed the circuit into the body and the LEDs through eye holes, I sewed the toy back up and wala; a toy with blinking lights.

The Results

Well, it was quite interesting seeing what happened between the public and my toy. I had already surveyed the area two days prior to my intervention and found that the central area near the Rave Theater had the most foot traffic. While the people traffic was at a minimum and the Security not walking around I planted my fox toy just under one of the ferns slightly in the shadows so that the lights would be visible blinking on and off. I sat at the nearby Starbucks texting random people. I brought my digital camera and set it under my purse flap facing the fox toy. Once everything was ready, I set the camera to record and left it alone. After 20 minutes had gone by I shifted positions to face a different flow of traffic for another 20 minutes. At first, no one really seemed to notice the little odd toy. Then when the sun started to set, that's when I finally got some reactions. One of the more humerous moments is of two separate occasions where security personnel stopped and looked around right next to the toy, and just walked off. I also had a little girl pick up the toy and almost walk away with it. Thankfully she understood that I needed it and gave it back. A couple of older folks also commented on it, and most people either did not notice it or noticed it and pretended not to. Seems those people were just too busy either on their phones or talking to others. Interesting enough though, those people that came up to look at the toy were not already occupied.