Three Objects

 Play-Doh, Headphones, and a Camera

Play-Doh was the first object that came to my mind for this assignment. I just really like Play-Doh and I always seem to forget that it exists. I think that it is really fun to play with and I like to mess around with it whenever I have it. In high school, I made a stop-motion animation with Play-Doh. This was just a project I made for fun, and I’ve been meaning to work with it again. I think that it evokes feelings of childhood. I think that it brings to mind worry-freeness, not only because you grow up playing with it as a kid, but also because it's so malleable. You can make whatever you want with it, put it back in its container, and then play with it again the next day.

(My Play-Doh stop motion music video!)

For my next object, I chose headphones. These are my headphones, but AirPods, earbuds, or any other headphones would work just as well. I don’t think speakers would work, or anything where you play your audio out loud, because with headphones, it is more intimate. It's you listening to what you want to listen to. You’re not sharing it with others. It's more private, especially with mine and many other recent designs, because they have noise-cancelling features. This allows yet another layer of isolation. I think that headphones do evoke a feeling of detachment. When you wear them, you are visible saying that you don’t want to talk or interact with others. But I also think they evoke a feeling of idiosyncracy. Everyone who wears headphones is listening to their own set of songs. What someone listens to is unique to them. I believe that music can shape personality, behavior, mood, etc. So when someone is wearing headphones, it can change their experiences based on the specific songs they are listening to. I just think it’s really cool that music impacts everyone in different ways.

For my last object, I chose an old camcorder. This specific camera used to be my parents', but I found it after it hadn’t been used in years, and now it’s mine. I rediscovered it last year and since then, I have made a handful of video projects with it. It originally came out in 2006, so it’s not super dated, but it’s still twenty years old. It records on DVD-RWs, which are 3-inch DVDs that you can pretty much rerecord over as much as you want. The reason I chose this was purely because it evokes a feeling of nostalgia. It is vintage and the footage that it records has a very distinct grain. The camera has a very strong 2000s feel. It's also just super fun to use on projects, and I plan to incorporate it into as many of my future videos as I can.

(This is part of a project I made last year with the camera!)