Krista Jenkins

I had a modified experience . by Julie Fishkin

Filed under news

My modified experience began after our impromptu walking tour of the payphones that I organized on behalf of MetroColorCollision for “Just Another 3704558 [asshole]” but that’s a separate post altogether. To particpate in Kurt Bigenho’s “Experiential Modifiers” project, we made our way through the crowd at HQ because we too wanted a bright, pink object to play with, fondle, wear or probe. After a brief consultation with the modification specialists, my friends and I acquired a giant pink helmet, pink maracas, and a pink toy automatic car. Becky wore the helmet because she bikes everywhere, and although the helmet covered her entire head and face, it still seemed appropriate for her special modified experience. Sara got to play with the automatic car; while under normal circumstances toy cars are annoying, useless chunks of plastic that make horrible noises and jam into your legs, this one was pink, soft and cushy therefore entirely acceptable. I got the pink maracas. A little dancing, a little banging on the head, and my modified experience seemed a veritable success.
The project is a fun way to interact with objects in real time and space, to change an otherwise linear experience of time during the course of one’s day. If each object is restructured and reconfigured to represent the mundane and the obvious, by turning it into a bright pink artifact that stands out among the otherwise dull palette of any room, you notice its novelty. Suddenly, playing hoola-hooping, maneuvering a toy car or using a portable fan becomes thoroughly entertaining. In other words, color, as a factor of change within the context of a perceived norm, becomes the operative device for a changed or modified experience. In this vein, the same experience with an object of choice per se would not qualify as a modification of that very experience but would blend into the routine of the day. Bottom line is that objects cast in bright pink are by far the exclamation point in any ideal modified experience.