When I saw this listing for the Young Explorer system by Little Tikes, I couldn't help but think of Henri Lefebvre's notion of the everyday. For Lefebvre, the everyday is not merely an a-political sphere of the normal, unassuming, and banal aspects of our daily regimen. It is the primary site of alienation and terror, elements that are cultivated through the workplace and bureaucratically influenced patterns of consumption. As an outlet for play (and perhaps education), the design of the Young Explorer therefore strikes me as profoundly troubling.
What is troubling for me is that the venue for learning/play in this case takes the form of an office cubicle, a configuration geared to organizing the workspace of the service and professional industries. By adopting the form of the cubicle, it strikes me that the Young Explorer potentially socializes children into a spatial form of alienation typical to 21st century everyday life. Moreover, this process of socialization is dependent on parents holding the belief that their anxiety over the future security of their children can be alleviated through specific forms of consumption in the present.
What do you think?
I think that compared to the "Sizzle & Serve Kitchen" and the "Swirlin' Sawdust Workshop" that this looks insanely boring.
Maybe that's a good thing: if they figure out being trapped in a cubicle is boring in childhood, they won't be so willing to do it in adulthood, and will devise ingenious ways to escape. Ways that their parents haven't thought of.
Posted by: Annelies | 07/13/2010 at 01:08 PM
Thanks for the comment Annelies. You raise a really good point!
I hadn't considered that the form of play encouraged by this product is itself completely structured and inflexible.
Posted by: kyle@chasingdragons | 07/14/2010 at 01:27 PM