These googly eyes are a spot of silliness in a serious civic space.
Googly eyes are synonymous with playfulness as people engage with the public realm by sticking them on signs, sculptures, benches and bushes. Now benign infrastructure assumes humorous personas that brighten the days of passers-by and help us see the world differently.
Rather than being seen as irreverent or subversive, such light touch interventions demonstrate an awareness and engagement with the public realm. For example, Sophie (aged 8) added googly eyes, colourful materials and a sign saying ‘hug me’ to a piece of industrial heritage (the Turntable Pivot Cone on Wiggle Bottom Park). And we appropriated Gavin Turk’s ‘Ariadne’ sculpture with real life dayglo cloths, ropes and googly eyes. These interventions aimed to prick the consciousness of Cambridge’s citizens to think about public spaces and what we put in them in a new light.
It’s not known where googly eyes originated from (1), but they are commonly used in crafting to give hand-made objects a cute or personable appearance. By adding googly eyes to this heritage plaque, the yellow round disc takes on the appearance of an emoji (2) or smiley (3). We had a tough time deciding which way the eyes should be facing as each arrangement conveys a very different emotion. In the end we plumped for a downward glance since this is where the pupils would naturally fall if there were real googly eyes. But what are they looking at?
(1) History of googly eyes
(2) History of emojis
(3) History of The Smiley
