Jan. 5 – Well… better late than never.
Dec. 18 – Sorry I missed an update last weekend, so today to make up for it I present two new sections added to the Disneyland canon. The photographs are still kind of fuzzy, but the criticism is getting even sharper. That may or may not be a good thing, depending on your perspective. Also a minor side note, for anyone wondering where Splash Mountain and Critter County are: seemingly all of the water-based rides save Pirates were closed the week this trip happened, so I’ve skipped them for now. As I’ve said in a previous, I hope to return one day to expand, revise, and reconsider the opinions in these articles. There’s some good stuff in the weeks ahead.
Dec. 4 – Slowly but surely I manage to whittle away these reviews with the little free time I have during the week, and I hope my analysis/criticism of two Disneyland iconic classics will say a few new things that haven’t already been said in their 40+ year history. In two weeks I’ll be able to pick up the pace of updates precipitously.
Nov. 26 – Loyal fans of Disney’s Jungle Cruise and Indiana Jones Adventure attractions might wish to avoid today’s critical analysis, which delves into the topics of hyperrealism and narrative as found in these classic Adventureland rides, respectively. The next update on New Orleans Square dark rides will be considerably more positive in tone. Just a note, the photos in this update are very sparse and low quality. My hope is that these will become “living reviews” that I update and augment over time as I’m given more chances to return.
Nov. 21 – When I first started this website, my original project was to define an aesthetic for the traditional roller coaster such that the experiences could be as appreciated as a work of art. Since that time I’ve had the chance to travel to numerous big Theme Parks where the focus wasn’t on the coasters but on the themed environments. Thus started a second major thesis that I would begin to develop on this website in regards to the hyperreal aesthetics found in places like Disneyland. While I am very optimistic about the prospects of roller coasters, I am far more pessimistic about the validity of themed environments as (potential) works of art.
Today’s update further explores the latter topic. The introduction for Disneyland gives a good overview of my feelings towards theme parks and where I perceive some of the basic problems and limitation to be within the aesthetic domain. The second article is a philosophical paper which goes much deeper into the subject-object perceptual relationship within a theme park, and makes an argument for why I think themed hyperreality is fundamentally incapable of ever being classified as art. Don’t worry, future updates will be far more optimistic (well, some of them), and there are even a few attractions that I’ll describe using the M-word: “Masterpiece”.
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