Immersive Entertainment

in relation to
High and Low art
Louis Belden
How Theme Park Attractions are treated as a lower
form of art and are not documented and archived in
comparison to higher more ‘important’ forms of art.
 Theme park attractions
Themed, narrative driven attractions or lands are different from just a roller
coaster of funfair. They have the possibility to tell a story and take guests
into a physical set where the world takes place and the story takes place
around them.

• Provide an immersive emotional experience, just like a movie or book.

• Attractions like the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean and

Splash Mountain take you into the world of the story and allow for a
much more personal one of a kind of experience, that is no different to
another narrative driven media.

• What makes these experiences different however from a movie for

example is that they are almost seen as temporary experiences,
restricted to a fixed location and once rethemed or closed can never be
experienced again as intended.
Low Art & High Art
•High Art – appreciated by those with more refined
educated taste, the the most aesthetically pleasing and
challenging art

•Low Art – accessible and easily understandable and

enjoyed by masses, not challenging or aesthetically
pleasing.
Umberto Eco
• Eco was a Italian literacy critic and novelist.

• He discusses the place in culture of theme parks and places of the same nature in his essay, "Travels
in Hyperreality,”

• He believes that theme parks are realistic simulations that are designed to be better than real more
interesting, inspiring and beautiful than things we see in real life.

• He describes Disneyland as a ‘toy city’ and the lands “absolutely fake cities”, with image of fake
history, fake art and fake nature.

“Once upon a time there were mass media, and they were wicked, of course, and
there was a guilty party. Then there were the virtuous voices that accused the
criminals. And Art (ah, what luck!) offered alternatives, for those who were not
prisoners to the mass media.” (Eco 1975)
• I don’t disagree with the idea of these parks being designed as a
exaggerated and hyper idealized world.

• However, the dismissal of it being a lower form of art and something that is
destroying the history of the world is a completely wrong judgement.

• The parks allow worlds and stories that would not be possible in the real
world, and although idealized they allow us to not lose sight of
imagination.

• Just because they are fake doesn’t mean the stories and design are any less
valuable than that of a film or historic building or other forms of art. The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali
• What makes a a classical painting, considered high art not hyper real?

• Picasso’s Guernica displays an exaggerated image of the bombing of a city

during the Spanish civil war, a moment in history. Salvador Dali’s paintings
show hyper real and idealized worlds.

“In the first place, traditional museums have not often regarded the world
of theme parks, or the artworks and artists behind them, as “legitimate”
subjects for their sacred halls. Personally, I never quite understood this
attitude, because World’s Fairs and International Expositions have
Guernica, Pablo Picasso
“traditionally” showcased great art and artists.” (Marling 1997)
• Art lacks a solid definition however, art is equally the
experience as it is the end product.

• I draw the comparison of theme parks to street art,

the way in which they can both be seen as a
‘temporary’.

• Street art is never designed to last forever. Theme

park rides could be said to be the same, they are an
experience. Something that is designed to be put in
the public space and explored like a real world.

• Street art is something that like theme parks once
gone can never be seen again, unlike an attraction
though, street art is something that is designed to be
temporary, but doesn’t mean these things shouldn’t
be preserved and documented.
“When you consider that Disneyland
opened more than sixty years ago and
Disney World forty-five, it doesn’t seem too
out of place to start thinking of them as
places of potential historic significance.”
(lynch 2016)
 Importance of archiving
MISSING

Theme parks attractions are just as

valuable as other forms of art and
retain historical value. Props and
DESTROYED animatronics tell the political
struggles and creative thinking at the
time within the company
Conclusion
In conclusion the statement of theme parks being regarded
as low art is completely unfair judgment and just like other
art the animatronics and architecture put into the parks is
just as historically important and should be preserved and
archived appropriately.