A READER IN THEMED AND IMMERSIVE SPACES A READER IN THEMED AND IMMERSIVE SPACES Scott A. Lukas (Ed.) Carnegie Mellon: ETC Press Pittsburgh, PA Copyright © by Scott A. Lukas (Ed.), et al. and ETC Press 2016 http://press.etc.cmu.edu/ ISBN: 978-1-365-31814-6 (print) ISBN: 978-1-365-38774-6 (ebook) Library of Congress Control Number: 2016950928 TEXT: The text of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NonDerivative 2.5 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/) IMAGES: All images appearing in this work are property of the respective copyright owners, and are not released into the Creative Commons. The respective owners reserve all rights. Contents Part I. 1. Introduction: The Meanings of Themed and Immersive Spaces 3 Part II. The Past, History, and Nostalgia 2. The Uses of History in Themed Spaces 19 By Filippo Carlà 3. Pastness in Themed Environments 31 By Cornelius Holtorf 4. Nostalgia as Litmus Test for Themed Spaces 39 By Susan Ingram Part III. The Constructs of Culture and Nature 5. “Wilderness” as Theme 47 Negotiating the Nature-Culture Divide in Zoological Gardens By Jan-Erik Steinkrüger 6. Flawed Theming 53 Center Parcs as a Commodified, Middle-Class Utopia By Steven Miles 7. The Cultures of Tiki 61 By Scott A. Lukas Part IV. The Ways of Design, Architecture, Technology, and Material Form 8. The Effects of a Million Volt Light and Sound Culture 77 By Stefan Al 9. Et in Chronotopia Ego 83 Main Street Architecture as a Rhetorical Device in Theme Parks and Outlet Villages By Per Strömberg 10. Remediation on the High Seas 95 A Pirates of the Caribbean Odyssey By Bobby Schweizer and Celia Pearce v 11. Research Dialogue 107 The Ways of Design, Architecture, Technology, and Material Form By Filippo Carlà, Florian Freitag, Gordon Grice, Scott A. Lukas Part V. The Aspects of Immersion, Experience, and Phenomena 12. Questioning “Immersion” in Contemporary Themed and Immersive Spaces 115 By Scott A. Lukas 13. Movies, Rides, Immersion 125 By Florian Freitag 14. Sensory Design in Immersive Environments 131 By Gordon S. Grice Part VI. The Notions of Identity, Self, and Ideology 15. Autotheming 141 Themed and Immersive Spaces in Self-Dialogue By Florian Freitag 16. Six Degrees of Navigation 151 Titanic Belfast’s Identity Issues By Stephen Brown 17. Research in Themed and Immersive Spaces 159 At the Threshold of Identity By Scott A. Lukas Part VII. The Deployments of Rhetoric, Performance, and Affect 18. Believe It and Not 173 The Playful Pull of Popular Culture-Themed Tourism Attractions By Derek Foster 19. Spatial Machines of Subjection 183 A Materialist Account of Macau’s Themed Integrated Casino Resorts By Tim Simpson 20. Atmosphere, Immersion, and Authenticity in Colonial Williamsburg 195 By Christina Kerz Part VIII. The Politics of the Space 21. Revisiting The Lost City 209 The Legend Lives On By Jeanne van Eeden 22. Our Chemical Romance 219 Body Worlds and the Memorialization of the Self By Kent Drummond and Lei Jia vi 23. Dark Theming Reconsidered 225 By Scott A. Lukas Part IX. The View of the Critic 24. Complicated Agency 239 By Brian Lonsway 25. North Dakota Wins the Internet 249 Sincerity and Irony in an Olive Garden Review By Michael Mario Albrecht 26. Judgments Passed 257 The Place of the Themed Space in the Contemporary World of Remaking By Scott A. Lukas Part X. The Place of the Future 27. Disney’s Immersive Futurism 271 By Davin Heckman 28. Resetting the Clock 279 Theme Parks, New Urbanism, and Smart Cities By Markus Reisenleitner 29. Theming and Immersion in the Space of the Future 289 By Scott A. Lukas 30. Research Dialogue 301 The Place of the Future By Filippo Carlà, Florian Freitag, Gordon Grice, Scott A. Lukas Selected Bibliography 305 Contributors 343 About the ETC Press 349 vii PART I 1 Introduction: The Meanings of Themed and Immersive Spaces Since the late 1990s, the themed space has been the subject of widespread analysis and criticism in academic communities as well as a popular source of entertainment for people around the world. Themed spaces have, in their foundation, an overarching narrative, symbolic complex, or story that drives the overall context of their environs. Theming, in some very unique ways, has expanded beyond previous stereotypes and oversimplifications of culture and place to now consider new, uncanny, and often controversial topics, themes, and storylines. At the same time, immersion—or the idea that a space and its multiple architectural, material, performative, and technological approaches may wrap up or envelop a guest within it—has expanded to become an overarching concern of many consumer spaces around the world. Casinos, theme parks, lifestyle stores, and museums and interpretive centers have looked to immersion as a means of both selling products and educating the masses. This collection in themed and immersive spaces brings together researchers, critics, and design professionals from around the world in order to consider the many cultural, political, historical, aesthetic, existential, and design contexts of themed and immersive spaces. The Symbolic Added Value of Themed and Immersive Spaces It certainly goes without saying that every space in human existence bears the example of a theme or narrative that provides an overarching conceptual purpose for that space. Any form of the human material environment—whether a gas station, bus stop, fast food restaurant, or bathroom—has multiple contexts of thematic significance. Some of this significance is established by the function or use of a space. For example, by its mere fact of having a toilet, sink, towels, and the like, a bathroom expresses its purpose to any individual who would enter that space and who would have reasonable cultural knowledge to understand these material cues. Beyond this level of functionality, a space may also express purpose through more symbolic and semiotic means. To take the example of the same bathroom, if the owner of a house adds to the functional items of the toilet, sink, and towels a series of photographs, perhaps related to the person’s memorable vacations, the bathroom takes on added meaning and extends its narrative beyond the functional fact of being a bathroom. The space is imbued with the meanings of the owner or user who establishes new context in the space through forms of personal markers like the travel photographs. It may also be said that all forms of space, by their nature, are immersive. It is impossible to enter a space and not be immersed by its various functional, thematic, symbolic, material, and existential purposes. The word immersion suggests, etymologically, a plunging or dipping into something or an “absorption in some interest or situation,” and, when applied to space, offers the idea that a person who enters such a space will be transformed.1 Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan once wrote of the significance of a medieval cathedral as it represented an immersive potential to envelop any individual who entered its environments.2 Its ability to immerse an individual who walked into its environs was related to its multi-sensorial modes as well as the ideational foundations and narratives that are involved before, during, and after any visit to the space. What is key in terms of the themed and immersive spaces considered in this text is that when we speak of such spaces we are considering those that inherently involve contexts of a public and consumerist nature. A themed restaurant, as an example, is defined by its function as a restaurant—in terms of having tables on which to eat food, servers to provide food, and so forth—but it is the added value of the theme or narrative that is told through and beyond the functioning of the space as a restaurant that clarifies its status as a themed space. Likewise, while one could be said to be immersed in a bank while he or she is dealing with all of the stories, narratives, and contexts such as accounts, balances, and the like, when that same individual enters a museum space he or she experiences unique, evocative, and extraordinary symbols in that space. It is thus the “added value” in terms of the symbolic properties that is brought to these spaces above and beyond 3 4 A Reader in Themed and Immersive Spaces other contexts that so defines these places as themed and immersive. This fact of the symbolic construction of such space is brought to clear light in the sixth section of this reader. The focus of “The Deployments of Rhetoric, Performance, and Affect” section is on the contexts of themed and immersive spaces as places in which rhetoric, performance, and affect are active, if not foundational, aspects of the venues. Many themed spaces utilize forms of performance that act in tandem with design elements of the space to create captivating forms of immersion for guests. At the same time, these performative (and related rhetorical and affective) approaches display ideological foundations that need to be interpreted and analyzed. The first author, Derek Foster, in “Believe It and Not: The Playful Pull of Popular Culture-Themed Tourism Attractions,” looks at the emerging trend of popular culture-themed tourist attractions, specifically those connected to the popular media franchises and . Game of Thrones The Hunger Games Notable in his focus on these properties is the emphasis on the themed space “as a site of symbolic action, an environment filled with texts to be read and textures to be felt.” As Foster says, themed spaces “act as places of cultural performance where popular culture is not simply read or interpreted but re-inscribed. Visiting fans use theming, on a personal level, to remind them of why they care about the text and to re-animate its magical qualities…Through theming, a potentially otherwise mundane environment can be re-animated.” In his chapter, “Spatial Machines of Subjection: A Materialist Account of Macau’s Themed Integrated Casino Resorts,” Tim Simpson extends these representational and symbolic concerns to the spaces of Macau—notably those of themed casinos.