Recurring Topoi: A Qualitative Study on Visual
Attractions in Dutch Theme Park Efteling from a
Media-Archaeological Point of View.
N.M. Krijger Student number: 10019960 Master Thesis M Mediastudies: Filmstudies Supervisor: F. Paalman Wordcount: 21.943 16-11-2015
Index Introduction 4 Theoretical Framework 5 Panorama 8 Diorama 9 Phantasmagoria 9
Steam Train and Modernity 10
Methodology 12
Chapter 1: Pagode: an Aerial Viewpoint 18
Moving Panorama 21
Data Analysis 22
Conclusion 25
Chapter 2: Diorama: Surprise in Detail 28
The Diorama in a Historical Context 29
Data Analysis 30
Conclusion 34
Chapter 3: Spookslot: Spooky Illusions 36
Data Analysis 38
Conclusion 40
Chapter 4: Stoomtrein: Driving in Circles of Curiosity 42
Data Analysis 44
Conclusion 46
Final Conclusion 48
Growing up as a child in the Netherlands, I used to visit theme parks with my family every once in a while. One of my favourite attractions, next to the roller coasters and other thrill rides, were the 3D movies that were present in almost all of these parks. These were not the same kind of 3D films that you would see at the cinema. Instead, the 3D images seemed to really break through the screen and, at times, almost hit you in the face. An example I remember is when a monkey threw a coconut at the audience and everyone stood up to catch it. This was at Efteling (a film called Pandadroom), but I also saw 3D films like these in Disneyland Paris, Phantasialand Germany, and in Dolfinarium (a sealife park in the Netherlands). This 3D style is related more to the 1950s cinema 3D than anything else. Once the novelty of 3D wore off, this type of ‘screen breaking’ 3D no longer had a place within the cinema halls, but this type of 3D film can still be found within various theme parks.
This is an example of how ‘old’ media receive a new positioning within a different context. Rather than being cast into obsolescence, they find a new function. Jussi Parikka calls this
phenomenon zombie media, which means that these media are not dead, but they resurface or get remediated within new contexts (3). Thus, old media never really leave us. Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin argue that new media always remediate old media. Their theory entails that new media have previous media as their content. The danger with this kind of theorising within media
archaeology, however, is that it becomes too linear. According to Thomas Elsaesser, there is little linearity in media. What happens, according to him, is some kind of dog-leg logic, in which old media keep repeating themselves, but spectators keep seeing it as new media, similar to a dog chasing its tale and being surprised by it over and over again (22). Instead of striving for a seemingly logical linear history of media, one could also think of parallel histories. This stance is shared by many media-archaeological theorists like Jussi Parikka and Wanda Strauven. Another way of thinking about the re-emerging of media forms was thought of by Erkki Huhtamo, who calls this phenomenon recurring
topos or topoi.
Topoi are building blocks of cultural traditions; they manifest both continuities and
transformations in the transmission of ideas. Media-related topoi may serve various roles: as connectors to other cultural spheres; as commentaries and elaborations of media-cultural forms, themes, and fantasies; or as formulas deliberately used for profit or ideological indoctrination. Although some of their occurrences can be just local and personal (like poetic metaphors derived from tradition), recurrent topoi may symptomatically point to broader concerns and cultural patterns. (Huhtamo 16)
This cyclical media theory states that certain media or themes within media keep coming back (Strauven 71). This thesis centres around this problem of recurring topoi and has sprung from my astonishment about visual attractions within theme parks in which old media re-emerge. My astonishment about these visual attractions, which are based on old media, is precisely what this
research is concerned with. The mere existence of visual attractions that make use of older media contests myths that see old technology as just obsolete and uninteresting (Parikka 1). Parikka even states that there is a wider cultural movement that sees vintage as more interesting than the new, however, I would not consider this as something general. There are many old media forms that acquire a new place within a different context, such as theme parks. The question rises if this interest in vintage is the reason that these types of attractions are made and visited, or is it quite the opposite and is there an interest in newness or is it even something else entirely? This leads me to the following research question:
Why do visual theme park attractions which incorporate older media forms remain attractive for a general audience?
When one walks around in such a theme park, one sees these attractions, which are made just to look at, among the roller coasters and thrill rides. What is it that makes them so attractive? These attractions are all a part of a visual entertainment tradition, since they refer to old media. Could it be that indeed, despite already have existed for so long, these attractions still feel new and the attraction comes from the dog-eat-leg logic discussed by Elsaesser? Or perhaps they do feel familiar and conjure up some type of nostalgia. The answer to this question could say something more general about recurring topoi or about theme parks and more specifically about the different aspects of visual attractions and what specifically is so attractive about the act of looking.
Theoretical Framework
First of all, I will provide a short overview of what has already been written about theme parks from a scholarly perspective.
In Fairground Architecture, David Braithwaite writes about the architectural aspect behind fairs, which share aspects with modern theme parks. He discusses the various categories within fairs from the 15th century to 1968 when he wrote the book, and then discusses the architecture behind them. In the introduction of this book is stated that fairs can also seem very anachronistic in this age of modernity. “Yet our social scene would be as much impoverished by the extinction of the traditional fair as by the unnecessary destruction of old buildings, for it is factors like these that provide the tangible link with the past that makes living in the present the more enjoyable” (vii). Josephine Kane approaches theme parks from a similar point of view in The Architecture of Pleasure. In chapter four, she explains how the landscaping of fairs and theme parks became more orderly after the first world war. From that time, when fairs had their golden days, there was money to be spent and invested in improvement of the park. Although it took some time for plans to become realized, large and well-known fair Pleasure Beach (Blackpool,UK), was a good example of how fairs changed their landscape planning from chaos to order. In that period, Kane states, a highly successful formula was being
followed. Fairs expanded, invested in permanent rides, introduced landmarks, which included some of the new thrill rides and gave more structure to the park overall. High-profile architects were hired to accomplish all this (Kane 143-152). Moreover, she discusses the connection that theme parks share with moving images. Instead of old media, a very new and innovative media, namely cinema of attractions, was presented in amusement parks around 1900. These short movies revolved around short shots and movement of around one minute (100). Visual attractions are thus something familiar within theme parks and the relationship with cinema is a long one.
In “Trends in the Amusement park Industry”, Michael D. Olsen examines the different developments for large theme parks from the nineties onwards from an economical point of view. Olsen states that despite its relatedness to the tourism industry, the “amusement park may be
considered as part of the more extensive entertainment industry” (298). He then includes several media entertainment systems such as VCR, in his comparison. In this thesis, what will become apparent is that visual attractions in amusement parks are indeed linked to earlier media forms, but also to cinema, which does make them part of a more extensive entertainment industry and moreover, part of a
tradition of visual attractions that is old but still relevant.
Russel B. Nye discusses “The Eight Ways to Look at an Amusement Park”. The first angle from which to view theme parks is as “an alternative world to that of our daily lives” (Nye 66). It allows for visitors to leave their normal lives behind and not be who they are for a day. The second way is to “see it as a fantasy, a stage set, a never-never land where one can walk out of his own world into a much more interesting one” (idem). These first two angles involve an aspect of escapism. However, the second also entails that the pleasure of theme parks lies in an element of harmless surprise (67). The park reverses exactly what the visitor expects and uses daily situations and devices and turns them into something absurd. Josephine Kane states that theme parks and cinema share this possibility to suspend everyday life and step into an alternative reality (101).
The third perspective according to Nye, is to see the theme park as a spectacle, as something to be experienced in its entirety. The complete experience of the park is thus one from which the visitor cannot escape until they leave the park again. This also relates to something Kane said, namely that somewhere between the First and the Second World War, the rollercoaster became a landmark for theme parks, one that you could already see from outside of the park. As we will see, some attractions within parks are spectacles within themselves, but the theme park as a spectacle in itself is something to keep in mind. This also links to Nye’s fourth viewpoint, which is that the visitor is also part of this show and therefore, let go of conventional behaviour (68). When a visitor enters a theme park, they become both spectator and performer. This for example brings to mind visitors who are both screaming during their rollercoaster ride and listening to those screams at the same time, which then become part of the experience. The next way is as a family outing. It is a form of middle class
entertainment, which is very family oriented. I believe this depends on the amusement park you speak of. Furthermore, Kane states that “despite the large wage-earning contingent, the amusement park
crowd was considerably more diverse than that catered for by alternative popular amusements” (122). The sixth aspect is quite different from the first five, which were directed at the visitor. It is to see theme parks as “an adaptation and extension of construction and transportation technology […taking] clever advantage of two recent technological innovations, structural steel and electric lights, and of their application to bridge building and skyscraper construction” (71). In addition to seeing park rides as extensions of industrial technology, they are also based upon daily life transportation in urban society and industry. Nye names as examples rollercoasters, the Ferris Wheel (elevator), towers, and buildings. The seventh point of view from which to examine parks is as a riskless risk. This entails that people love to feel a sense of fear which they know is not really threatening and people get a high from the victory of certain thrill rides. The last angle is that it is a perfect example of a total play experience. The total play experience involves competition, chance, mimicry, and vertigo (73).
Even though Nye names some interesting aspects, there are aspects of theme parks that he does not mention and that will become apparent in this thesis. Theme parks can arouse a sense of nostalgia, they create a certain layering of time and as stated earlier, they adapt older media forms that would otherwise have become obsolete. In fact, I believe that making lists like this one is not very constructive, since in theory, one could keep adding to it.
Now that I have discussed what has already been written on theme parks, I will discuss the theoretical framework that will surround my analysis of visual attractions in theme parks.
Tom Gunning discusses the cinema of attractions, in his article “Now You See It, Now You Don’t”. The information on the cinema of attractions can give some general information on visual attractions. What Gunning makes clear in this text is that the cinema of attractions foregrounds a direct spectatorial address. In the 1970s, a spectator theory for the classical narrative cinema was constructed by Christian Metz. In his theory, it became apparent that in this type of cinema the spectator is not addressed directly, making the spectator into a voyeur that secretly watches the scenes before him. The cinema of attractions on the other hand implicates exhibitionism rather than voyeurism, which entails that the spectator is directly addressed by the medium. Gunning mentions a couple of themes within the cinema of attractions of which the one that comes closest to the diorama is: “a fascination with visual experiences which seem to fold back on the very pleasure of looking” (Gunning 5). These visual experiences could entail colours and forms of motion. Gunning thus argues, as this paper does, that certain non-narrative scenes without specific other themes rely on the assumption that the act of looking can be pleasurable in itself. In Josephine Kane it is stated that “the appeal of these first films [in theme parks] – single shot, single reel, and lasting around a minute- rested purely on the re-creation of movement” (99). The cinema of attractions and the attraction that lies in the act of looking has thus been used before in theme parks. Wanda Strauven has devoted an entire book called The Cinema of
Attractions Reloaded on the idea that cinema today again relies upon these simple visual attractions.
For example, the film the Matrix (Wachowski Brothers, 1999), which her book title was named after, uses special effects which speak to the pleasure that the spectator can find in the act of looking.
In reading media archaeological texts, I have found that most of them refer to four major inventions in history. Of these four inventions, three are old media. These can also be seen as important predecessors of cinema and cinema of attractions. Whilst reading, they reminded me of visual attractions in theme parks. The final one is the invention of the steam train, which has had a very big impact on the way in which the nature of seeing was perceived and has brought the act of looking and the spectator in general into an age of modernity. All will be discussed below with what I believe is the most important theory on how these media were experienced by contemporaries. More historical context for these old media will be given in the various chapters later in this thesis. For this thesis, it will be important to understand how this invention has influenced the spectator and thus, how the experience of old visual media will differ from that of the modern visual attractions that will be discussed later in this thesis.
Panorama
In her book Shivers Down Your Spine, Alison Griffiths discusses the immersive qualities of historic phenomena. One of the phenomena she discusses is the panorama, a large 360° painting. She then quotes Vivian Sobchack and calls the panorama “a peculiarly embodied, and highly immersive form of spectatorship, evoking what film theorist Vivian Sobchack describes as a “radically material condition of human being that necessarily entails both the body and consciousness, objectivity and subjectivity into an irreducible ensemble” (Griffiths 37). This heightened sense of embodiment makes the panorama a compelling example of immersive spectatorship. Because the panorama completely surrounds the spectator, immersion is a much experienced sense. There is also the sense of being in a different time and space, which could be argued for the theme park as well. And third, the panorama evokes a sense of presence within the spectator (40). An author who makes a similar argument in regard to the aerial view restaurant is Synne Tollerud Bull. In his article “Kinetic Architecture and Aerial Rides: Towards a Media Archaeology of the Revolving Restaurant View” he argues that structures which provide such an all-round aerial view such as panorama did, are very immersive and also cinematic.
Seeing the world at a traveling point of observation, over a long enough time for a sufficiently extended set of paths, begins to be perceiving the world at all points of observation, as if one could be everywhere at once. To be everywhere at once with nothing hidden is to be all-seeing, like God. The all-seeing God-like view is also the cinematic view” (Gibson qtd. In Bull 61).
This is a great example of how, when old media, that can be argued to be predecessors of cinema, re-emerge in a different form, these new forms are also related to the cinematic experience.
Diorama
Media archaeologist Erkki Huhtamo describes the diorama as one of the “known unknowns” of media history (139). Many different forms of the diorama still exist today, however, not many people will know the actual diorama from which these forms have derived. To modern spectators, the diorama will be something that is somewhat familiar, but not quite. Modern applications of the diorama will most likely evoke this sense of vague recognition as well, which can tell us something about the aspect of nostalgia in these types of attractions.
An important aspect for how the diorama was experienced is that it was the first medium to engage in a mobile spectatorship, through a moving auditorium in which the spectator was seated. As Huhtamo states:
Media theorists have been excited about the rotating auditorium, because it can be read as a token of later trends in media culture. It seems to have anticipated modalities of mobile spectatorship, ranging from theme park attractions to everyday experiences, and revolving architecture. (Huhtamo 144)
The analysis of an attraction similar to the diorama will give insight to the aspect of movement, and the relationship with the simple movements in cinema of attractions, in visual attractions.
Phantasmagoria
Terry Castle discusses the historic phantasmagoria as performed by Etienne-Gaspard Robertson. These phantasmagorias were very terrifying to contemporaries as they messed with notions of imagination and hallucination. The phantasmagoria could make it appear as though ghost apparitions were flying before the spectators eyes.
Yet such ‘mimic scenes’ merely remind us, he concludes, that supposedly real ghosts and apparitions are but the ‘motley visions’ of an overwrought imagination. Only by despising such ‘wild fantastic forms’ can one avoid the fate of the ‘lonely dame’ who nods ‘delirious o’er the expiring flame’ and ‘faints with the haunted notions of her mind’. (Castle 46) Not only is there an awareness that such images are not real, ghostly images such as the
Phantasmagoria were said to remind people of the fact that images of ghosts can never be real and thus, helped to keep ones sanity.
Nonetheless, the phantoms they subsequently produced had a strangely objective presence. They floated before the eye just like real ghosts. And in a crazy way they were real ghosts. That is to say, they were not mere effects of imagination: they were indisputably there; one saw them as clearly as any other object of sense (Castle 49).
This blurring boundary between what is real and what is not real is exactly what was so attractive about the phantasmagoria at that time. The illusion of the ghosts confuses the senses and especially the sight of the spectator. A modern version of this attraction could be a perfect example of what Nye has called the riskless risk, as it can become a sort of exploration of real fears within a safe environment.
Steam Train and Modernity
Within media studies the issue of modernity has been discussed extensively. While one may not necessarily refer to the invention of the train as the starting point of modernity, Jussi Parikka makes an important point: “various studies raised the question of what it means to be modern, and how scientific and technological innovations contribute to the changing cultural landscape and even our basic ways of being in the world: seeing, hearing, thinking and feeling” (7). Of these four, the first will be important here, however an entire bodily experience is at play here as becomes apparent by reading Vivian Sobchacks theory on embodiment above. In the recurrence of these old media within theme parks, movement will be incorporated and movement causes the body to be more involved in the act of looking. With the invention of the train, transportation was led into a new age of modernity. Suddenly, it became possible to travel distances that may have seemed impossible to cross before. People no longer had to visit places like the panorama or diorama to become ‘world travellers’. Therefore, visual attractions similar to panorama and diorama have also gained a different place within culture. The invention of the train has led our world into an age of modernity in which the modern day theme park spectator is situated.
The railroad and the diorama emerged around the same time. Christopher Kent discusses that the train can be seen as the reason for a change towards a more active observer. There used to be a paradigm of visual realism that constructed the passive, immobile, individual observer as necessary construct. This paradigm became challenged by observers that saw the train emerge. These observers could now travel a hundred mile distance within the timeframe of one single day. And as they travelled, they watched the world come by their window.
This observer was more active as well in the sense that optical science was shifting emphasis from geometry to physiology, and studying how the eye and mind mediated and produced visual experience through such phenomena as the persistence of vision, binocular vision, and non-normal vision which of course necessitated the construction of visual normality. It also created new ways of making money out of the creation and management of mass visual experience - the spectacle. (Kent 2)
the eye was no longer viewed as a separate entity working apart from the body, but was now seen as a part of the mind. So mind and body were working together as a way to obtain knowledge through vision (Crary 35). What Kent describes further is that with the invention of the train came a new way of thinking about spectatorship and a gap in the market was created. To fill this gap spectacles were created, that made use of the pleasure that could be derived from this type of spectatorship, which is one where the spectator has an agency and is no longer passive and immobile. This is a great explanation of why this era of modernity the train has led us in, is a perfect circumstance for the creation of spectacles like theme parks, where (spectator) mobility becomes the experience itself.
What also happened is that the spectator in the train did not just see an image, but they saw an entire landscape, much like the panorama/diorama. Panoramas and Dioramas can be seen as the mass visual experiences that Kent describes as well as a theme park can be. The activity that an observer possesses is very important for how a visual spectacle will be experienced. To Kent, the invention of the train is one of the reasons for this agency in spectatorship. However, as Jacques Aumont rightfully states, the train passenger is still seated and passive (235). Although the train traveller gained mobility through the use of the train, the train traveller as a spectator remained inactive. Just like cinema, the train transported the traveller to virtual realms, the imaginary (idem). Aumont also declares that around that time “there was an appetite for investigation and discovery” through the act of looking (234). Seeing became a way of obtaining knowledge about the world and with that emerged a desire to see everything, a desire at the same time made possible by that railway. Looking at a diorama today can be a literal act of obtaining knowledge, because a lot of dioramas are being built for educational purposes (Gernheim & Gernsheim). The dioramas that were or are built for pleasure, however, are also a way of discovering the world, because a lot of them, like the train, show landscapes. The visitors could become world travellers on both the train and by visiting such a mass spectacle. We could state that a spectator of visual attractions is “discovering the visual world by artistic means” (Aumont 234). The spectator is fulfilling his need to see the world by visiting a visual spectacle like a panorama or diorama, but he is not really seeing the world as he would on a train. The diorama and panorama which came before the train thus helped create a context of looking for train passengers.
Methodology
For this thesis, I will focus on a Dutch theme park, Efteling, which is a prime example of how a theme park can display this use of old media. Efteling was founded in Kaatsheuvel in 1951 by Reinier van der Heyden, Anton Pieck, and Peter Reijnders. It had already started out in the 1930s as a sports park founded by two pastors from the area to ensure young people were not just hanging around. In 1950, the mayor of that time, Van der Heyden, wanted to make the park more special. His wife actually came up with the idea of a fairy tale forest. Van der Heyden asked Reijnders to help him, who, on his part, got Anton Pieck involved. Since that time, Efteling has slowly expanded from a fairy tale forest into one of the largest theme parks in Europe, whereas other parks, such as Disneyland, were complete
theme parks at the time of opening. Up and until 1992, when Disneyland Paris was opened, Efteling had been the largest theme park in Europe. In that year, it also received theApplause Award from the
IAAPA1 for the best park in the world.In 1972 it had already been awarded with the Pomme d’Or “best recreation of Europe”2. And in 2014 they won World’s third best park in the category of ‘Best Landscaping’ – according to the international trade magazine Amusement Today3. I chose this
particular theme park, as it is the biggest theme park in the Netherlands with 4.2 million visitors a year and after Disneyland Paris, Walt Disney Studios Park, and Europapark Germany, it is the fourth biggest park in Europe. More importantly, one of the co-founders of Efteling was illustrator Anton Pieck and everything that is built in this theme park was inspired by the particular style of this visual artist's drawings. That provides Efteling with an atmosphere that is truly one of a kind. Efteling will thus serve as an example of visual attractions within the context of a theme park. It can also be argued that the park is more cultural than others. Head of development and design Ton van de Ven said the following in an interview with Amigoe in 19884:
I do not like that word, amusement park. It gives the impression of cheap folk entertainment. Yet, in Efteling, there is emotion to be found. We sell amusement, but not just fun. We make big investments in flowers and trees. Those make a big contribution to feeling comfortable at the park. It is also cultural; the fairy tales preserve a cultural heritage. I would like to find a really good term, but I just cannot find it. It used to be named Nature Park, but that does not fit anymore. Family Park is also not ideal. So just call it: Efteling.5
The park started out as a fairy tale forest and the first thrill ride had not been built until the end of the 1970s.6 It thus started in a visual tradition that is still visible in the park today. A lot has changed about the theme park since 1951, but the park still relies heavily on this cultural viewing experience. There are many examples to support this claim. The attractions I would like to use for my research are listed below:
- Pagode (Ton van de Ven, 1987) - Diorama (Ton van de Ven, 1971) - Spookslot (Ton van de Ven, 1978) - Stoomtrein (Anton Pieck, 1968)
As I already mentioned, Anton Pieck was one of the co-founders of Efteling and a visual artist to
1 The International Association of Amusement Parks. This award is an initiative by the Swedish theme park Liseberg. Once
every two years, an international jury chooses what, according to them, is the best theme park in the world.
2 The most distinguished European award for excellence in tourism.
3 This information was taken from Efteling’s press release “Media Information” in 2015 4
Translated by NK
5 Translated by Nina Krijger, from the article “Amusement, maar niet alleen lol”, placed in Amigoe in 1988.
begin with. Ton van de Ven joined Efteling in 1966 as leader of styling and decoration. It was not until 1974 that he followed in Pieck’s footsteps and became head of development and design. Van de Ven says that the attractions he has built since then, were all created in the spirit and style of his
predecessor. However, van de Ven did make some bold moves since then and stepped outside of the realm of the fairy tale forest to attract young adults, besides the children and their parents who were already visiting the park. The first of the attractions he built for this purpose was Spookslot. Due to the success of this attraction, many others, among which roller coasters and bobsled rides were built. All with great hesitation, according to Van de Ven. However, Van de Ven still paid great attention to the settings and decorations given to these thrill rides. It is important that their themes fit into the park. For some, the costs of the decorations are even higher than for the rides themselves! 7
Something that is also interesting about this particular theme park is the layering of time. Due to its slow development, this park will be more layered than others. Because the park already started building in 1951 and has not stopped since, the visitors see attractions from throughout this time period. At the same time, the attractions themselves also reference towards different time periods or places, as for example the beautiful steam carrousel from 1898, which allows for the visitor to get a feeling of timelessness and traveling. Other ways in which this layering of time is influenced will be discussed later in this thesis.
Pagode is an attraction that offers the spectator a 360° view of the park, much like the
historical panorama, which provided spectators with a 360° view on a painting. Through a comparison with the panorama, the aspects of visual attractions that Pagode will help convey are a sense of immersion and seeing the theme park as a whole as has been discussed by Russel Nye and thereby fulfilling a desire to see everything. To see the theme park as a whole, moreover, means that the park itself becomes the spectacle; something to be looked at.
Diorama is probably the most authentic use of an old media form in Efteling, since it is literally inspired by and named after the dioramas from the nineteenth century. The aspects of visual attractions that Diorama can show us, are the importance of movement, movement of what is shown and of the spectator. What Diorama can also help comment upon is a sense of nostalgia, of something that is somewhat familiar but not quite. In this respect, Diorama also adds to the layering of time that I have discussed above.
Spookslot, which translates into Haunted House, is not a traditional haunted house where one would walk or ride around in the dark and be scared by objects or people around them. Spookslot is actually a ghost show with a clear beginning and end. In two rows, spectators can stand and watch what occurs behind the glass. The show lasts 15 minutes, after which visitors are guided through the exit8. Reminiscent of the phantasmagoria that would use images of ghosts created by magic lanterns to
7
All this information comes from “Amusement, maar niet alleen lol”, which was an article in the Amigoe in 1988.
8
entertain or scare people, Spookslot creates a similar effect, which makes it another good example of a recurring topos. This attraction will help to discuss the aspect of not quite real, which means that these visual attractions seem almost real but not quite. The analysis of Spookslot will help reflect upon the importance of obscurity in this type of attraction. It will convey the argument that for this type of attraction a suspension of disbelief is necessary.
Stoomtrein is a literal resurfacing of a technology that is not actually used by railroad
companies anymore. This attraction is seen in other theme parks as well and in Utrecht, there actually is an entire theme park surrounding old trains, called Spoorweg Museum, which makes it a more general attraction. As just discussed for the invention of the train, one of the aspects that makes Stoomtrein still appealing, is that it can help the spectator to see everything there is to see in the park, and thus also fulfils the desire of omnivoyance. The act of seeing from a train becomes reinvented in this attraction, since in an everyday train ride the act of looking is hardly important anymore. Almost everybody is working, reading, or looking at their phone. The placement of this steam train in a new context is thus a good example of discovering the world through artistic means. This attraction also involves a sense of nostalgia, but one that is clearer, since the steam train is more recognisable than the diorama.
Each of the attractions mentioned above will be discussed in their own chapter. These chapters will each discuss a history of the historical medium linked to the attraction. I say a history, because although I will try to be as complete as possible, we cannot assume that the history described in this paper is the only possible history to tell. As will become obvious, the history of the phenomena to which I have linked the different Efteling attractions are intertwined. This means that the separate attractions cannot be twinned to merely one medial ancestor; they will always have multiple ancestors. For example, Diorama which I link to the historical diorama, has its roots in the historical panorama as well. I, however, will try to link them to the most similar one, and account for how these old
attractions were experienced, to give a possible answer to the research question at hand.
These are two media experiences which take place inside a building, Diorama and Spookslot, hence they belong to the black box category and two that are held outdoors, which are Steamtrain and Pagode. They are, however, not the only examples of what I could have discussed here. The reason I chose these attractions is because the older media which I have linked to them seem to stem from the same visual tradition. Although there is some time between them, in the media archaeological book about the panorama by Erkki Huhtamo, these old media forms, apart from the train, are connected. The panorama and the diorama are similar attractions, which are closely related and the
phantasmagoria was a visual competitor of the former two. The train was an invention, which was one of the causes for a new manner of thinking about vision. While the panorama, diorama, and
phantasmagoria already existed before the invention of the train, the attractions were created after this time. It will be interesting to see how this changes the way these visual attractions are experienced. Other attractions that I could have chosen for this thesis, but which I have not, are Aquanura, the Fairy
Tale Forest, and Pandadroom. Aquanura is a large fountain show that has recently been opened in
Efteling. It can, however, be viewed as a new form of an earlier and smaller fountain show in Efteling, which was called Waterorgel. Water organs are very old instruments, which in Efteling were
transformed into a visual attraction. The second attraction I have not chosen is the Fairy Tale Forest that it all started with, but Efteling still expands the forest with new fairy tales from time to time. These fairy tales are represented by moving puppets and voice-overs. However, these fairy tales are not as clear an example of old media forms returning, since they are the content of media and not the actual media themselves. One last attraction that could have been chosen is Pandadroom, which I have mentioned at the beginning of the introduction. This attraction is somewhat different than the others, as 3D film is still popular, although the effect of these 3D films may be different from films in the cinema. Therefore, when it comes to Pandadroom, the fact that we are dealing with a zombie medium that is placed in a different context, does not come across as clearly. Due to that lack of clarity, I have chosen to not further elaborate on this attraction in this thesis.
The type of research that I will conduct is a combination between corpus analysis and
qualitative research. This means that I will draw from my existing data as well as my own data, which I will receive from in-depth interviews with visitors of Efteling. I have chosen to do in-depth
interviews since it is the most straightforward way to find out whether and why these visual attractions are still appealing to general audiences. Qualitative research, moreover, is an excellent method to learn about people’s experiences with certain phenomena, which in this case are the visual attractions that use old media forms. By finding out the visitors experience, I can say how the layering of time is experienced within the theme park, or how these visual attractions are passed on from generation to generation. All these aspects of the experience are interesting for the discussion on recurring topoi. Furthermore, to be able to say something about these recurring topoi and Elsaesser’s dog-eat-leg logic, I have chosen to interview visitors who have visited Efteling as a child and as an adult. By comparing their childhood and adult experiences, I will be able to understand if newness as an aspect is really that important for an experience like this or whether having seen something like it before will add other dimensions to the experience, such as nostalgia or romanticism, that can be just as pleasurable. Finally, these interviews can help me to compare the experiences of old media to these new forms. When these experiences are relatively similar, perhaps we can conclude that the reasons for the recurrence of these attraction lies not in the attraction of novelty, but in an ongoing fascination with the mode of looking that that particular attraction provokes.
I have asked them about a maximum of two attractions to prevent a lack of concentration. I had a list of topics/questions at hand, but I have also asked them spontaneous questions, depending on their answers. The interviews lasted an average of 30-60 minutes. The number of interviews depended upon saturation. In the end, the participants existed of a group of 18 people, 10 female, 8 male
between the ages of 24 and 44. The reason for this age group is quite practical. First, they have to be adult to have seen the attractions as adults. Secondly, for people who are older, the chances that they
have seen the attractions as a child, diminish greatly. I typed out the interviews to be able to code the data. I have analysed the attractions separately and have made connections after the analysis was done.
Pagode: an Aerial Viewpoint
The attraction that will be discussed in this chapter is Pagode. This attraction was built in 1987 and ensures that the visitor gets a great view of the park and even the area around it. The Efteling website describes the attraction as a flying temple. The temple rests on a giant mechanic arm which slowly moves from a horizontal to an almost vertical position, meanwhile keeping the temple in the same position all along and bringing it up to a height of 45 meters while the temple turns around. The temple is built in Thai style, which is where its name comes from9. “A pagoda originally is a tiered
tower with multiple eaves, built in traditions originating in historic East Asia or with respect to those traditions, common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Burma and other parts of Asia”10. The Pagode visitor enters another world; an oriental one. Although I could not find many historical newspaper articles about Pagode, it is often used as image in articles about Efteling. It was the first high landmark for the park. Unlike Diorama, which will be discusses in the next chapter, Pagode does not share its name with the historical medium I believe it refers to, which is the panorama11. However, the panorama and Pagode do share many qualities. In both cases, spectators stand on a high platform looking around at the surrounding scenery. Pagode turns around slowly while going up and whilst at the top. The spectator can still choose to walk around the platform, but it is not necessary to get a look around the scenery. The difference remains that the panorama shows a painted scenery and Pagode portrays real scenery. The consequences of this difference will be discussed later in the chapter.
9
Efteling website. http://www.efteling.com/pagode
10 Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagoda 11
This connection is one that I have made and is not necessarily acknowledged by the theme park.
Image 1
The word panorama derives from ancient Greek; Pan meaning all and Horama meaning view (Huhtamo 4). It was promoted as being “the greatest improvement to the art of painting that has ever yet been discovered” (Huhtamo 1). The first panorama was opened on 14 March 1789 in London by Robert Barker, an Irish born painter. It would stay there for 70 years (Hyde 13). This panorama was called Mr Barker’s Interesting and Novel View of the City and Castle Edinburgh (Idem). It was “an enormous painting of a single location [that] was stretched horizontally along the inner wall of a cylindrical building” (Huhtamo 3). Thus, the view constituted a 360° view which completely
surrounded the spectator. Since the margins at the top and the bottom of the painting were hidden and the light that fell on the painting was controlled, the painting was an illusory environment rather than a representation (Idem). The goal was to make the viewer feel, as Barker put it, “as if really on the very spot” (Idem). In the spectator’s mind, a belief was induced that the objects seen actually existed (Huhtamo 4). Not long after this first panorama that was housed in temporary buildings, Barker opened his first permanent panorama in 1793, which was also the world’s first (Idem). After the panorama was placed at a permanent location, the medium became popular in other countries as well. Panoramas were opened in New York, Paris, and St Petersburg (Idem). Soon, the name of the medium panorama was applied to other, non-circular, but very large, paintings. The panorama also became remediated in the form of novelty toys and games (Huhtamo 6).
Just as Pagode, the panorama was no longer an itinerant medium, which caused the building to become a part of the medium itself. The building of Pagode actually is the attraction. However, that which is looked at lies outside Pagode, whereas the panorama houses the medium inside the building. This creates an interesting dichotomy between inside and outside, however, the building of Pagode is probably best compared to the platform in the middle of the panorama’s building, and the painting of panorama to Pagode’s view on Efteling and beyond. One could argue that the scene that is looked at from Pagode is actually not that different from a painting, since it is a landscape that is entirely created from an artistic viewpoint. It could be viewed as being a life-sized painting that surrounds the
spectator completely, just as the historic panorama does. The only difference that remains then is the fact that Pagode spectators can see beyond the park towards real landscapes, which creates an awareness in the spectator of the construction of the Efteling landscape as opposed to the landscape that lies beyond the park.
Erkki Huhtamo states that “the panorama appealed to the Romantic's desire to peek beyond the horizon” (Huhtamo 5). The spectators were also thought to be world travellers, from living in a small town to being able to see world cities like Paris and London. They were, as Huhtamo puts it, “global citizens avant la lettre” (5). The issue of traveling is something that has also often been connected to consumer experiences of immersion or absorption. Since the idea of traveling the world within the context of the panorama is so strong and also seemingly novel that era, it could be possible that the panorama was the first instance where spectator immersion was given a new dimension. Spectators could actually feel as though they had travelled inside their own minds. The visitor of an amusement
park can also experience this kind of immersion.
Alison Griffiths describes the panorama as an extraordinarily immersive viewer experience. To discuss this in further detail, it is important to first come to an understanding of the term immersion (Hansen and Mossberg). Immersion is a state of being that can occur during an experience. It is a key element to an unforgettable tourist experience. Immersion, however, is not just applicable to tourist experience. It can also occur while looking at a work of art or a virtual world. Not only does
immersion make experiences memorable, it also makes them strong and rewarding. Some aspects that belong to an immersive experience are a sense of timelessness and a loss of self-consciousness. The spectator of a virtual world could feel as though “becoming physically (or virtually) a part of the experience itself” (Pine and Gilmore qtd. in Hansen and Mossberg 210). This temporal state of belonging to the (virtual) world can be influenced by former experiences as well as expectations (Hansen and Mossberg 212). Finally, the reason that such an experience is dubbed rewarding is because it can become an intensely joyful and sometimes even transforming experience.
Alison Griffith discusses this immersion in relation to the panorama. Her theory will help make the similarities between Pagode and the panorama even clearer. First, the panorama spectator does not merely look at an image, but at a large canvas surrounding them completely. Thus, no matter where one looks, one cannot look away from the work of art, consequently absorbing the spectator’s attention completely. However, the spectator can also choose where to look. There is so much to see, that the eye never stops wandering, perhaps going over the same detail over and over again, the body following where the gaze leads. In this aspect, although the panorama has been often compared to cinema, the panorama and Pagode distinguish themselves from cinema. Second, it invokes a sense of being present in the spectator. In addition, it has a status as a virtual transportation. Pagode is a literal form of transportation, but it is also a form of virtual traveling, since one can see multiple places without having to travel there, similar to how contemporaries felt when they visited the panorama. Griffiths also links the panorama to the experience of a Cathedral; she claims that visitors would whisper while they were there. Moreover, the building of the panorama would majestically rise out of the earth, an aspect that is shared with Pagode.
But if the architectural pull of the pantheon is downward, given that circular building are among the most internally centered of architectural structures as they firmly root us into the earth, the opposite is true of the cathedral, where the “visual negation of the structural reality with the loading forces [leads] to an impression of floating and a sense of striving upwards. (Michelle Pierson qtd. in Griffiths 41)
In this respect, Pagode may seem even more like a cathedral, than the building of the panorama does. As Pagode floats upwards, in Griffiths logic, it has an almost divine feel, in oriental atmosphere, when the visitor first walks up to the attraction. Then, when the visitor walks onto the platform, the
experience appears to be similar to a (moving) panorama. While the panorama may use natural
lighting to heighten the idea of reality in this visual landscape, Pagode shows an actual landscape. Will the fact that the spectator is looking at something real still invoke immersion or is the panorama’s ‘not quite real’ quality most important? Ralph Hyde says, one of the goals of the panorama was to create an illusion. Through fooling the spectator's eye, he feels as though he is actually there, which is a form of immersion (109). This may have played a big part in the experience of the panorama for
contemporaries.
In his article, Bull makes a similar argument to mine about aerial viewpoint restaurants, approaching this aerial view from a media archaeological point of view.
An archaeology of the revolving restaurant sends us further back in history, to the multiplicity of early attractions and the historical quest for total immersion. At the same time as arousing complex feelings of overview and vertigo, power and dizziness, control and confusion, these elevated perpetual motion machines can tell us something about our relationship to moving images historically and today. (Bull 61)
Pagode can thus tell us something about our relationship to moving images of the past and of those we see all around us.
After the creation of the panorama, two other similar types of media were invented, which had an even greater capacity of bringing the scenery within the presence of the spectator. One of these inventions achieved this through the use of movement and the other through light and sound effects, which could also create a sense of movement. The former is what Erkki Huhtamo calls the moving panorama and will be discussed next. The latter is the diorama, which will be discussed in the next chapter of this thesis.
Moving Panorama
I will briefly mention the moving panorama, since it may share even more commonalities with Pagode than the circular panorama does. In this panorama form, although there have been several different forms, the spectator was seated in an auditorium whilst the painting rolled across a window (Huhtamo 6). The moving panorama was not a stationary medium but an itinerant one. Consequently, it received a lot of competition from other media forms, among which the phantasmagoria (8). The moving panorama is not simply an offshoot of the circular panorama. It stems from a tradition of many spectacles, such as theatres, cosmoramas, medicine shows, magicians, magic lantern shows, and dioramas. In this aspect of traveling, Pagode is more similar to the circular panorama, but comparable to the moving panorama, the platform on which the spectator of Pagode is situated moves around so the scenery slowly moves before the spectator’s eyes. Huhtamo explains that for Walter Benjamin, the circular panorama was related more to urban modernity, while the moving panorama as an itinerant
medium was focused more towards the periphery (7). I find this interesting, since Pagode as attraction inside a theme park serves an urban audience while at the same time not necessarily being in an urban environment. Especially when Pagode moves upwards, it becomes clear that the surroundings are particularly rural. According to Synne Tollerud Bull even most modern aerial view attractions, such as aerial view restaurants and other aerial view architecture, are placed within urban settings. The moving panorama was also an emerging of a mobile spectator, which means that the spectator, while looking, was moving due to a mechanic system (12). This aspect will be discussed at length in the chapter about the train, but I will state here that Pagode is in line with this tradition.
Ralph Hyde states that in recent years there has been a renewed interest in panorama’s from the late nineteenth, such as the Dutch Hendrik Mesdag Panorama in Scheveningen (172). However, the type of people who show interest in these panoramas are mostly art-lovers, leaving the percentage of people who have seen such exhibitions, relatively low. In that light, the re-contextualisation of an attraction similar to the panorama within a theme park meant for general audience, is interesting. In such discursive contexts, the moving panorama can be interpreted as a topos – a persistent cultural formula that appears, disappears, and reappears, gaining ever-new meanings in the process. It again reappears here within Efteling, but what meaning does it have within this new context and have the Efteling visitors ever seen a panorama or similar attractions before?
Pagode refers to a form of Asian culture, so in what way can the panorama be found in that culture? Huhtamo explains that around the turn to 20th century there was a brief panorama craze in Japan (7). Secondly, Asia has also been depicted as a subject within panoramas. Around the 1850s the panorama gained popularity in New Zealand, which had colonial connections with India, making India a popular subject (Huhtamo 194). The Netherlands have also had connections with an Asian region, East Indies. In 1925, a plan came into being to paint a panorama of East Indies to place in the Netherlands12. In 1932, this panorama was finally shown within a broader exhibition of the Dutch-Indies13. Conclusively, the panorama does have several links to Asian culture, as do the Netherlands, although the Thai culture to which Pagode specifically refers, is not mentioned in any of the panorama histories.
Data Analysis
A big difference between Pagode and a black box attraction like Diorama or Spookslot is that one can immediately see what is about to happen as you walk up to the attraction. Thus, the interviewees, quite logically, explained that they had more of an idea of what they were going to do than with the other attractions. What is interesting about this fact is that the anticipation, which becomes part of the experience, is a different kind of anticipation than with a black box attraction.
12
“Een Indisch Panorama in Holland” De Gooi- en Eemlander 7 april 1925.
Well.. I do remember. The moment you stand beside it of course you can see it going up and coming down so ehm. Well yeah.. the only expectation actually was, ooooh, I will be going all the way up! Haha, it will go super high. Maybe a bit.. I really liked it, but maybe I was also a little scared. Because you can see beforehand how high it will go14. (Marielle, age 31)
I expected the view to be really beautiful. You can obviously see the attraction really well from the outside. You can see that it is beautiful and that it goes really high up and that it turns around, so that was also what I was expecting to happen. (Susan, age 30)
One no longer has this sense of anxiety due to not knowing what will come. However, knowing what is to come can in fact cause just as much excitement. When one walks up to Pagode, one can already see the construction deeming up in the air before them, much like the cathedrals Griffiths describes. Interviewees mentioned that at that moment, they experienced awe and excitement. One interviewee said she got a tingly feeling in her stomach. Perhaps this is the theme park’s equivalent of shivers down the spine?
All interviewees stated that, as a child, they had not done anything like it before. One similar attraction that was named was the Ferris wheel, but in the same sentence, what was also said was that it was not quite the same experience. One of the interviewees mentioned the similarity to a hot air balloon ride, which is a comparison that is also made by Synne Tollerud Bull in the article mentioned before (64). The very first hot air balloon ride happened six years before the first appearance of the panorama. Although it may have been invented for the purpose of traveling through the air, it may just have caused man’s obsession with aerial view attractions, such as the panorama and Pagode or the aerial view restaurants Bull discusses. When asked to describe the attraction, most described it as a viewpoint. You could see very far away, which most interviewees highly enjoyed when they were children. Most described being quite excited, jumping up and down, and wanting to see as many things as possible.
I would describe it as a flying viewpoint (Fabian, age 33)
Hmm.. as a viewing point actually. It is, and that’s what I really liked about it as a child and still do.. It does not happen often that something comes so high up and turns around. I’ve been on Ferris Wheels too, but that experience is different. Here you can see 360° around the attraction, but it is not like a viewpoint or tower on which you have to walk around yourself. The view comes by on its own. My father would even take his binoculars with him, he loved
to explain things to us, see that church belongs to that town and that belongs to that. (Marielle, age 31)
Pagode went up really high and I always liked to see where our camping was, because you had a very wide range of vision. (Shirley, age 44)
Thus, what makes Pagode particularly different from other height attractions, according to the interviewees, is the freedom you have in the sky. Due to the arm under the temple, which you do not see when you are in the attraction, there is no need for support around the attraction as there is with Ferris Wheels. Therefore, one can really get the feeling of floating in the air. Besides that, one can walk around and choose their own standing point to look from, just like with the panorama. However, as seen in Marielle’s statement, the mechanical movement allows for a view all around the attraction without having to walk. Bull actually states that “the motion of the revolving restaurant adds to the dissolving-of-reality effect, making the external scenery less real, more cinematic, and, most
importantly, relentlessly more ideal” (62). I argue that this is what makes Pagode a particularly visual and cinematic attraction. Getting the feeling of floating in the air, is also a particularly embodied experience, which would thus be a good context for immersion as Griffiths explains through the theory of Vivian Sobchack. Interviewees did describe being completely occupied with the scenery at the moment of the attraction. Another interesting aspect is exactly what they were looking at. First of all, interviewees described seeing things beyond the park, such as villages, churches or camping sites. At that point, the rural nature of the surroundings suddenly becomes clear as kilometres of grassland can be seen around the park. Relevantly, people described wanting to see as much as possible, which can definitely be seen as a state of immersion.
The interviewees said that their experience of Pagode as adults was quite different than their experience as children. First of all, quite a few interviewees described being a lot more scared than they were as children. Besides experiencing it differently, people also mentioned seeing different things than they did as a child. Interviewees mentioned seeing parts of rollercoasters, which also has to do with the growing nature of the park. Another thing that caught their attention was how small everything seemed from above. Lastly, it was mentioned how green the park actually is and how much attention was paid to landscaping.
But.. of course it is a lot easier to oversee the entire park. So nowadays I just calmly look around. I just mentioned discovering new things, I experienced that now as well. All of a sudden I noticed that in the park itself certain flowerbeds or fields of grass were made to be shaped in the Efteling logo. I never noticed that before. I admire that attention to detail that the park has. (Marielle, age 31)
As a child the going up and down of Pagode is a goal and an experience on its own. When you are older you also look at the entire park and where everything lies in relation to each other. (Fabian, age 33)
When I was a kid, there of course were less rollercoasters, so now there are more things that stick out above the rest of the park. And I also know that I noticed the green more, the trees. I never really thought about that as a child, but when I went again with my ex I thought oh the park actually is really green. The trees stick out nicely. (Tinnhi, age 27)
When we visit Pagode we always check if we can see Aquanura. Especially in the summer nights when you visit Pagode in the dark, you can see lights everywhere in Efteling and that is so incredibly pretty. (Shirley, age 44)
So, people described seeing the park as a complete entity. As discussed in the introduction, Nye argues how important the experience of a theme park as a whole actually is. However, when walking around in a park, the experience will always be fragmented. Pagode gives the visitor a real possibility to experience the park as a whole. The different landmarks, such as the rollercoasters, in the park then also become visible again, as they are from outside the park. Through the attraction of Pagode, Efteling itself becomes a spectacle to look at from an aerial point of view.
Lastly, and in line with the previous point, one can see the actual landscaping into which has been put so much detail15. People described being surprised by logos of Efteling in flower beds and fields of grass, which for some reason are not seen from the ground. A new perspective, from further away, is needed to show the landscaping in full detail. What happens when one looks at something from far away, is that it appears to be very small, which is something that has been stated by my interviewees as well. This small scale is something that links Pagode to the next attraction to be discussed; Diorama. Both can actually be seen as 3D paintings of Anton Pieck.
Conclusion
With what has been described by the interviewees, I can distinguish three layers of experience at Pagode. The moment when one walks up towards the attraction is the first layer. This moment raises expectations, which is so important for an immersive experience, as stated by Hansen and Mossberg, and it is important for the experience of a theme park as well, for after all, expectations and excitement is what moves somebody to visit a certain attraction. The next moment is the rising and turning around of the mechanical system of the attraction. As expressed by several interviewees, as a child this is the
15
In 2012 Efteling won the following award Internationaal Vakblad Amusement Today: 2e plaats categorie Best landscaping .
most exciting aspect of Pagode. However, as an adult, one probably experiences other things like it, or one has developed a fear of heights, and focuses more on the visual aspect of it, which is the final layer of the attraction. Therefore, I would argue that the visual aspect is the reason for the recurrence of a topos like this within a theme park, while the mechanical form is the most suited for this topos recurring within the context of a theme park. The experience of Pagode contains another layering as it is expressed to be some sort of small journey within a larger journey of Efteling as a whole. The oriental sphere, which is not really present in any other part of the park, makes Pagode stand out on its own.
Next, I will compare the experience which my interviewees sketched to the experience of the panorama as sketched by the literary sources used in the beginning of this chapter. One of the major differences is that panorama is inside while Pagode is outside. I believe this change to be part of the difference in context. Naturally, most of all, the spectator of Pagode would not be able to see the surrounding scenery if the attraction were to take place inside, but this only enhances the idea that the act of looking is most important in this attraction. However, what I mean by this difference in context is that the excitement caused by the fact that one can already see Pagode go up is exactly the feeling that a theme park needs to arouse in its spectators.
As Hansen and Mossberg define immersion, what becomes clear is that an immersive experience is memorable and can feel like one has been on a journey. The fact that my interviewees, although some better than others, can vividly remember their first experience of Pagode, tells me that these experiences were immersive. The fact that they saw other villages and landscapes beyond the landscape of Efteling is as though they have seen these places, without visiting them. The Efteling visitor can feel like a ‘world’ traveller, just as contemporaries of the panorama were described. Moreover, this rural landscape around Efteling can cause the same effect of confusion between what the spectator sees is real or not as is experienced in the panorama. As the rural landscape stretches beyond the park, the construction of the park itself becomes ultra-visible, giving the spectator an awareness. It highlights the illusion of the park, while at the same time revealing it. This aspect will be discussed in the chapter on Diorama and Spookslot as well. I must add, however, that the sense of immersion in my data is not as apparent, even though it is present, as for example in Griffiths account of the panorama. A good reason for this I believe is the matter of scale. While Pagode itself as a construction is very impressive in scale, the surroundings become ever smaller as the spectator moves upward, and are not as overwhelming as the larger than life paintings from the panorama age.
What the interviews show us and what is also made clear in the article by Bull is that the recurrence of a topos like Pagode lies in its nature as an aerial viewpoint, and consequently, through this nature its immersive effects on the spectator and the god-like sense of seeing all that it invokes. The fantasy of being able to see everything and the desire to fulfil this fantasy is what causes these types of attractions to keep recurring. There is a fascination with aerial views and this fascination is poured into different forms showing us how “the new is ‘dressed up’ in formulas that may be hundreds
of years old, while the old may provide ‘molds’ for cultural innovations and reorientations” (Huhtamo and Parikka qtd. in Bull 64).
What this attraction helps to explain about the discussion on recurring topoi laid out in the beginning of this thesis is that in this case what happens is indeed something like Elsaesser states in his dog-eat-leg logic, that people truly feel that a phenomenon like this is still new. They did not only state that it is new to them, but they stressed the uniqueness of Pagode. However, one thing to keep in mind is that, even though they had already visited Pagode, they still found it intriguing, albeit for different reasons. Actually, the fact that the interviewees found the visual aspect more important as adults tells me that that aspect is precisely why these types of attractions recur.
Diorama: Surprise in Detail
Diorama is another visual attraction within this amusement park. It was built in 1971 and is located within the building of the steam carousel in the part of the park called Marerijk. This particular diorama shows towns, Italian lakes, impressive rocks and mountains, and even some carnivals (image 3). It contains a mixture of styles and time periods. Hence, even within the landscape of this particular attraction, we can speak of a certain layering of time. Diorama, which has a length of 60 meters, is based on drawings of co-founder of the theme park, Anton Pieck. It was made under supervision of his successor Ton van de Ven. Diorama also shows small boats and locomotives that ride around its landscape. The room around the diorama is completely dark so the lit world of Diorama can be viewed better, since the darkness diminishes possible reflection on the glass. In the previous chapter, it was mentioned that in an attraction such as Pagode, darkness can also add a sense of atmosphere as the lights in the scenery are now clearer. Diorama is thus a black box medium, like traditional cinema. This is not different from the original dioramas to which Diorama is linked in this chapter. These original dioramas also had a dark auditorium in which the spectators were seated. The fact that they were seated is one of the differences between the historical dioramas and Efteling’s Diorama, in which the spectator, although possibly seated, is also able to walk around the scene. It is set in the middle of a grand hall and the spectator can walk around freely. However, as stated in the introduction of this thesis, a certain type of mobile spectatorship was granted to the historic diorama and its moving auditorium. Therefore, the mobility of the spectator is paralleled and even more enhanced in Efteling’s interpretation of the old medium. Due to this aspect of Diorama, the spectator becomes actively engaged by moving around as well as receiving agency over what they look at. The gaze is on the spectator's own terms. The bodily experience becomes more important and the spectator may be more aware of their own body in contrast with the small scale of the scenery which is looked at. This is another similarity with Pagode, where the spectator also towers above the scenery and gets an overviewing gaze due to matters of scale.. By means of a button the spectator is even able to create a thunderstorm above the depiction of Venice within Diorama, creating a simple form of interactivity, which is the reaction of the media to an action of the spectator/user.
The Diorama in a Historical Context
This part of the thesis gives a short historical overview of the rise and the nature of the diorama. It is a medium that has come into existence after the panorama, and has even originated from it as well as from other media forms from that time. Due to the popularity of the panorama and the way it fooled the spectator’s eye with its illusion, at a certain point, the need for even more illusion arose. This need would be solved by movement and sound. That is when the diorama was invented (Hyde 109). For this part, I will use books by Huhtamo Erkki, Helmut and Alison Gernsheim, and Ralph Hyde.
Like the panorama, the diorama derived its name from ancient Greek as well, with dia meaning through and horama meaning view (Huhtamo 139). The diorama was a change from the panorama in more than one way. The diorama was looked at from a platform that moved from one painting to another. The spectators looked at these paintings as through a tunnel (Huhtamo 145). Often, one of the paintings was of an indoor scenery and the other of an outdoor scenery (Idem). These paintings “seemed to miraculously change their appearance" (Hyde 109). One definition of the
diorama can be drawn from the English Patent specification, in which it is called: "an improved mode of publicly exhibiting pictures or painted scenery of every description and of distributing or directing the day light upon or through them, so as to produce many beautiful effects of light and shade" (Gernsheim and Gernsheim 13). Efteling’s Diorama does not work with daylight, but with fake lighting and electricity. In fact, as stated before, in the entire room around the diorama, daylight has been taken away to enhance the electrical light effects. Thus, Diorama, as well as Pagode, also plays with these effects of light and therefore also shade as Diorama makes use of lighting to create day and nighttime scenery and Pagode sheads a new perspective on light and shade from an aerial point of view. Introduced in 1822, the diorama combined some techniques that had already been applied long before. It used the movement of moving pictures operated by clockwork. The light from behind was known from transparencies and the manipulation of light had already been seen in use by the opera in Paris. According to Erkki Huhtamo, the first idea of the diorama was created by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (140). After his death, the idea was patented and made famous by L.J.M. Daguerre. He was in fact the maker of the first diorama that opened on 11 July, 1822 (Gernsheim 14). The diorama has often been associated with Daguerre and the Daguerrotype, which was an early photographic process he was involved in developing (Huhtamo 140). Of course, the light through the painting has a definite link with photography and the first diorama were somewhat of a larger version of the camera obscura through which light fell to create a picture. In that first well-known diorama from 1822, the visitor entered a darkened saloon where people could sit on benches in front of a large window through which the scene could be viewed. This particular diorama started with a depiction of the Canterbury
Cathedral and the saloon was then turned in its entirety to show a representation of the Valley of Sarnen (Gernsheim 14). To the spectators, it seemed as though the picture was slowly moving before their eyes instead of the spectators themselves.
