4/20/2023 0 Comments Spaceship earth ride![]() ![]() It is likewise within a larger theme park system of scientific management and control a la Taylor, with the Omnimover system even resembling a factory conveyor. Those using Marxist approaches might see a commodified text from a conglomerate meant to consume, complete with corporate sponsorship (previously Bell System and then AT&T, now Siemens). Historians could look at the accuracy of its depictions or its selection of events, as tens of thousands of years are indeed condensed into fifteen minutes. Semiotics might be employed, as Spaceship Earth is a text rife with signs that can be decoded and are essentially intertextual. They may find it a conceit for a corporation to tell the story of human history and possibly reify a universal heritage likewise, the depictions of mass media influencing viewers are ironic. ![]() Cultural critics might cite the impact of ideology and its being a product of and influencer of culture. People and machines are merged (in the tableaux and in the attraction experience), so the cyborg concept could be utilized, and in the animatronic representations of people, some may find an uncanny valley. Spaceship Earth can easily be interrogated using the kinds of theories and approaches found in Texts & Technology. Spaceship Earth could be a multi-modal, multi-sensory text on the core candidacy exam! The ride has a standpoint and makes claims similar to some of the authors read in this doctoral program it is in fact doing Texts & Technology. Nonetheless, its humanistic viewpoint presents technologies that connect people and cultures it is not wholly Western, as there is a reference to “Jewish and Islamic scholars” in the East who came together to preserve knowledge and save our “dreams of the future.” In the story, communication technology is what facilitates survival, great civilizations, and human progress. The attraction is biased in its presentation after all, it has only minor allusions to strife (the fall of Rome, the loss of the Library of Alexandria, the Civil War) and has no references to the most destructive technologies we create that lead to war and environmental degradation. It clearly situates these technologies within specific cultures (Phoenicians, Egyptians, Romans, et al.), time periods (classical Greece, the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, etc.), and associates them with significant figures (e.g. ![]() ![]() It celebrates human striving and interprets the links between people and their machines. It is also a technology that is humanistic in its approach. It is a progress narrative to be sure, but it is one that honors the past. Spaceship Earth is a text about humanity’s connections to technology and each other. Despite the presence of so many technologies in both form and content, this is not an attraction about thrill but education or even enlightenment. Other technologies are found in the post-show exhibit. The attraction itself is a showcase of technologies: the geodesic sphere with Alucobond panels Disney’s proprietary Omnimover ride system, a set of continuously moving, linked vehicles with the ability to rotate Disney’s advanced robots, Audio-Animatronics projection technology ride and show control systems lighting, sound, and smell effects interactive touch screens with animation and image capture with facial recognition software. These include cave paintings, papyrus writing, alphabets and translators, mathematics, ships, roads, music, art, libraries, illuminated manuscripts, movable type printing presses, industrial printing presses, telephones, telegraphs, radio, film, television, spacecraft, mainframe computers, and personal computers. The ride’s narrative and images highlight the expansion of technologies to communicate. Like the theme park it is in, the attraction about our “grand and miraculous spaceship” demonstrates principles of optimism, futurism, and technological utopianism. The vehicles are meant to be “time machines” that riders explore their histories in. After an open area that looks like an observatory, the rider is asked to select possibilities so that the computer can demonstrate a customized, animated future made possible by technologies yet to be invented. The ride is housed in a geodesic sphere a la Buckminster Fuller, also known as “the giant golf ball.” Opened in 1982, this “dark ride” illustrates with dramatic, kinetic scenes some key moments in the history of communication, starting with cave paintings, going through multiple civilizations and times, and ending in a garage with the development of the personal computer. If you don’t have familiarity with this ride, it is at the entrance to Epcot, Disney’s permanent World’s Fair theme park. As I was riding Spaceship Earth at Epcot a few weeks ago, I had a light bulb moment: Spaceship Earth is a representation of human relationships with technology, as it is meant to be, but it can also be a symbol for the discipline of Texts & Technology. ![]()
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