As I’veargued before1997 can be seen as the year thatpostmodern paleo - futurismwent mainstream . Disney ’s ego - cognisant redesign of Tomorrowland meant that mainstream American culture was out of ideas for the time to come .
It was as though the people at Disney were throwing up their manpower and pronounce , “ The twelvemonth 2000 is just around the quoin ! Without flying car we ’ve got nothing ! Check your parent ’s attic , there must be something coolheaded up there ! ”
The most sincere and drippy company in America had resolve to simply co - opt past visions of the future .
The excerption below is take from aFebruary 23 , 1997 New York Times articlethat total up the Tomorrowland redesign and what it think of for futurism .
” The raw Tomorrowland begins with Jules Verne and ends with Buck Rogers , ” order Beth Dunlop , a Florida computer architecture critic who of late released a company - O.K. Koran on Disney architecture .
Tomorrowland is barely alone . The hereafter is growing old all over Disney ’s magic realm . From the film pot to the Epcot paper park to the veridical - biography town that the company calls Celebration , Disney has mostly given up on reckon a newfangled future . When a story line or ride design calls for a touch of time to come , it is usually , as posters for the raw Tomorrowland boasting , ” the futurity that never was . ”
The fault is profound for a company whose laminitis was one of postwar America ’s great vulgariser of technology . And it is a reflection of the ennui that many Americans , at century ’s end , feel about the chips and routine in which they are immerse .
” We went to the Moon and all we got out of it was Teflon genus Pan , ” said Karal Ann Marling , a professor of nontextual matter history and American studies at the University of Minnesota , expressing an increasingly common mental attitude .
” Our goals as a people are not these pie - in - the - sky objectives that masses grow up with in the 50 ’s , ” said Professor Marling , who is the conservator for a Montreal exhibit in June on Disney topic park architecture . ” They settle now for a star sign in the suburbs and to hell with the Moon . What ’s the degree of construction monorail if we can hardly get the gondola to influence ? ”
See also : Postmodern Paleo - FutureArticle for MungBeing
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