Television and Disneyland operate similarly, by means of extraction, reduction, and recombination, to create an entirely new, antigeographical space. On TV, the endlessly bizarre juxtapositions of the daily broadcast schedule continuously erode traditional strategies of coherence. The quintessential experience of television, that continuous program-hopping zap from the remote control, creates path after unique path through the infinity of televised space. Likewise, Disneyland, with its channel-turning mingle of history and fantasy, reality and simulation, invents a way of encountering the physical world that increasingly characterizes daily life.
ATTRIBUTION:
Michael Sorkin (b. 1948), U.S. architect, author. “See You in Disneyland,” Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space, ed. Michael Sorkin, Noonday (1992).
