Abstract: At the turn of 20th century the whole of America was talking about Coney Island—New York’s famous entertainment district was booming, and sported attractions like none other. Coney Island’s most famous amusement park was Steeplechase Park, there you could experience the latest technology at prices the working class could afford. George Tilyou was the enigmatic owner of the park and he knew how to woo a crowd—by adapting technologies that he had seen in the military and employing them in rides like the Dew Drop, the Barrel of Love and the Human Roulette Wheel. The park employed these incredible technologies with two goals in mind: to create physiological thrills and for people to share in compromising and hilarious interactions. Today we see the beginnings of a new media space that combines innovations from military and engineering with effects a century old. While the amusement spaces of the 1900’s have mostly disappeared we now see virtual reality entertainment zones appearing in most major cities, occupied not just by arcade gamers but families, couples and co-workers of all ages. We also see the melding of “traditional” theme park rides like rollercoasters and even waterslides with VR experiences, to the thrill of some and the chagrin of the hardcore enthusiasts who don’t see these new hybrid experiences as “real”. This paper links the current VR revolution with the ride experiences that evolved from the traditional amusement park. Malcolm Burt and Joel Zika compare the revolution of the 20th century with the impending boom of VR technology in the 21st.
Fig.1: Scenic Railway, Coney Island, 1890s.
Introduction
The dawn of the amusement park in the late 19th century is an era with strong links to today’s media landscape, most notably because of the parallels in the proliferation of immersive media experiences. At the turn of last century, electricity was illuminating cities, connecting people through tram networks and new types of electric-powered entertainments like dark themed rides, parachute jumps and rollercoasters were becoming commonplace. Conveniently, electricity companies relied on regularly-running trams, and the amusement park just happened to serve as an ideal weekend destination for the lines, so within a decade an electrified entertainment network grew. As an example of this new form of entertainment, the amusement park of the early 20th century offered three unique points of engagement with the public: a cheap way for people to engage with new technology and scientific developments; a place to experience, extend and exorcise the growing unease felt with their industrially revolutionised cities, and a place to connect with others in this space of unease and play. This paper examines the parallels of this hybrid and evolving world with the media entertainment landscape we see today, particularly as it relates to the current evolution and expansion of virtual reality.
The construct of the amusement park did away with much of the ad hoc inventiveness of the fairground by creating a single owned space where previously everyone from gypsies to local salespeople had run concessions. (Kane, 2016, p.4) As reductive as it was, this format of entertainment space created the infrastructure necessary to build and engage people with the latest technology. Rides brought new experiences to people that would otherwise not have access to them—from intimate and visceral interactions with rail technology in the roller coaster, flight and parachute simulations, and to deeper engagements with narrative and space on the ghost train. Translated to our contemporary context, VR (virtual reality) is similarly front and center in engaging users with experiences that are out of reach.
Whilst in active development for over two decades, VR has ridden rollercoaster-like ups and downs in popularity and commercial interest over the years, however as 2016 was flagged as the “year for VR” (Machkovech, 2017) due to the commercial release of VR systems such as HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift, it appears the technology is again enjoying a popular phase. VR is defined in an amusement context by David Younger as a technology that “gives the guests a head-mounted display that allows them to see a digital world, matching the video image to the movement of the guest’s head.” (Younger, 2016, p. 532) The Economist differentiates VR from its competitor AR, or Augmented Reality—where the real world is overlaid with virtual imagery instead of being replaced by it—in a useful film analogy: “If virtual reality is ‘The Matrix’, then augmented reality is ‘The Terminator’.” (Economist, 2016) Despite this filmic comparison, it is important to note that VR is possibly not an advancement of cinema, but rather part of a larger canon of immersive media that can be traced back to the entertainment experiences of the late 1800s.
Amusement as it was
Amusement parks, defined as an enclosed or delineated area for amusement experiences, were at their peak in the 1900s. The suburb of Coney Island in New York had grown to house three such parks and similar entertainment zones were franchised around the world, drawing millions through their gates. (Register, 2001, p. 90) In the pre-Disney period between 1890 and 1940, amusement parks were located in every state and most towns of any size had a park with concessions of some sort. (Lost Amusement Parks, 2017) There was an almost universal access to experiential culture, a chance to experience strange feelings and perspectives in a showcase of recent technology. These were local experiences which often involved entire communities using technology, participating in shared experiences that crossed socioeconomic barriers. (Rabinowitz, 2012, p. 90)
Early 20th century amusement parks were typified by an exploration and distillation of the uncanny. The most iconic section of these early parks was the “scenic railway” (fig.1), which would evolve into the modern roller coaster. These rail-based entertainments of course became an extension of the very apparatus that brought people to the park in the first place. In his book Technology: Art, fairground and Theatre, Petran Kockelkoren describes this relationship that people have with rail travel as follows:
When new technologies are introduced to the public for the first time, a period of decentring commences: the users do not know what to make of the technology and the world to which it gives access. But it does not take long before re-centring strategies are set in motion to domesticate the technology in question. A good example of cultural pathology and its cure is provided by the introduction of the train in the nineteenth century.
For a Brooklyn resident, the act of riding the train would have been an everyday occurrence, whereas a factory worker travelling to Blackpool in England’s north may only use such a technology once a year. This “decentring” Kockelkoren describes is manifested in many ways and to many degrees within the amusement park. The uncanny extension of one’s journey could take an escapist turn in the form of a river caves ride to foreign lands, a moral descent into hell on a ghost train, or a dangerous physiological dance with gravity on roller coaster.
Figure 2: The Parachute Jump, at Steeplechase Park, Coney Island.
In the late 1930s, America’s focus had shifted from train travel to aviation, with this shift came enormous public interest and also a need to produce immersive spaces that could train pilots, so the worlds of popular entertainment and the military combined to create an immersive and uncanny experience. As with the computer simulations of the later part of the 20th century; military activities played an oversized role in the evolution of immersive entertainment and so in 1935 Amelia Earhart’s husband developed a simulated experience to train pilots in the act of parachute jumping. On a large plot of land in New Jersey, George Putnam (Earhart’s husband) and Stanley Switlik developed the apparatus that drops a number of participants from high above the ground to a safe standstill. The ride had almost immediate uptake from interests in the entertainment industry and a version with leather seats was installed at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City (Register, 2001) and was subsequently moved to the famed Steeplechase Park in Coney Island (fig.2), where its frame still sits as a popular landmark. As an aside, on the piece of land where Switik and Putnam designed the original apparatus now sits the enormous Six Flags Great Adventure theme park. However, the distribution of cinematic content, class divides, and disputes over land made it difficult for the amusement park to continue to draw audiences beyond the 1960s, so thousands of amusement parks eventually closed (Lost Amusement Parks), with the fight for the attention of the market having been well and truly lost.
The decline of the amusement park came in waves, in the 1920s and 1930s with changing transportation and the depression, and the 1950s and 1960s with the rise of the theme park and its transmedia links to cinema. The independent nature of parks like Coney Island had begun to be seen unfavourably by the aspiring classes of America’s west coast and Disneyland’s model was seen as a far more culturally positive and in tune with the ideals of the aspirational classes. (Weinstein, 1992, p. 132) Theme parks were more complex than simply places to whittle away a few hours. Young et al (2002) found they were “major pilgrimage sites within today’s mass cultures, they create a haven away from the crisis — they are places where modern people can alleviate the anxieties of their lives.” (p. 4) They also noted that theme parks were required to be removed from everyday life, physically as well as hierarchically, “to create a space where everyone can be assumed to be equal.” In his book Theme Park (2008) Scott Lukas argues his simple definition that theme parks deal with theme and amusement parks trade largely—but gleefully—in the mechanics that drive experiences:
..the parks that dare offer themselves up not as theme parks, but as amusement parks, and they do this primarily through the promotion not of the theme but of the machine. Indeed, the amusement machine is the last stand of the amusement park. (p. 1)
The evolution of the theme park has progressed markedly in the last 20 years, as the forms of cinema and park have merged to create transmedia spaces, where coasters promote their namesake films (Terminator: Salvation, Green Lantern and Batman: The Dark Knight are three such rollercoasters that function essentially as ridden advertisements), films promote theme park rides (Disney’s Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean began life as theme park rides, then became films that somehow functioned as both commercial entities unto themselves and advertisements for the rides they sprang from) and video games promote their parent films and rides (Green Lantern, Harry Potter, Superman). (Anderson & Burt, 2016) The most well-known cross-pollinations like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride revived media relationships that stretched well beyond even the early dark rides of the 1900s and operettas of the 1890s were melded with comic book imagery to create a hybrid immersive experience. (Phillips, 2012, p. 177) This has begun a re-establishment of the media space the amusement park once solely held, and has paved the way for the return (Case, 2016) of virtual reality —with people comfortable viewing and experiencing content in differing media spaces. Immersive games have become movies and those movies have become rides, while rides themselves have been ported to VR gaming platforms. (White, 2017)
The parlance of the amusement park has re-emerged as a shorthand for a conglomerate of technology and new marketplaces. Newly formed entertainment complexes describing themselves as “VR Amusement Parks”, (Sawers, 2017 & Creators, 2017) a reference to a time when people expectations were centered on the mechanics driving the experience. The popularisation and mass uptake of VR technology has created a new marketplace where experiences themselves can be disseminated through this medium—this could be anything from a ride experience to health advice—or even a sexual encounter.
This evolution of virtual reality from early immersive rides to individual digital spaces has been signaled for some time. In his 2013 paper “An Archaeology of a Dark Ride”, Graeme Baker sheds light on the impact that the technological revolution has had on the development of indoor amusements. Universal’s Revenge of the Mummy and Harry Potter’s Forbidden Journey are spectacular examples of hybrid ride environments that use discrete digital domes for each individual rider. (Nefer, 2010) This approach creates a similar relationship for the viewer as a virtual headset, but allows for a hybrid space where the user can exit the virtual content and return to the physical ride. In Baker’s piece he cites another influential ride in Transformers 3D as key in the canon of popular immersive entertainments. He points to three main inventions in the 20th century unique to indoor amusements that have paved the way for for VR. The first is the Amusement Railway which allowed for small trains in the entertainment zones. The second is the Training device for student Aviators which delivered haptic simulators that were precursors to digital flight simulators and the third were Polarized 3D glasses (which we use today with IMAX cinema and 3D television). It is important to note that these three inventions were all patented in 1929 and 1930 respectively as simple devices that have been around for almost a century. The early part of the 20th century was rich with new developments of this kind and offered access to the public in parallel with other groups such as engineers and the military. This is a crucial period to reference when looking at our contemporary entertainment space, the similarities in terms of widespread access, uptake and experimentation are striking.
Amusement today
Today we see new media spaces that combine innovations from military—again a source of amusement inspiration— and engineering, and use them to apply modern effects from our amusement past. What is yet to be seen is whether the spaces where we consume VR will become as iconic as their real world equivalents. While the amusement spaces of the 1900s have disappeared, we now see virtual reality entertainment zones appearing in most major cities, occupied not just by arcade gamers but families, couples and co-workers of all ages. We also see the melding of “traditional” theme park rides like rollercoasters and even waterslides with VR experiences, to the thrill of some and the chagrin of the hardcore enthusiasts who don’t see these new hybrid experiences as “real”.
Early VR efforts delivered (comparatively) low-resolution visuals and jerky movements. Some of the first commercial entertainment devices produced included VPL’s “DataGlove” and home gaming systems such as the Mattel “PowerGlove”, which worked in tandem with flicker, or “shutter” glasses, synced with video output using 3D stereovision to give users’ left and right eyes a slightly different image, thus simulating a 3D environment. (Newby, 1994, p. 2) While the technology was touted as being easy to use and well supported, the commercial adoption was low. Newby suggested: “Over the coming years, we can expect increasingly sophisticated applications for entertainment and medicine, employing cheaper, more accurate and easier to use VR devices for input and output.” (p.3) Newby was right—like the subway and rail network expansions of the early 20th century, the mobile phone boom has equipped the global population (Statista, 2017) with new access to experiences. Through inexpensive virtual reality hardware, people can access everything from holiday destinations, community events (Milk, Jonz, 2015) or even return to the classic amusement park and take a spin on the rides. (Zika, 2016)
Modern VR entertainment experiences are more varied and technologically sophisticated than in the past, with higher frame rates, increased screen resolutions, and are deployed in advanced headsets from major vendors including Sony, HTC, Samsung and Facebook, owners of “Oculus Rift”, currently seen as one of the leaders in VR immersion. (Chessa et al, 2016) Each of these vendors is strongly supporting their hardware with well-populated virtual stores enabling new and updated experiences to be downloaded and purchased. The current technology supports extremely realistic and immersive experiences in theme parks and amusement parks including simulators enhanced with VR technology to create ever-more exhilarating and immersive experiences. VR headsets are now being placed on rollercoaster riders on active rollercoasters, where the VR visuals are coordinated with existing rollercoaster tracks and g-forces to deliver an entirely new visual experience (NewsRx, 2016) where ‘Riders wearing the specially reinforced VR headgear are immersed in a fantasyland where they soar, plunge and twist in sync with a coaster’s motion.’ (Michaels, 2016) According to a ride participant;
…instead of seeing the metallic rails (and the backs of the heads of other riders), you witness another world emerge. Larger-than-life skyscrapers rise above, and aliens whizz through the sky. One of the buildings besides you catches fire; you feel the heat on your face. You shoot the evil aliens in desperation, but not before your vessel starts falling down, down, down…. (Mehta, 2016)
Figure 3: VR Coaster, Rage of the Gargoyles at Six Flags, St Louis.
VR entertainment experiences in theme parks can experiences that have been added to existing rides, stand-alone “walkthrough”VR experiences, VR simulators, and amusement park VR experiences delivered via apps on smartphones. The US-based Six Flags corporation own the largest array of ride experiences in the world (TEA/AECOM, 2015) and are at the forefront of experimentations with virtual reality, or VR. The chain introduced VR experiences on several older rollercoasters in 2016, including The New Revolution and Santa’s Wild Sleigh Ride at Six Flags Magic Mountain, and Rage of the Gargoyles (fig.3) at Six Flags St Louis, among others. These rides employ Samsung Gear VR headsets equipped with Samsung smartphones to power the simulation—riders wear the headsets while the coaster operates as normal and battles and events are displayed and synchronised with the twists, drops, loops and turns of the coaster. The trend of adding VR headsets to rollercoaster experiences began with aging rollercoasters, but toward the end of 2016 had begun to expand to younger coasters. Competing park chain Cedar Fair is also experimenting with similar attractions, as is Dreamworld and Movieworld in Australia, with upcharge rollercoaster VR attractions Skyrider and Arkham Asylum, respectively. The classic parachute drop is also being reimagined in VR with Six Flag’s Drop of Doom, where users are taken 415ft into the air on a tower before being suddenly dropped to the ground, wearing VR headsets through which they appear to be falling rapidly from a building, only to be saved at the last minute. The Void is a high-tech standalone VR facility in Utah where participants strap-on Oculus Rift headsets, and physically explore virtual worlds inside a physical space.
Figure 4: Zero Latency’s VR experience, Ghostbusters: Dimension.
Australian company Zero Latency has set up a similar experience in Melbourne. Ghostbusters: Dimension (fig. 4) was a standalone VR experience in New York, developed by the creators of The Void to promote the Ghostbusters: Answer the Call film. VR simulators consist of seated participants in ride vehicles, which are either stationary, moving on rails, or moving between rooms, and use 3D stereoscopy, projections and 3D or VR headsets. Examples include SpiderMan at Universal Studios Japan and Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, at select Universal parks in the USA. App-based VR experiences are programs that can be downloaded from online stores, and experienced entirely within a user’s personal VR headset without ever stepping outside their house. The large US theme park Cedar Point created a CGI, first-person VR POV of their new Valrayvn rollercoaster and made the experience available as 360-degree video on YouTube, and via an immersive VR experience in Google Cardboard. The experience functioned as both a promotional tool and a satisfying VR experience. Other app-based amusement experiences include Crazy Swing, where viewers are able to ride a supersized swing in an urban environment.
The way we access these VR products online has a distinctly commercial surface, however, these spaces are not necessarily anathema to obtaining diverse cultural engagements. The gamification of culture was as present to those trying to stand up in a spinning barrel ride in 1901 as it is to someone hurling spears in a VR environment today. The amusement park was a commercial monetized space, but it served as an important tool in giving people access to new and evolving experiences. It was also a space under constant threat and criticism from the upper classes. (Cross 2005, p. 4) Cultural aristocrats felt the “new popular entertainment was primarily about fun” (Gabler, 1998, p. 16) as opposed to education, and was ultimately a foolish indulgence with little value. It seemed one of the appealing aspects of modern entertainment, and by extension theme parks and amusement parks, was that it was deliberately shunning being “worthy” and simply existed to provide a thrill. Today’s VR marketplace may become the amusement park of its time, a place where people can connect with bespoke experiences, sometimes crude, sometimes experimental. The effects at the heart of this new marketplace will filter down from the science and technology communities but ultimately offer—and be used to create—expanded perspectives on our world and our relationships with each other.
Summary
Virtual reality experiences will continue to exhibit—and draw on—aspects of amusement and theme park culture in into the future. The quality of the immersion and the accessibility of that content relies on an examination of the successes of these former pillars of technological experience. Virtual reality—like the amusement parks of old—will itself be subsumed into other technologies and integrate with alternative media products in ways that may mirror the media mutations of the early 20th century. The amusement park reflected an organic and open approach to a media marketplace that was physical, immersive and shared. These are the qualities that networked immersive media needs in order to connect audiences with content and do so en masse. Technology that seeks to break away from cinema is increasingly popular and the virtual and augmented reality products are at the front of that interest. More important than the question of parks adopting VR ideas will be the question of whether VR will adopt park-like ideas. Will virtual roller coasters break psychological barriers as well as physical ones? Will virtual ghost trains disrupt and break apart narrative norms? It may take another format or technical revolution to return us to the experimentation and universal access of Coney Island’s glory days.
One thing that is clear is the culture of the park —whether amusement or theme park—will continue to provide us the framework for understanding, sharing and engaging with immersive cultural experiences.
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