I've been wanting/needing to do this post for a while as I feel it will be greatly inspiring to draw or paint from, and feels especially relevant to the 'pandemic planet' thing I'm thinking about. this is actually a post I've been constantly feeling the pressure to do and never getting to it but I'm finally here. it's actually a few weeks after I first wanted to investigate this (chasing this deadline makes me feel like I'm constantly running and never catching up) but anyway, I really wanted to explore infamous abandoned amusement parks or places related to this idea (like waterparks too) because of the contrasts between the overwhelming melancholy (but serene..) and the faded colours that were once bright and invoked an adrenaline rush of 'fun' whenever you are in that environment. I also really liked the overgrowth of nature of decay of everything natural. and the idea of the abandoned man - made place of fun is obviously rich with inspiration - I hope I don't go down a cliché route with this one as it is very easily walked down.
the places I'm thinking of gathering imagery from right now are: Nara Dreamland (abandoned for several years and demolished, originally created heavily inspired by Disneyland), the isle of dogs scene (where they are at trash island and they go through the abandoned amusement park - and the fields are all grey and where the dog Chief first shared something heartfelt and also when the boy insisted on going on the pagoda slide and chief saying he wont wait for him but ended up coming back for him when he started to cry.,) (this also reminds me of that screenshot I took from the other version of the film Pinocchio, of when they slide down that clown slide, so strange), and also waterpark imagery from the film the way way up which is quite a heartwarming film that touched me more than I expected, and has some great imagery along the way. also touches on a lot of chaotic family matters and coming of age. all very relevant things I think about..), and speaking of waterparks of course I must return to the now demolished - japan's seagaia ocean dome, and in that, martin parr's photographs taken there, and also I came across some random youtube videos of people going through abandoned waterparks and amusement parks (the way some people walked on the tracks, overgrown with nature..) too, also maybe that one shot of the amusement park in the Chris marker's film sans soleil.
*I will explore only nara dreamland in this post, the rest I will post later on.
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first, nara dreamland.. let's get into the first few images you can find on Wikipedia and some articles... I always like looking at these surface images and information.. says something about the thing you're trying to find... really just taking it at face value, esp wiki... still useful to get an overview though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nara_Dreamland
Nara Dreamland (Japanese: 奈良ドリームランド, Hepburn: Nara Dorīmurando) or just simply Dreamland, was a theme park near Nara, Japan, heavily inspired by Disneyland in California. It was in continuous operation for 45 years, from 1961, closing permanently in 2006 as a result of falling attendance. The park was left abandoned until it was demolished between October 2016 and December 2017.
On July 1, 1961, Nara Dreamland was opened to the public. The entrance to the park was designed to look almost identical to Disneyland, including its own versions of the Train Depot, Main Street, U.S.A., and the familiar Sleeping Beauty Castle at the hub. It also had a Matterhorn-type mountain (with a Matterhorn Bobsleds-type ride, called Bobsleigh) with a Skyway running through it, as well as an Autopia-type ride and a monorail. The park also had its own mascots, Ran-chan and Dori-chan, two children dressed as bearskin guards. The park was initially popular as it was the closest thing to Disneyland in Japan. At its peak, the park had 1.7 million visitors a year.
In 1979, The Oriental Land Company made contact with The Walt Disney Company to create a Disney theme park in Tokyo. After Tokyo Disneyland opened in 1983, the number of visitors to Nara Dreamland slowly began to decrease, as more people were interested in going to the official Disney park. This marked the beginning of the downfall for Dreamland, with attendance numbers dropping to around a million visitors a year. MED, including Nara Dreamland, was bought by the supermarket chain Daiei in 1993. In 2001, Tokyo DisneySea opened next to Tokyo Disneyland, and Universal Studios Japan opened as well, the latter of which is about 40 kilometers away from Nara Dreamland. After those two parks opened, Dreamland's attendance numbers worsened, plummeting to 400,000 visitors a year. In 2004, the park began to decline in quality; some stores closed down and some attractions began to rust.
Additionally, many have reported hearing strange noises near the park's boats. Some speculate that it may have been caused by a running water pump or a type of bull frog.
the description of the video is as follows:
It's Nara Dreamland, the original imitation Disneyland! In 1990 I captured this video while the park was still open. You'll see the train station entrance, walk down Main Street and visit the Castle. You'll ride the Monorail, the Skyride, the Matterhorn Bobsled and experience a Jungle Boat Cruise like no other. The Mouse company didn't build it either, it was an unauthorized copy of Disneyland, long before Tokyo Disneyland was even an idea. It's said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and this 1961 park took flattery to new heights! After Tokyo Disneyland and other more modern theme parks opened in Japan, Nara Dreamland became less appealing to the public. When this 1990 park visit took place, it was clear that large crowds were gone. The park closed in 2006. For more interesting videos, feel free to click above on my name. Subscribers welcome!
this user also linked the post from the first time they went -
this use also has a post on nara dreamland conveniently, and I really liked the photos here as well;
going back to the previous user on this other post they did when they went for a stroll near the rollercoasters, in HD and abandoned, is so trippy to look at now ...
*my own pic from Tokyo disney
http://kevinstravelblog.com/nara-dreamland-abandoned-amusement-park
the places I'm thinking of gathering imagery from right now are: Nara Dreamland (abandoned for several years and demolished, originally created heavily inspired by Disneyland), the isle of dogs scene (where they are at trash island and they go through the abandoned amusement park - and the fields are all grey and where the dog Chief first shared something heartfelt and also when the boy insisted on going on the pagoda slide and chief saying he wont wait for him but ended up coming back for him when he started to cry.,) (this also reminds me of that screenshot I took from the other version of the film Pinocchio, of when they slide down that clown slide, so strange), and also waterpark imagery from the film the way way up which is quite a heartwarming film that touched me more than I expected, and has some great imagery along the way. also touches on a lot of chaotic family matters and coming of age. all very relevant things I think about..), and speaking of waterparks of course I must return to the now demolished - japan's seagaia ocean dome, and in that, martin parr's photographs taken there, and also I came across some random youtube videos of people going through abandoned waterparks and amusement parks (the way some people walked on the tracks, overgrown with nature..) too, also maybe that one shot of the amusement park in the Chris marker's film sans soleil.
*I will explore only nara dreamland in this post, the rest I will post later on.
----
first, nara dreamland.. let's get into the first few images you can find on Wikipedia and some articles... I always like looking at these surface images and information.. says something about the thing you're trying to find... really just taking it at face value, esp wiki... still useful to get an overview though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nara_Dreamland
Nara Dreamland (Japanese: 奈良ドリームランド, Hepburn: Nara Dorīmurando) or just simply Dreamland, was a theme park near Nara, Japan, heavily inspired by Disneyland in California. It was in continuous operation for 45 years, from 1961, closing permanently in 2006 as a result of falling attendance. The park was left abandoned until it was demolished between October 2016 and December 2017.
In the late 1950s, Kunizo Matsuo, a Japanese businessman & president of the Matsuo Entertainment Company (MEC), visited the United States. As part of his trip, he visited the then-new Disneyland in Anaheim and was quite impressed, inspiring him to bring Disneyland to Japan. He met with Walt Disney about bringing Disneyland to Japan; specifically to Japan's old capital, Nara. Matsuo also talked with engineers about creating a Japanese version of Disneyland. However, towards the end of the construction phase, Matsuo and Disney had disagreements about the licensing fees for the Disney characters (they later settled when Matsuo paid for Disney's help), and MEC abandoned the idea of Nara Disneyland and created their own mascots and trademarks.
On July 1, 1961, Nara Dreamland was opened to the public. The entrance to the park was designed to look almost identical to Disneyland, including its own versions of the Train Depot, Main Street, U.S.A., and the familiar Sleeping Beauty Castle at the hub. It also had a Matterhorn-type mountain (with a Matterhorn Bobsleds-type ride, called Bobsleigh) with a Skyway running through it, as well as an Autopia-type ride and a monorail. The park also had its own mascots, Ran-chan and Dori-chan, two children dressed as bearskin guards. The park was initially popular as it was the closest thing to Disneyland in Japan. At its peak, the park had 1.7 million visitors a year.
In 1979, The Oriental Land Company made contact with The Walt Disney Company to create a Disney theme park in Tokyo. After Tokyo Disneyland opened in 1983, the number of visitors to Nara Dreamland slowly began to decrease, as more people were interested in going to the official Disney park. This marked the beginning of the downfall for Dreamland, with attendance numbers dropping to around a million visitors a year. MED, including Nara Dreamland, was bought by the supermarket chain Daiei in 1993. In 2001, Tokyo DisneySea opened next to Tokyo Disneyland, and Universal Studios Japan opened as well, the latter of which is about 40 kilometers away from Nara Dreamland. After those two parks opened, Dreamland's attendance numbers worsened, plummeting to 400,000 visitors a year. In 2004, the park began to decline in quality; some stores closed down and some attractions began to rust.
On August 31, 2006, the park closed down for good. It was left abandoned for 10 years prior to its demolition in October 2016.
Nara Dreamland was a popular destination for haikyoists (exploration of manmade structures, usually abandoned ruins or hidden components of the manmade environment. Photography and historical interest/documentation are heavily featured in the hobby and it sometimes involves trespassing onto private property), or urban explorers.
Nara Dreamland was a popular destination for haikyoists (exploration of manmade structures, usually abandoned ruins or hidden components of the manmade environment. Photography and historical interest/documentation are heavily featured in the hobby and it sometimes involves trespassing onto private property), or urban explorers.
Additionally, many have reported hearing strange noises near the park's boats. Some speculate that it may have been caused by a running water pump or a type of bull frog.
The castle, modeled after Sleeping Beauty Castle, at Nara Dreamland, less than a year before the park’s closure
Nara Dreamland in September 2005, less than a year before its closure
^^^ I love the pastel, sad feeling in these two lonely pictures on wikipedia. I wonder if I can find footage of the park when it was still in operation...
Nara Dreamland, April 2005
this video was great - footage from some American tourists back in 2005 a year before it closed down. I loved the amateur way of capturing footage, the strange non-contol of the zooms, the candid conversations - I noted these down too and took a lot of screenshots. I'm not sure what to do with them yet (I think I may want to use both images and videowork and sound in different works maybe, I want to extract as much material as possible from sources like this. I think I might upload the screenshots way at the bottom otherwise this middle portion of the post would be way too long. but there was this short conversation near the end, after they got off the coaster, a very mundane one, but there was something interesting about it I can't quite place.. I think when you take dialogue and stand it alone like that suddenly it becomes a sort of poem... you can read more into it if you give it more of a stage or presence... I want to play with these words maybe even titles or stand alone drawings... I was noting down things they were saying throughout. or perhaps even like film subtitles - even visually - like life is like a movie (as adam young says in his cinematic album) and in subtitles they sometimes use square brackets which I love to use.. can play with that.. not use in usual way.. can add things like *laughs* or some thing that are more like stage directions... can do small studies with subtitles.. I'm throwing ideas around and seeing which ones stick... when I was slowing down the footage to 0.25x (the slowest you can go on youtube) I really liked the way it looked, you can feel every pixel shift jaggedly on the screen... I think it'll be interesting with sound or dialogue over it or even silence... we'll see... a lot can be done here... anyway, some notable dialogue from this video.. (again, screenshots will be at bottom of post)..
‘we should have gotten a map’ how do we know if we’ve seen everything? where is the monorail station? (then the quote from the ticket machine) this machine represents pleasant feeling with simple form and fresh colour patterns. Glory produced machine by respecting convenience of users and others.’ ‘and that is the ticketing machine ladies and gentlemen.’ *prolonged laugh* ‘you didn’t fall off the track or nothin’!’ ‘we were silly Americans, there's baskets up there for us to leave our stuff in’ ‘did you have fun?’ ‘Yes, it’s really cool. would I like it? no, you would not like it at all. -oh okay then, I’m glad I- ‘there are big drops, at every one of the hills, you get airtime, from when you get to the peak of the hill, all the way -you’re off your seat - all the way over the top of the hill until you start to go down the next hill.’ ‘I don’t - I wouldn’t like that.’ ‘No. It was really amazing. ‘It was a really great coaster. It has no business being here.’ Okay, well. let’s see what else we can find in this, lovely park.
I think old footage similar to this will become a really important source of material for me... there's something about the chaotic filming (depending on the user) and the personal dialogue and specific atmosphere captured in videos like these that is really quite intriguing. and you get strange snippets of other tourists and there's that weird feeling that they shouldn't be captured on camera. especially little kids running around. I also liked the accidental landscape or the tilted camera, not intended for the perfect capture. and you can feel the excitement from the person who's filming and you feel that adrenaline rush of being at an amusement park also. the faded colours that come with old footage is also inspiring.
I was also thinking - in 2005 April (my birthday month) I'd be around seven years old. and I have no idea where I was when I was seven. I don't remember my life around that time, I think it was a lot of moving around countries - not a stable family either - or perhaps I was still in NZ - it's kind of sad not remembering pretty much anything from my life before I was ten. that's probably normal but I wish I could go have a peek... what was happening around me, what sights did I see. now they can only live in the imaginary. I wish I had more personal records that I documented but I think most of that footage came when I was older.. and usually of my baby sister at the time.
this video was also suggested by a blog - and it's from 1990. you can feel it through the footage. I feel like this type of footage would be great for a video collage but perhaps less effective as images? we'll see...
If this is NARA, I must be in DREAMLAND (1990)
the description of the video is as follows:
It's Nara Dreamland, the original imitation Disneyland! In 1990 I captured this video while the park was still open. You'll see the train station entrance, walk down Main Street and visit the Castle. You'll ride the Monorail, the Skyride, the Matterhorn Bobsled and experience a Jungle Boat Cruise like no other. The Mouse company didn't build it either, it was an unauthorized copy of Disneyland, long before Tokyo Disneyland was even an idea. It's said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and this 1961 park took flattery to new heights! After Tokyo Disneyland and other more modern theme parks opened in Japan, Nara Dreamland became less appealing to the public. When this 1990 park visit took place, it was clear that large crowds were gone. The park closed in 2006. For more interesting videos, feel free to click above on my name. Subscribers welcome!
reading that reminded me that it was indeed an imitation of Disneyland - which makes me think of artificial nature imitating real nature. a lot of imitation going on - 'perhaps better than the real thing' again, thinking about what umberto eco said in his essay. this deamland is all an imitation - its all a dream - its a dreamland. everything is orchestrated - but we love it. we love the fakeness of it all. we crave it. and I do - I always feel a strange attraction to these sites. there's something so magnetically contradictory about it all. people chasing adrenaline rushes... the chaos of family... the family holiday... rising tensions.. the discomfort of waiting in queues or hot weather.. the expensive, unappealing food... everything. yet I still crave it... (though I don't ever want to go on the fast coasters, I just want to look...) it's like a toy castle and we're all in it... knowingly stepping into it like actors in a play (like that quote I used in my mcp) if some higher beings were looking down at us, how funny we'd look, roaming around at an amusement park...
I'm going to drop some more videos I'm finding here, the ones from when it was still operating...
奈良の夢の国 ドリームランド 前半
奈良の夢の国 ドリームランド 後編
奈良ドリームランド 1978 - Nara Dreamland
奈良ドリームランド 野外劇場の呼び込み放送
あなたの知らない、閉園後の奈良ドリームランド 園内風景①
横浜ドリームランド閉園ドキュメント
(this one is of the Yokohama dreamland shutting down - i liked the
news report title screen which read as sth like 'dreamland, disappearing')
there's so, so many videos (especially on this channel above) that seem to have useful material right now, but before getting overwhelmed with screenshotting I'm going to move on to look at more resent documentation of the 'abandoned' identity of nara dreamland. there are numerous articles that have attached with them, photos by great photographers I'm assuming. very wide lens esque travel photographer feeling type pictures, some of them. I'll link each one below.
https://offbeatjapan.org/nara-dreamland-end/ Nara Dreamland: The End of a Dream
(title reminded me of 'the end of the daydream' which I think I read as a chapter title in one of the books from my mcp? I'll have to double check... I could really play with the words here)
https://offbeatjapan.org/nara-dreamland-abandoned-amusement-park/
I absolutely love this map - again thinking about the map ideas from that post... but also, remembering the pure excitement you'd feel when you first get hold of an amusement park map. adventure begins on the map. I also love the monochromatic colour of the map - like my drawings kind of have been... perhaps I could draw out a map of some sort...this reminds me of a picture I took of the London zoo map, and I placed on top of it these little animal model toys you get from the souvenir store... I like that contrast between the three dimensional and the two dimensional - like a board game, where you have your character or thing to move across this 'landscape' and everything is by strategy or chance (like life?) (I'm remembering this board game I made with my best friend when I was around 10-11 in nz... I drew a big snake with numbers on it..) (this has interactive potential in a work..) anyway, maybe I can draw maps.. or aspects of amusement park.. new land..
I just did a quick google for the Yokohama dreamland map (its sister theme park) and I found this picture from this other blog post which, I love the photos of:
this use also has a post on nara dreamland conveniently, and I really liked the photos here as well;
going back to the previous user on this other post they did when they went for a stroll near the rollercoasters, in HD and abandoned, is so trippy to look at now ...
*my own pic from Tokyo disney
there are plenty of travel blogs out there that have sneaked into nara dreamland (I don't think you're allowed to go in) and here are some pictures from them..
http://kevinstravelblog.com/nara-dreamland-abandoned-amusement-park
Yokohama dreamland:
Yokohama dreamland monorail
