MONSTER

2025, computer-controlled installation

Mechanical amusement ride, Quest 3 VR headsets, custom application

MONSTER is a mixed-reality large scale installation. The visitor boards a mechanical cart, dons a mixed reality headset, and is propelled through vignettes exploring the dark side of American culture: consumption and waste, guns and violence, and the productization of our environment.
It is fashioned after an amusement park dark ride, an indoor ride in which passengers board a cart or vehicle and are carried through a variety of themed scenes that often contain sound, music, special effects, and animatronic characters. Disneyland has a number of examples, including It's a Small World, the Haunted Mansion, Alice in Wonderland, and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. I've been fascinated by dark rides since, as a six year old child, I rode the "Flight to Mars" dark ride, which was a cheap and ramshackle attraction at the old Fun Forest amusement park in Seattle. You got into a mechanized cart and were zipped through a maze of cheap scares, like loud horns and lights, a rubber alien springing out next to the track, before your car quickly turned and slammed through double doors into another chamber. At the end of the ride, I burst out crying and ran to my mother. Nevertheless, I was transfixed by the ride, and the feeling of being completely engulfed by this mechanical experience was imprinted on my psyche. The dark ride experience swallows you. It's very visceral and all encompassing. You are surrounded, you are vulnerable, and you can't escape. You are no longer a passive viewer, you are a physically captive character in the scenario.

Venues

Cannonball Arts Center, Seattle, WA

Credits

Concept, art, programming, sound: Brent Watanabe

Spatial mapping: Jason Reinhardt

Cart design and implementation: Mike Leavitt

Facade: Marcos Everstijn