Date/Time
Thursday
9 Apr 2026
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Location
470 Stephens Hall
Event Type
Master Class
Please join us on Thursday, April 9th for a master class with Roland Betancourt. Roland Betancourt is the Chancellor's Professor in the Art History department at UC Irvine. During his Guggenheim Fellowship, he completed his forthcoming book, Disneyland and the Rise of Automation
Through extensive archival research, Roland Betancourt's journal article, published by Grey Room, MIT Press, documents these developments and demonstrates how they were executed, going on to argue that we must consequently view Disneyland itself as model and simulation. Moving beyond Jean Baudrillard’s postmodern critique of Disneyland as simulacra, he will argue for a historically situated understanding of simulation that emerges out of postwar cybernetics. He propose that Disneyland was conceived of as an analog simulation through which Walt Disney Productions was able to assess, predict, and model in real-time the practices and behaviors of consumers in the world beyond the amusement park’s bounds. If you are interested in attending the master class and would like to receive the reading, please RSVP here by Tuesday, April 7th.
