JOSHUA THORSON — PORTFOLIO (4 of 10)
Horizon (excerpt)
Horizon (2012, 13 minutes, Hi-8 video, stereo)
Written, directed, and edited by Joshua Thorson
Narrated by Kyle deCamp
In 1982 Walt Disney World’s EPCOT Center, or, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow,
opened to the public, a little late for an utopic modernist project. The original park featured an “infotainment”
ride called Horizons, which was sponsored by G.E. It showed a future in which technology and innovation
coupled with the family unit would evolve into exciting and previously unimaginable territories–with colonies
in outer space and under the Earth’s oceans. In 2000, the ride was demolished to make way for an immersive
thrill-ride called “Mission: Space.” The story in this video, about a family doing research on a colony in the
Chamaleon Complex whose supplies and funding inexplicably stop arriving, and who are determined to
survive however they can, accompanies archival Hi-8 video footage of the original EPCOT ride.
Premiered at Pleasure Dome ("Magic Kingdoms"), Toronto, 2012
Onion City, Chicago, 2012
Video_Dumbo @ Eyebeam, NYC
Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid, 2012/13.