Experiential Manifesto

Just imagine.7 am wake up, 8 am leave the house, 9 am work, 12 am lunch, 1 pm get back to work, 6 pm return to home 11 pm sleep. This routine is what many people have to face, and this is what a “Reality” is. This routine gets repeated everyday, from a month, to a year, and to years, and as this routine keeps repeating our excitement reduces. What the architecture of today gives us is no doubt a good environment for us to do our daily activities. This might already fulfill what we need, but it doesn’t bring any other change to our lives. Our daily routine is still the same, and we still have a very plain rhythm of experience.

But if we look at the “theme park“ for example the Disneyland, there is a lot of change in our experience throughout the day. From the small impression of seeing new scenery, to the very exciting moment on the thrill rides, to the joyous moment from the parades, to adventurous moments in different attractions, and finally to the magical moment of the fireworks in the end of the day. This experience breaks our daily routine; it created a very different rhythm, which is very different from what we always have. This makes a day in Disneyland a magical day, and a memorable experience. Our day in Disneyland would be a “Fake” day that only existed in our life once in a while. Disneyland gives us more than just a good environment where we can spend our time in, but it also gives us excitement, impression, and happiness, and this is what not many architecture or place in the world could provide.

However, Disneyland give too much important to the story and the characters in the story to create a good experience, this actually make the experience more meaningful, and more impressive, but it is also easier for us the guest to differentiate between what is real and what isn’t. The character and stories heighten the good memories, but make it less practical. We cannot integrate our own life into the Disneyland. It is a place where we would spend our holiday in, but not our working days, which is much more than the holidays. It is too separated from our daily routine. It is good that we could forget our reality and have a magical day; this would make the day to be very meaningful to us. But when the day ends, the happiness was all replaced with the feeling of regrets, and wishing that we could go back to the time, which never going to happen.

How good is it, if we can only return back to the magical experiences only once in a very long time? How good is it, if we know that where we are in is actually a “Fake” space, and we already know the ending part, the “Reality”? And how good is it, if we know that tomorrow “there will be NO Magical Kingdom”? What we need is a place that would break the rhythm of our daily routine. A place that exercise the feelings that we haven’t feel normally. A Hyperreal space that we know what we are experiencing is “Reality”, even if it is a “Fake”. And a place that is a part of our reality that we know we could return to it anytime we need.