Select Video > Thrill Rides

Jennifer McMackon, Thrill Rides (#2)
analogue video
2003

THRILL RIDES is part of a body of work exploring landscape in video.

THRILL RIDES is an anthology of short vignettes ranging between about a minute and a half up to eight minutes in length, each one documenting a complete spin on a different amusement park ride. Each vignette in ”Thrill Rides” is one continuous shot in real time with a hand held camera. The piece was made on the midway at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto.

The landscape in THRILL RIDES is full of large machines performing vertiginous functions on people who look a bit like Duane Hanson sculptures scrambling all over the place. In each segment ”a thrill ride” performs its twirling mechanical functions, passengers screaming and dangling high above the people on the ground, spectators and onlookers playing out their own dramas.