Lifestyle
A floor that feels like magic? Just another marvel from this legendary Disney inventor
Many of Lanny Smoot’s best-known inventions are, at least to nonengineers, more like magic tricks. Floating disembodied heads, a lightsaber that actually expands, retracts and glows and, in his latest sleight-of-hand, a reinvention of the floor. Yes, a floor.
Smoot at 68 is the most accomplished modern inventor at the Walt Disney Co., headquartered in Burbank. Working within Imagineering, the company’s secretive arm devoted to theme park experiences, Smoot creates feats of science that often appear to guests like illusions. With 106 patents throughout his career and counting — Smoot is quick to lean forward and tell me that he is nowhere close to done — his career has been one that proves the applied sciences can be just as much a creative field as a technical one.
For the record:
2:01 p.m. Feb. 1, 2024Photographer Christian Thompson was mistakenly credited as Christian Thom.
Lanny Smoot, inventor of Disney’s HoloTile technology, has 106 patents to his name.
(Christian Thompson / Disneyland Resort)
His innovative new floor, a creation years in the making, recently was shown to audiences, tucked away inside Imagineering’s Glendale research and development space. Though it does not yet have a designated use in Disney’s theme parks or other experiences, it’s a thing of versatility, and it’s easy to imagine the possibilities.
Think of a treadmill, only one that works with you rather than against you — twisting, turning and moving in the direction of your body — without traditional confines. Disney calls it the HoloTile Floor, and it’s essentially in communication with you, allowing you to move in any direction and never stumble off of its surface. One clear use is virtual reality, as now, inside a headset, one isn’t in danger of strolling into a rail or a couch. But it’s more than a gaming device.
Multiple people can walk — or dance — on Smoot’s HoloTile, allowing for inventive choreography in a stage show, for instance. Anyone, Smoot points out, can “moonwalk” on the HoloTile. Or objects can be directed to roll in the direction of a guest’s choosing, with demonstrated movements recalling some of the magnetic abilities of the Force from the “Star Wars” franchise. Set a chair on the HoloTile and it instantly becomes a ride vehicle, as an operator can spin it or pull it forward. I imagined, for instance, the furniture of “Encanto’s” Casa Madrigal suddenly springing to life once guests were strapped in.
Like many of Smoot’s well-known inventions, it’s not just a technical achievement but a delight. Smoot recently was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, part of a 2024 class that included, among others, Asad Madni, whose safety and stability breakthroughs are common in cars and have been put to use by NASA, and Andrea Goldsmith, a pioneer in high-speed wireless communications. Smoot’s hall of fame selection is a testament to the power of entertainment, and that designing for large-scale communal spaces such as theme parks can inspire the sort of wonder that can improve lives.
“I know a lot of electrical engineers now, and I ask them how they got started. They say, ‘Oh, I kept taking things apart,’” says Smoot, sitting in a modest office at Disney’s research and development campus. (Just outside his door sits a training pod for robots in development, where Imagineers have been testing bipedal droids that can hop in place, bow their heads and nudge and prod humans as if they are robotic pets.)
“I was a little bit different,” Smoot continues. “I figured out how they worked before I took them apart, and what components may be inside them that I could take out and make my own things. I think that’s part of what causes creativity. Not that I want to see someone else’s thing. I want to see my own thing.”
And when it came to the HoloTile, Smoot wanted to see something from one of his favorite television franchises brought to life. He talks eagerly of “Star Trek,” noting how important it was to him as a child growing up, he says, in poverty in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brownsville. It was Nichelle Nichols’ communications officer Uhura, Smoot says, who partly inspired his career path. “I was a fan of ‘Star Trek’ partially because of the technology, but because I saw a Black character, Uhura, who did technological things,” Smoot says.
Lanny Smoot joined the Walt Disney Co. in the late 1990s and currently has 106 patents.
(Christian Thompson / Disneyland Resort)
His love for “Star Trek” never waned. Smoot says the HoloTile began not so much as a solution to any particular problem Disney needed to solve but as him wondering whether it could be possible to create a “Holodeck,” where in the sci-fi universe real-world settings are brought to life via holograms.
“I knew about the thing called the ‘Holodeck,’ which is where people can walk around forever in a room that’s 24 feet by 24 feet,” Smoot says. “They’re going off to distant mountains and streams. How can that possibly be, right? It must be that the floor of the ‘Holodeck’ has the ability to move people in any direction, to allow them to walk in any direction, to prevent them from bumping into things like the walls of the room or each other. It made me think. How do you have a moving surface that allows you to walk on it forever in any direction? The joke I make is that if you are on it, and someone leaves the room and doesn’t take you off, you will starve to death. That was the spark.”
As it developed, so did its potential uses.
“He really wanted to solve the ‘Holodeck’ problem,” says Bobby Bristow, who has long worked closely with Smoot at Disney. “He wasn’t quite sure how to get there. It started with multiple iterations — very different technology in the beginning. It wasn’t until we got the version that we have now where we were like, ‘We can also use it to do this.’ We can do all these other things. It’s not just moving people it unlocks but also objects. We’re excited for internal people to tell us what other uses they could have for it.”
It may be some time before guests are able to use or witness Smoot’s HoloTile in a theme park, but plenty of Smoot’s work is scattered around Disney’s locations. Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, for instance, is home to a seance room, one in which a crystal ball houses the head of Madame Leota as she conjures the spirits shown in the attraction. Madame Leota floats, patiently hovering above a table as she calls forth the apparitions. This was a Smoot trick, added to the Mansion in 2004, and he won’t reveal the secrets of how it works but notes the solution was part engineering feat and part illusion.
Lanny Smoot is credited with finding a way to make Madame Leota’s head float in the Haunted Mansion.
(Joshua Sudock / Disneyland Resort)
Smoot also remade the the portraits in the Mansion’s entry walkway. Here, the imagery flickers between the mortal world and more forbidden realms — ghostly knights, ships, catlike creatures. “The prior changing portraits required a roomful of equipment,” Smoot says. “It was a complex effect. My effect was so much smaller, and it gave the Mansion an instant change during the lightning. As soon as the lightning hits, the portraits change.”
Other Smoot inventions at Disney parks around the world: At Florida’s Epcot, Smoot concocted a former exhibit called “Where’s the Fire?” that challenged guests to uncover hazards by utilizing a flashlight that acted as an X-ray-like device, an installation that sprang from a tool Smoot created that allowed people to see through walls. He also worked on that park’s interactive scavenger hunt, the now-retired “Kim Possible: World Showcase Adventure,” and more recently devised a realistic “Star Wars” lightsaber that simulated the look of an illuminated, retractable blade, which many online patent hunters have compared, in simplified terms, to a sort of reverse tape measure.
The lightsaber was featured in the short-lived but beloved Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. Smoot, for his part, is reticent to talk details, preferring to keep his secrets, well, secrets. “It was a fun thing to do,” he simply says of the lightsaber.
Lanny Smoot says a love of “Star Trek” inspired his career.
(Disneyland Resort)
He’s more comfortable instead discussing his career as if it’s a lifelong hobby. Smoot’s journey took him initially to Bell Labs, where he worked on early video teleconferencing tech, before beginning talks with Disney in 1998. The firm at first sought Smoot’s advice on camera mechanization that allowed for on-demand view changes for Florida’s Animal Kingdom park. “The company tried out the panning camera — all good — but it turns out they liked the inventor even more, and I was literally pulled into the Walt Disney Co.,” Smoot says.
He credits his love of invention to his father, and speaks of early science experiments as if they are toys. When he was 5 years old, Smoot says, his father brought home a battery, an electric bell and a lightbulb. “I’m sitting there at the table, and he puts them together and he gets the bell ringing,” Smoot says. “This was like magic. Then he gets the light lit. I say this is poetic, but it’s true. It lit the rest of my career. I was locked into science, mostly electricity.”
Disney, he says, has been such a good fit because he’s constantly amazed at how his technology gets hidden by the company’s staff of artisans and architects.
“I always say my stuff works,” Smoot says. “That I guarantee. It may not be the best-looking, but it works. It’ll get there.”
Now, what to do with a ‘Holodeck’ floor? Smoot and his team teased creations such as an interactive dance floor, but there’s room for more — a restaurant, say, in “Coco’s” Land of the Dead in which we rotate among tables, a “Turning Red” show in which Mei in red panda form can move buildings, an exhibit in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in which we can become one with the Force. Reimagine the floor, and there’s no ceiling on the possibilities.
Sunday Puzzle
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This week’s challenge
Today’s puzzle is a tribute to Mimi. Every answer is a familiar two word phrase or name in which each word starts with the letters MI-.
Ex. Assignment for soldiers –> MILITARY MISSION
1. Pageant title for a contestant from Detroit
2. One of the Twin Cities
3. Nickname for the river through New Orleans
4. Super short skirt
5. Neighborhood in Los Angeles that contains Museum Row
6. Just over four times the distance from the earth to the moon
7. Goateed sing-along conductor of old TV
8. American financier who pioneered so-called “junk bonds”
9. Little accident
10. Land-based weapon in America’s nuclear arsenal
11. In “Snow White,” the evil queen’s words before “on the wall”
Last week’s challenge
Last week’s challenge comes from Benita Rice, of Salem, Ore. Name a famous foreign landmark (5,4). Change the eighth letter to a V and rearrange the result to make an adjective that describes this landmark. What landmark is it?
Answer
Notre Dame –> Renovated
Winner
Chee Sing Lee of Bangor, Maine
This week’s challenge
This week’s challenge comes from James Ellison, of Jefferson City, Mo. Think of a popular movie of the past decade. Change the last letter in its title. The result will suggest a lawsuit between two politicians of the late 20th century — one Republican and one Democrat. What’s the movie and who are the people?
If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it below by Thursday, April 23 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle.
This story is part of Image’s April’s Thresholds issue, a tour of L.A. architecture as it’s actually experienced.
A landmark is a landmark because it tells you that you’re home now — the piece of earth you’ve chosen to inhabit saying, “You’ve made it back, congratulations.” We identify our cities with their landmarks, and because we identify with our cities, we identify with the landmarks too. They are us and we are them, mirroring each other through eternity. A city like New York or Chicago, with the Chrysler Building, the Bean, etc., has landmarks that exist in the world’s popular consciousness. But L.A.’s most cherished landmarks belong to us and us alone, a secret you’re let in on if you live here long enough and pay attention.
The Fashion Nova baddie in horizontal sprawl off the Vertigo, for example, is an emblem for those in the know. Our twisted version of a capitalist guardian angel, patron saint of spandex in a cropped matching set. Welcome to El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Fashion Nova. Merging on the 110 South from the 10 East while the sunset burns and traffic thickens is a miracle in more ways than one, and in the spirit of compulsively performing the sign of the cross when you pass a church on the freeway, this billboard is deserving of its own acknowledgment.
It may not be the landmark L.A. asked for, but in Sayre Gomez’s painting “Vertigo,” you begin to understand why it’s the one we deserve. At the opening for “Precious Moments,” Gomez’s solo show at David Kordansky, the room was vibrating. A game of energetic ping-pong unfolded underneath the gallery’s fluorescent light, beams of identification, recollections or stabs of grief bouncing off each piece in the exhibition. People were seeing hyperspecific parts of a city they love reflected in a hyperspecific way — for better and for worse. Recognition has two edges and they both happen to be sharp. Gomez twists the knife deeper for a good cause: He wants you not just to look but to really see.
In his work exist iconic signs of beloved local establishments — like the Playpen — the blinding glint reflecting off downtown’s skyline, telephone poles regarded as totems. The line to see Gomez’s replica of L.A.’s graffiti towers, “Oceanwide Plaza,” snaked through the gallery’s courtyard. Once inside, at least three graffiti writers whose names were blasted on the replica pointed it out proudly, even gave out stickers to take home. The truth can be beautiful and it can be ugly — in this case it’s both — on the flip side showing up in the form of smog, tattered flags and an abandoned graffiti tower that starkly represents the pitfalls of capitalism and greed, a neon arrow pointing to the homelessness crisis.
Because the Vertigo is something everybody who lives here recognizes as central to a sort of framework of Los Angeles. And I think the encampment has become that as well. It’s connecting these integral components — something that’s more revelatory and more fun with something that’s more grave.
— Sayre Gomez
In the main gallery, I was stuck on “Vertigo.” On the 12-foot canvas, my eye went to the place out of focus: the thin strip of billboard in the background featuring a young woman with sand-dune hips, patent knee-high boots and long black hair laid up on her side, wearing cat ears and a tiger bodysuit as flush as second skin. The model made the kind of eye contact that felt dangerous — might cause an accident if you’re not careful. “#1 Halloween Destination … FASHION NOVA,” it read. I knew her, anyone who has driven through the two main arteries of Los Angeles knows her. The black-and-white smiley motif of the Vertigo, an events space, sat right next to her face, just happy to be there, it seemed, above a painted sign that says “Ready to Party?”
The sky was the color of cotton candy, but the stale kind that’s been hardening in a plastic bag for days after the fair. Something rancid about it. In the foreground of the painting was a car encampment with a tattered floral sheet woven through the windows, cloth tarps and couch cushions creating a shield against the elements. Small plastic children’s toys lined at the top of the car — dinosaurs and dump trucks and sharks — creating their own shrunken skyline in front of the Vertigo, signaling that young kids likely lived there. It’s less juxtaposition for juxtaposition’s sake and more an accurate reflection of the breakneck duality of living in a place like L.A.
Even angels exist within the context of their environments. Our Fashion Nova baddie hangs off the Vertigo, a building that has used its ad space as physical clickbait and political posturing for over a decade. It’s promoting the kind of fast fashion brand that’s been regarded as a case study on the industry’s environmental impact. In the years the billboard has been up, it’s looked over dozens and dozens of car encampments like the one depicted in Gomez’s piece.
She feels dubious, yes. But no less like ours.
Julissa James: I’ve lived in L.A. for 13 years now. For me, the city and the architecture of the city is less the Frank Lloyd Wrights and Frank Gehrys — there’s that — but other landmarks that signal, “Oh, I’m home.” The Fashion Nova baddie above the Vertigo has always been that for me. Your piece is layered and there’s so much more to it than just that, but that’s the first thing I saw and was like, “Whoa. I need to talk to Sayre. We need to talk about ‘Vertigo.’”
Sayre Gomez: It’s like L.A.’s Statue of Liberty. It’s the city of anti-landmarks, you know what I mean? I mean, there’s the Hollywood sign, which I think is so telling, because it’s the remnants of a real estate venture. The city is built by real estate schemes and 100 years later we’re feeling the effects of it. You’ve got empty skyscrapers and a massive homeless catastrophe. L.A. doesn’t really have real landmarks. It has anti-landmarks.
JJ: When did the Fashion Nova billboard above the Vertigo click for you as something that felt representative of the city, or something that you wanted to depict?
SG: My studio is in Boyle Heights, so I pass that billboard multiple times a week. This is my 20th year in L.A. and that building’s always been a big mystery to me. It was empty when I moved here before this guy Shawn Farr bought it and turned it into Casa Vertigo. I think he probably makes more money on it with the ad space than anything. I know nobody who has ever been there. Very mysterious to me. So that’s what I was drawn to.
(Paul Salveson from David Kordansky Gallery)
The Vertigo has always been mysterious to me. And that whole fashion industry is mysterious to me — the kind of shmatta, American Apparel-adjacent, or maybe coming out of the wake of that. These kinds of businesses, or the representations of these businesses, how do they function and how do they flourish? Is it aboveboard? What more perfectly encapsulates that than that building? It’s this weird thing you can’t quite figure out but somehow it has a lot of money and then it’s an event space, supposedly billed as that. Clearly it’s this big ad thing, and I’m very interested in the changing dynamics of capital. The capital of yesteryear, which was based on the brick and mortar, where things are being made in a specific location, maybe on an assembly line or in a specific way, to a kind of capital that is based solely on advertising or on viewership. These beautiful buildings acting as pedestals for some kind of ad space, you know? It becomes an anti-landmark for me. Something where I’m like, “Oh, there’s that thing again.”
JJ: It’s this gorgeous Beaux Arts building …
SG: It’s a Freemason building!
JJ: When I’ve talked to some people about the Vertigo, they’re like, “the Fashion Nova building?”
SG: They always have the woman in the same pose — same pose, different clothes. If you remember before Fashion Nova, they would have these provocative ad campaigns or provocative slogans. “Twerk Miley” was up, remember that? They did a Trump one: “TRUMP NOW.” They did one for Kanye when he ran for president. The 10 and the 110 are literally the crossroads of the city, so it’s really poised to be a special building. It has a special designation because of the location.
JJ: Talk to me about the process of doing this piece. Where did it start and how did it evolve?
SG: I was cruising around that vicinity trying to see if I could get a good vantage point to take photos of Vertigo. And then I stumbled upon this car — the car that’s in the foreground of the painting. Anytime I see an encampment that has kids’ toys, things that reference back to the lives of children, it hits hard. But I like to lay it all out there. I like to make things confrontational. I want it to be difficult. The painting isn’t based on a one-to-one photo [Gomez paints from a composite rendering of images he’s taken around town], but I knew that I wanted to use that car, and I knew I wanted to get the Vertigo building, and so I started just messing around with different iterations. I could never find a good angle to take a good photo of the building, so I just went on Vertigo’s website and I was like, “I’m just using these.” I switched the sky and put a more moody, atmospheric sky in.
JJ: Which I loved, because we know that feeling — you’re merging onto the 110 and you see a beautiful sunset. The euphoria of like, “L.A. is the best city in the world.” But you know what? What I found so interesting about your piece is that it was revealing to me about myself, but also about so many of us that live in L.A. and have lived here for years and have developed a jadedness. When I saw your piece, immediately I was like, “Oh my God, the Vertigo! The Vertigo! The Vertigo!” And then I was like, “OK, wait, hold on, there’s so much more going on here.” But the fact that my eye went to that first instead of the car encampment, the kids’ toys, brought up a lot of questions about my own relationship to the city and the things that we choose to see, the things that maybe we’ve seen so much of that we subconsciously filter it out. Why was it important for you to put these two things up against each other in this way?
SG: Because the Vertigo is something everybody who lives here recognizes as central to a sort of framework of Los Angeles. And I think the encampment has become that as well. It’s connecting these integral components — something that’s more revelatory and more fun with something that’s more grave. That’s what I’m doing in my work at large. I use the sunsets and the beauty to create a dialogue, to entice people to sort of look a little bit at how things are contextualized, how things act, what’s actually happening. I don’t make things in a vacuum. I was working on this show and I was going to really push this agenda of incorporating more of my experience with my kids into the work. That’s also a double-edged sword. I wanted to interject some levity, because the work can get so dark. I wanted to bring in some iconography from their world and things that they get excited about. When you’re juxtaposing that with really stark things, it becomes darker. I want to thicken the stock a little bit. Make things a little more complex.
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