Tuesday, April 05, 2016
Inside Meow Wolf, the amusement park for people who want a weirder Disneyland
Ars Technica: The Meow Wolf art complex looks like a strip mall from another dimension. Located in downtown Santa Fe, its massive main building—a former bowling alley—is covered in zig-zagging lines of explosive color. The parking lot is dominated by towering metal sculptures of a spider and a robot. Its landlord is George RR Martin, author of the Game of Thrones series, and its tenants are a high-tech artist collective called Meow Wolf, known previously for building a full-scale spaceship that visitors could explore.
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5 comments:
Please excuse me while I book a flight to Santa Fe.
This whole space reminds me so much of the set and storyline of my all-time favorite TV show, Warehouse 13. But the key difference? I can actually go to this place! I think spaces like these, where the virtual and imaginary become raelity, are so important for us to make as well as experience as artists. Not only is this place obviously impeccably and imaginatively crafted, thus lending an incredible learning experience to the artists involved - it is also so immersive that it could be just as beneficial to any artist to view it as an outside observer. the opportunity to expand one's mind by living and walking through a space and a storyline that shouldn't be possible but is somehow right there in front of you - that is huge. That is an experience no one could forget, but especially not an artist. Especially not the type of person who would love just as much to be the one creating this crazy thing. I really hope I get the chance to experience Meow Wolf sometime soon, because I think it could be creatively eye-opening. And if I'm lucky, my future projects at CMU will be as imaginative, innovative, and original as the awesome thing is.
This is such a strange, interesting place. I really, really, want to go. I honestly wasn't going to click this article because the title isn't really compelling, but I needed one article, so here I am. And I’m really glad I eded up here. This article is about a “theme park” that’s more like a place of pure exploration of environments made by the lasted technology. While you can see the tools that made the things, that is not the sole purpose of the park. And while it is an amusement park, there is no ride for you to go on. You just wander around, following a story, but mostly going where you want, exploring as much as you can. Meow Wolf sounds like an immensely interesting place to visit and explore. The free-range nature of the park is so unique in a world where you are expected to follow the crowd and only go where you are told. In this way the park is a testament of it’s generation- people are tired of the mold and want to do amazing things so they went and made something unique. And with modern technology it’s getting easier to do that.
This is basically a giant arcade project, and it's awesome. I really really really want to go! It really is like a giant video game come to life. I love that it's not just a theme park- nothing here is familiar or branded. It's a place for people to come and explore, and make their own trail through the experience, and figure out what happened in this house. It's a little rough around the edges compared to Disney, which I actually think adds to it's charm. It's a little more "come play with me" than a perfectly clean built structure would be. I think it's great that visitors can see how it was made and created. In a way, the seamed and almost chaotic nature of the park shown in the pictures works with their idea that the time-warp has brought worlds crashing together. I wonder if we could do something like this here, with many people working on it together. Booth? A huge class-wide arcade project, instead of individual ones?
When I first saw the photo at the top of this article, it looked like a giant project for Susan Tsu’s class. The more I read, the more fascinated I became with the world. The space itself reminds me a lot of the City Museum in St. Louis, which is also a large building full of art you travel through. The City Museum was one of my favorite places growing up, so that similarity alone is enough to make me interested. However, the added element that as you go through you are piecing together a story makes me like it even more. Considering that I am planning on working in theater professionally, it is no surprise that I love stories. I don’t know when I will get an opportunity to go, but when I do, I will, and I hope I can go soon. I want to see this world and the story it contains.
This is the largest, coolest arcade project I always wanted to build. I was skeptical of this from the title, since Banksy's dreadful "Dismaland" came to mind immediately upon reading. But I was definitely pleasantly surprised to find that this is actually amazing and so so beautiful. The fact that George R. R. Martin is funding all of these theatre and Hollywood artists to basically make something of their dreams amazes me. Shout out to him. It reminds me of a combination of yes, Disney, but also of the large haunted houses that take months to make, like Cutting Edge. Only, this is much more inviting and there's not terrible people popping out of nowhere to scare you. This is actually how I wish a lot of theme parks worked. I mostly come for the design and for the world experience, like when I was at Harry Potter's Wizarding World, I was like, can I please just wander around and check out this world they created? And that's what this is, but with a cool, new inventive story. I just wonder though, how it will be marketed as it is just sort of a theatatrical experience as opposed to a ride-based park. Either way, I'd like to go, and moreover work on something incredible like this some day.
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