Meow Wolf is an art collective that’s been kicking around the visual arts mecca of Santa Fe, New Mexico since 2008. But they’ve just unveiled their most ambitious project yet: a high-tech theme park of explorable installations inside their very own art complex.
The massive project called “The House of Eternal Return” is an explorable exhibit that allows visitors to crawl all over everything they can see to try and figure out a storyline that connects the pieces. Think of it as a combination of those “Panic Room Escape” games, Disneyland, and H. P. Lovecraft. Via Ars Technica, who got a glimpse at the project that’s been two years in the making:
“Built by 135 artists and makers, the result is a 20,000-square-foot dreamworld where your goal is to figure out why an old Victorian house in Mendocino, California, has become ground zero for a rupture in space-time that’s allowing other dimensions to leak into ours.”
Fitting for a project this undeniably expansive, the landlord to the property is none other than noted author and New Mexico booster George R.R. Martin. Martin also donated $2.7 million to the collective to help get their project off the ground. The specifics of the game, according to Ars Technica, play out like a live-action Myst, if the creators had allowed their alternate dimensions to intersect with the island.
In addition to studying the family dynamics of the former occupants of the Mendocino home, guests have to move through upended vehicles, fossilized skeletons, and rooms whose walls are made of eyeballs. And if you haven’t booked your ticket yet, I don’t even know why we’re talking. The complex will also feature a huge makerspace for other artists to work and plans on hosting concerts on a stage built into House.
Check out photos of the exhibit along with an in-depth explanaton of the game over at Ars Technica. If that’s not ritzy enough, check out the $3 billion park being erected in Dubai. If it’s just not creepy enough for you, there are plenty of abandoned parks to check out instead.
