Our First Day of Work in Irreverent Lunacy
Greetings from Omega Mart in Las Vegas! (By Meow Wolf)
I love the American Southwest, Traveler. It’s either scorching and dry during the day or extremely cold at night. It’s mysterious, quiet, serene, and magical. Above all, the desert is great for my sinuses.
There’s so much to do, as well. I’ve toured ghost towns in Western Nevada. I’ve driven nearly to the peak of Mount Shasta, California. I’ve seen street art everywhere, hiked national parks, and even rode a zip-line through Fremont Street.
But last year, I introduced myself to an experience that was so amazing that I had to come back and try another one.
The experience was a Meow Wolf installation in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was their first of what would turn into five installations, with a sixth on the way.
What Is Meow Wolf?
Well, there’s a movie about this coming out that I’m not going to spoil, but I’ll try to include the broad strokes.
According to the About section on their website, Meow Wolf is a collective of artists that started in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2008. If I can summarize them, they are outsider, inclusive anarchist artists who keep that spirit alive in their core values. The founders always disliked the gallery scene in Santa Fe. As such, they sought to make their weird brand of outsider art while still making it accessible to everyone, including patrons and future collaborators.
In creating sculptures out of garbage to tell weird stories, a vision was born — the vision of Meow Wolf, an art installation that spans a bowling alley and is financed by none other than George R.R. Martin.
But I’ll save the Santa Fe chapter for another article. Today, I’m going to write about Omega Mart.
Area 15
Today, I learned a new term, Traveler. What we’re about to visit is known as Experiential Retail. If you’d like me to sum up experiential retail, the main idea is that, as a millennial, I hate going to the store. It’s loud and crowded, and any number of things can go wrong when I’m trying to buy bath towels.
I mean, I could buy the bath towels on Amazon, right? (C’mon Traveler. You knew the link was coming. Who doesn’t need bath towels?)
How do we get a spooky, 41-year-old misanthrope like me out of the house?
Well, that’s easy. I need an adventure, and I will gladly spend good money on one.
As such, the closure of traditional brick-and-mortar shopping made way for the return of pinball parlors gave us pop-up beer gardens, and, most importantly, birthed interactive art installations.
Area 15 is, in itself, an art installation. As we walk up to the outside of the main building, there’s a giant robot, an airplane fuselage, and of course, a cornhole game. And everything I mentioned has a story to it.
Well, except for the cornhole.
But as impressive as the robot is, it’s hot in the Nevada summer, Traveler.
So let’s head inside to Omega Mart.
There are beer gardens, food stalls, merchandise tables, and, mercifully, restrooms past the airlock. There’s more blacklight paint in here than I had in my bedroom when I was in high school. There’s also a friendly staff ready to help us figure out how to buy tickets for anything and where to wait in line.
My favorite thing about this interior, Traveler? Somehow, Omega Mart feels out of place in the whole thing. It’s a brightly lit storefront welcoming you inside, with friendly staffers in uniforms checking you in while we’re in line. Chicken advertisements, other deals, and signs are begging us to turn back now.
As we’re ushered to the front of the line, the Muzak plays over the…wait…
Turn back now?
Omega Mart
If I could explain Meow Wolf to an outsider or a first-timer, I’d say it as such:
Meow Wolf is like playing a featured side character in a science fiction horror movie, with no idea where you are or what’s going on around you.
I won’t give away the story of Omega Mart, Traveler. I wouldn’t do that to you. But I’ll let you know that in this interactive maze partially designed to unlock your sense of wonder and make you feel like a kid again; there is a dark story filled with adult themes such as love, loss, the afterlife, the overreach of American consumerism, hopelessness and at the same time, hope.
A bare walkthrough of the Omega Mart facility (which also has restrooms, don’t worry) takes about 45 minutes to an hour. That’s the bare walkthrough, Traveler. Once we enter, our tickets are good until close. However, the walkthrough doesn’t do Omega Mart justice. There are videos on televisions that play on a loop and prop grocery products all over the store (I had no idea what was for sale and what wasn’t, honestly). There are computer consoles to log into and watch the backstory of Omega Mart and the strange land you’re about to visit unfold. Secret passages, interactive games, and foggy, atmospheric conditions are all over the store.
When we’re finally finished for the day and walk outside the building to the parking lot, dare I say that the world you and I live in now seems like a strange planet that doesn’t make sense.
That is how immersive a Meow Wolf exhibit can be.
So, I hope you’ll take me up on the offer and visit Omega Mart, Traveler (the link is from my Viator shop page). If only once to decide if interactive art is for you and your family, you might just find me there.
After all, I have four more of these to visit.
Until again,
Safe Travels
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