I look into the chirping, beeping, glowing mouth of a deep cave. A jungle world. Something flies overhead, wings fluttering. A tall-legged beast walks carefully across a giant pond… and I see the reflection beneath. But I can also, I think, move through the reflection. I fall through. I’m in another world. Wait, where’s my golf ball?
An art collective called Meow Wolf makes psychedelic art installations that are immersive and interactive. I’ve checked them out before, but this time, I did it in my home office., in a VR headset, visiting an impossibly alien miniature golf course. You can visit, too, if you have a VR headset nearby.Â
Meow Wolf’s first VR venture has arrived as an add-on course for the popular game Walkabout Mini-Golf, and this world, while wondrous, is only big enough to accommodate the 18 holes. I’ve golfed in it, wandered through it, floated around it. It sounds like Meow Wolf. It looks like Meow Wolf. And when I’m in there, I’m carried back by memory cues to my trip to the collective’s Convergence Station in Denver, because the entire VR world here is inspired by a living alien forest experience inside that physical space, a place called Numina.
A virtual world made from a physical one
Walkabout Mini-Golf’s founders come from Disney Imagineering and immersive entertainment backgrounds, and the app’s add-on courses have been increasingly story-driven and expansive over the past year or so. There are courses based on Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, Jules Verne novels and the video game Myst. Some current courses already toy with flipping gravity or playing with reality. Meow Wolf’s course goes beyond that into a magical, immersive experience. It’s the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based company’s first stepping stone on the path to finding ways its artist-collective process could apply to virtual experiences, too.
I’m not going to tell you too much about it, because just like immersive theater or Meow Wolf’s own experiences, it’s best enjoyed on your own terms. But…
Read the full article here