MEOW WOLF AND MIGHTY COCONUT ARE BRINGING NEW UNIVERSES TO PEOPLE EVERYWHERE WITH VIRTUAL MINI-GOLF GAME, WALKABOUT. BY RIVKA YEKER VR insinuates that your reality will be altered and turned into something unreal. For Meow Wolf and entertainment studio Mighty Coconut, virtual reality has less to do with tricking you into something that doesn’t exist, and instead brings you into a world that already does. This specific world is one that was originally built by Meow Wolf at Convergence Station in Denver, Colorado. Numina, created by Meow Wolf’s brilliant blue-haired angel Caity Kennedy, is “an organic landscape that is actually a sixthdimensional sentient plant — the many cells of which are all timelines and universes within.” While Numina’s physical location is open to whoever ventures to it, Kennedy and Lucas Martell, executive producer and head of Mighty Coconut, expanded the access to bring the world to people everywhere with virtual mini-golf game, Walkabout. In a conversation with Meow Wolf’s Director of Brand Content Allyson Lupovich, Kennedy delved into the joy of collaboration within the art of VR. But before there was talk of collaboration, there was exploration of what mini-golf means for people — in its campy nature, oftentimes ridiculous setup and childhood nostalgia. Kennedy reflected, “It has a little bit of a funny mystique to it, kind of like a roadside attraction. You know, any of those things that as a little kid you were like, oh my god. Here’s a giant dinosaur in there and you can choose the color of your ball. It’s such a bizarre form of entertainment that is beloved and kind of forgotten and the sort of thing that people who are from another culture could come here, see mini-golf and be like, wow.” Mini-golf allows people the option to gamify their experience or just take their time to leisurely explore the magical world that was carefully crafted and imagined by these artists. With collaboration being at the forefront, there was so much possibility for Meow Wolf and Mighty Coconut’s Walkabout to actually co-create together by learning from one another’s mediums. For instance, Kennedy excitedly spoke about a lighting designer who found thrill in newfound possibility amongst the fantastical. “There was no particular logic at play that he had to work with. You know, in our world, we have to deal with light fixtures, and in their world, they often have to make light fixtures up. We can just light things, but then they have to go in and make light sources so that it looks more natural.” This exploration of what is possible in the “natural” world versus the digital one is both a science fiction phenomenon and a tangible reality for designers, animators and artists operating in both spheres. What you know in one plane of existence looks differently in another. But this is exactly what encouraged such open collaboration — the power of people’s strengths and curiosities. Kennedy said that she’d pose the question: “What do you want to do? Yeah, this is my project, but it’s your project now too. What have you always wanted to do that you could do here?” These sorts of questions were the perfect ground for the most natural partnerships in world-building. It invoked true unlimited imagination. In many ways, the digital space is the new accessible art collaboration. Meow Wolf started off as a vehemently open door collaborative, but as the company progressed, possibilities shifted. So, for this to be the first Meow Wolf VR project, it made sense that it was co-conspired with others — a reminiscent homage to the early days when anybody could join in and collectively make art. For this particular project, because the art itself is also mini-golf, there are so many different ways
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