you can explore the VR sphere. Kennedy explains, “You can be the type of deep diver that’s gonna go find every detail, find every Easter egg, have it be more about the visual experience. You can be the type of deep diver that’s gonna solve every puzzle. You can also just pass through.” The openness of the world reminds the experiencer that there is no correct way to appreciate this world. It is an experience crafted by people who want you to engage with it in whatever way is right for you. Everything is intentional, so no matter how you go about it, you’re doing it right. In terms of the actual production of the work, Kennedy spoke about Mighty Coconut’s perspective on the game itself. She explained, “The Walkabout folks said something like, ‘this is the most complex of any of our builds’ even though it’s one of the spatially smallest, but a lot of their builds have a lot of space, a lot of planes. This one is all tangles and facets and, you know, leaves and flowers are complicated shapes.” She went on to describe how difficult it is to replicate certain concepts in the virtual world, how an artist has to think in a totally different language. For instance, mirrors in the physical realm are used as a cost saving device. In VR, they’re nearly impossible. Kennedy reflected, “You just can’t do an exact mirror in this space. It’s easier to build a second room that’s flipped and have it look like you’re looking through whatever than to build a mirror that’s reflecting what you’re actually in. Creating reality is really hard. Dealing with the reality of sound bleed in real life is really hard. The things that are so natural — they become problems in one — are so impossible to recreate their problems in the other.” Despite these challenges, the digital world of art-making does create way more accessible options for people to engage with art. Though it isn’t cheap still, it is far less expensive to buy a headset than it is to acquire a huge space, all the materials, and all the help necessary to build a gigantic installation. Kennedy reflects on a dream she has — a Meow Wolf commune. She analyzes, “We can find people, they can find us, we can have proposals, we can work together, we can do all this stuff with a few people that takes years, but other than the ecological implications of server farms, the digital space is open.” She envisions, “We could have people building together as neighbors, like those games where you have a farm and you build a farm and then you can go visit a random farm over and over and be like, ‘I like this farm,’ upvote or see top voted farms … Or top voted cookie shops, you know, they’re all games where you can do that. It’s this quasi-social, quasi-geographic experience that could be done with art and with the virtual.” Meow Wolf’s approach to art is, in many ways, a subversion of the norm no matter which reality it exists in. Kennedy and her team take pride in this new venture into the digital, planting a Meow Wolf stamp on every virtual crevice they find. With this being her first entrance into a VR game like this, she wholeheartedly asks, “What’s weirder than the idea of an art game?” In every inch of the Walkabout x Mighty Coconut x Meow Wolf version of Numina, weird art waits for someone to witness it. When it comes to VR, it expands these realities into multiple layered meta planes. It allows for collaboration on every level, from its most physical form to its more digitized. This is what encourages and welcomes sincere artistic expression — the freedom to truly play with, be inspired by, and learn from one another. ESCAPE INTO THE FUN AND BEAUTIFUL WORLD OF WALKABOUT: MIGHTYCOCONUT.COM/MINIGOLF VISIT THE REAL LIFE NUMINA & MORE AT CONVERGENCE STATION IN DENVER, CO: MEOWWOLF.COM/VISIT/DENVER. CHECK OUT MEOW WOLF'S OTHER PORTALS NEAR YOU: SANTA FE, NM; LAS VEGAS, NV; GRAPEVINE, TX; AND COMING SOON ... HOUSTON, TX! MEOWWOLF.COM/VISIT
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