Latest / What the Hal?? 2.0 / WHAT THE HAL? PODCAST 2.0 – EPISODE 19: Meow Wolf: Inside the Immersive Art Experience

Transcript

WHAT THE HAL? PODCAST 2.0 – EPISODE 19: Meow Wolf: Inside the Immersive Art Experience · What the Hal?? 2.0

• 0:00
  If I say the words meow and wolf, you might be thinking of the sounds of a cat and the critter that goes, ooh, right, well, but think again.
• 0:12
  I'm Al Eisner.
• 0:13
  This is what the hell.
• 0:15
  Smart, fresh and uplifting.
• 0:22
  We've got the stories that make you want to say, what the hell.
• 0:27
  Meow Wolf is an interactive art installation.
• 0:31
  And if you've never visited a Meow Wolf, you're in for a bit of a treat here.
• 0:37
  Art is kind of hard to define.
• 0:38
  Awe is hard to explain and wonder is ineffable.
• 0:43
  Maybe that's why it's so hard to describe what the multiple Meow Wolf installations are all about.
• 0:51
  Some things you just have to see to believe.
• 0:53
  And the visual, auditory, sensory impact of the Meow Wolf experience is really something you need to immerse yourself in.
• 1:03
  Nevertheless, we are going to try to give you a little bit of an idea.
• 1:08
  Yeah, so I looked at one of the YouTube channels on Meow Wolf and you still.
• 1:16
  It makes you want to go even more.
• 1:18
  So we invited Spokes Wolf Shakti Howa to take us on a tour of this, I mean, unique experience doesn't really do it justice.
• 1:28
  From what I've seen that is Meow Wolf, but maybe we can shed a little bit of light on it and maybe get you excited to go.
• 1:38
  Welcome, Shakti, thank you so much for joining us here today to talk about Meow Wolf and, and where it is right now in Vegas and where it is going to be in the near future.
• 1:48
  But when I was looking at the YouTube videos, I just want to point out the comment section.
• 1:54
  If you really want a good laugh of how people describe Meow Wolf and their experience, go to the comment section.
• 2:02
  Because one of the first ones I saw was, whoa, this is Alice in Wonderland and an acid trip.
• 2:11
  Is, was that person wrong?
• 2:14
  Well, they're not wrong, but it's so many different things to so many different people.
• 2:19
  So I'm going to try to give you my explanation of what a Meow Wolf is.
• 2:22
  And this is our second sixth installation.
• 2:25
  So not only Las Vegas, but we have Santa Fe, New Mexico, we have an exhibit in Denver and two in Texas.
• 2:32
  And then after LA opens, one is opening up in New York.
• 2:36
  So basically what we're trying to do here is transport people out of the everyday normal reality into the multi dimensional reality.
• 2:46
  We want to give people an opportunity to experience art and space story in a whole new way.
• 2:52
  And it is kind of a psychedelic experience because you're being bombarded in a way with so Much stimulus.
• 3:00
  You've got story, interactivity, all kinds of different art disciplines collaborating to create these multi dimensional experiences.
• 3:11
  Can you.
• 3:12
  It's interesting.
• 3:13
  She said psychedelic is that you're feeling too Hunter, you've been in there.
• 3:18
  Absolutely.
• 3:19
  I mean, it just.
• 3:21
  It's overwhelming and it's something your mind can't quite wrap itself around.
• 3:27
  But they're all different.
• 3:28
  Maybe Shakti can describe how they're different.
• 3:31
  So they're all unique in their own ways, but then they share certain characteristics.
• 3:36
  So basically what we're doing right now is we're building out the Meow Wolf story universe.
• 3:42
  So our first installation in Santa Fe, New Mexico was our first permanent exhibit.
• 3:48
  Before that, this.
• 3:49
  This was an art collective that started around 2008.
• 3:53
  And so there were a lot of pop up shows and warehouse shows, and people were just trying to figure out what they could do together.
• 4:00
  And I don't even think anyone had the idea at that time that this could actually become a business.
• 4:07
  But after the House of Eternal Return opened in Santa Fe, we realized, like, we really have something here and we really want to keep going.
• 4:14
  So we're building out this story world and we're also trying to innovate in terms of, like, what we can produce, because we're all leveling up in our skill sets as artists and creators.
• 4:27
  But every single show is grounded in the place that we go.
• 4:32
  Like, we're really trying to integrate into the communities and provide people with a hub of connectivity.
• 4:38
  And it's all about inclusivity.
• 4:40
  And, you know, outsiders welcome.
• 4:42
  But it's really for everybody.
• 4:43
  Like all ages and all backgrounds can have an interesting and fun experience at.
• 4:49
  At one of our exhibits.
• 4:51
  Yeah, but, you know, we said at the outset that, you know, art is sometimes hard to explain.
• 4:59
  And as I looked at some of the YouTube videos that Elsa's talked about, it seemed like a bit of a mishmash.
• 5:07
  And so can you describe the mishmash a little bit better?
• 5:12
  I saw people crawling through things.
• 5:14
  Yeah, but I saw people crawling through walls and walls that moved and all kinds of really interesting and odd things.
• 5:20
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:22
  So I love that.
• 5:24
  I always love the term mishmash too.
• 5:27
  Basically, we have a story that we're trying to tell, but the story is not the only thing that you can get when you go there.
• 5:38
  So the way that this all started was community based.
• 5:41
  You know, you have all these artisans and all these different interdisciplinary artists who really wanted to come together and basically throw down to create something spectacular that we could all feel really proud of, that could serve the community.
• 5:55
  And that could be actually like a learning hub for all of us where we're learning from each other.
• 6:01
  So the artists themselves are people from all different backgrounds and different ages, too.
• 6:07
  And so you have people mentoring each other.
• 6:09
  You have, you know, younger volunteers and older, well established artists all coming together to make something.
• 6:15
  And that's why it was such a mishmash in the beginning, because we had basically just handed out rooms and said, do what you want to do in this room and you do what you want to do over here.
• 6:25
  But there was a part of the exhibit that was more grounded in the experience of the story we were trying to tell, which is kind of this mystery that you can uncover as you're, like, exploring the physical space.
• 6:38
  So that was so successful, and people loved the mystery and the story so much that we realized, like, we've got to lean into this part of what we do.
• 6:46
  We still want to maintain that.
• 6:49
  That basic.
• 6:51
  That radical confusion and happy confusion is sometimes what we call it that we.
• 6:58
  That we've caused people by taking them through one experience to the next to the next.
• 7:02
  It's this extreme contrast.
• 7:04
  And so we've tried to find a way to bridge that into this new effort to, like, build out the universe and continue the storytelling.
• 7:13
  My question is this.
• 7:15
  Do you start with the art and then add the story in, or do you start with the story and add the art in, or do they just happen simultaneously?
• 7:24
  Well, let me talk about the LA exhibit, because we're trying something new here, and we really are starting with story for this show.
• 7:31
  So four years ago, when I started in creative direction, and I was an artist and sculptor for Meow Wolf for six years before that, when I started on this project, it was just a small core team of collaborators
• 7:44
  working on the concept in, like, a blue sky, you know, so we're just dreaming up everything we want to do from gestures and rooms and art styles that we want to play with and textures.
• 7:56
  And then we're also thinking about, well, what's the container for all of this?
• 8:00
  What is the story that we're telling?
• 8:02
  And we knew that we wanted to pull together the stories from our other exhibits so that people could go on a quest where once you go to any Meow Wolf, it's like a trailhead to all the other Meow
• 8:14
  Wolf stories.
• 8:16
  So, like, hopefully this will excite people and inspire people to want to explore, explore all the different shows, because we're actually bringing together a few characters from some of our different exhibits in this LA show.
• 8:28
  So we start with that story.
• 8:29
  And then we build out from there.
• 8:30
  So some of the popular characters that maybe people who are familiar with Meow Wolf will maybe enjoy seeing at the next Meow Wolf that they go to.
• 8:41
  Like, oh, there was that exhibit there and it's here now.
• 8:45
  Exactly.
• 8:46
  So we have a very key character from our Santa Fe show.
• 8:50
  We.
• 8:50
  We have a key character from one of the Texas shows.
• 8:53
  And then we have a brand new Los Angeles based character and they're all coming together for this adventure in la.
• 9:02
  And then there's like some side characters from.
• 9:04
  From all the other shows too.
• 9:06
  Well, trying to get away from it.
• 9:08
  Sounds random, but that's what's so great about it.
• 9:11
  Right?
• 9:12
  It's just everything.
• 9:12
  At least that's.
• 9:13
  That was my takeaway.
• 9:15
  How.
• 9:16
  And Hunter, I mean, who's actually been there to the one in Vegas?
• 9:20
  I've been to all of them.
• 9:22
  Oh, you've been.
• 9:23
  My pardon.
• 9:24
  I didn't know who I was dealing with.
• 9:26
  I'm in it to win it.
• 9:27
  Yeah.
• 9:28
  This is like a Meow Wolf lifetime member.
• 9:31
  I'm Hunter.
• 9:31
  My apologies.
• 9:32
  I did not know.
• 9:34
  But it's just, it's a randomness of it to me, from what I saw on the YouTube videos.
• 9:41
  That's what's so cool about it.
• 9:42
  It's just so.
• 9:44
  It's not.
• 9:45
  It doesn't seem like it's supposed to be orderly.
• 9:48
  It's just.
• 9:49
  It just is.
• 9:50
  I mean, I love that you brought up the word orderly because something that we've talked about since the beginning is the interplay between chaos and order.
• 9:58
  And that is totally what Meow Wolf is.
• 10:00
  Not just in terms of what we create, but how it feels to be a part of it.
• 10:05
  You know, we're trying to wrangle so many people to bring these things to life, and sometimes it does feel like we're battling against this constant waterfall of chaos, but somehow it's all coming together.
• 10:16
  I think the.
• 10:17
  The thing about the randomness that I love and I did work in operations for a little bit at the beginning of our Santa Fe show opening because we, all of the artists who worked on it, we kind of
• 10:28
  forgot that we actually have to run this thing too.
• 10:30
  So before we staffed up, a lot of us just jumped into those front desk positions and those docent positions and we were basically manning the ship.
• 10:38
  You know, we were making sure that we could facilitate this experience and keep all the art clean and maintain it.
• 10:45
  And during that time, I really got to absorb how people experience our shows.
• 10:50
  And what I learned from that is that there is something for everyone.
• 10:54
  And it's okay if you're not interested in the story.
• 10:56
  It's perfectly fine if you want to go and have a totally random experience and just bathe in that wonder and awe, you know, and just experience the textures and the.
• 11:07
  The craftsmanship and the interactivity.
• 11:10
  And kids can play, you know, adults can just marvel at what they're experiencing.
• 11:15
  But also, for those deep divers who are super into the lore, we've got plenty there for you to discover as well.
• 11:23
  I'm.
• 11:23
  I'm curious about two things, actually.
• 11:26
  One, these characters, quote, unquote, these characters sound vague to me.
• 11:32
  So are they mysterious?
• 11:34
  Are they.
• 11:35
  What kind of characters are we talking about?
• 11:38
  And then the other thing I'm curious about, and then maybe these two piggyback off each other in some way.
• 11:42
  But I like to travel.
• 11:44
  And having just heard what Hunter said, should I be planning to go to every one of these things to figure out the whole great big mystery over Meow Wolf?
• 11:55
  I mean, I think you definitely should go to all of them.
• 11:58
  Yeah.
• 11:59
  There's a lot to discover in each show.
• 12:02
  And the deeper you dig, the more you're going to find that connectivity between all of these stories and.
• 12:08
  And the characters themselves.
• 12:10
  The reason I'm being vague is because I want to let some things be surprises for the audience, and especially those who are in the know.
• 12:17
  But what I will say is that these are human characters, the main characters of this experience right now, and they're.
• 12:26
  They're going to basically help you to follow along.
• 12:29
  You know, they're going to guide you into the experience, and then you can kind of choose your own adventure from there.
• 12:36
  But one of those characters is from the story in Santa Fe, and this is her grown up now, and she's kind of like leading the charge for this little adventure that we're on in la.
• 12:50
  Is she really there?
• 12:52
  Or is this some, you know, animation, or.
• 12:55
  What are we talking about here?
• 12:57
  So we're talking about multimedia storytelling.
• 13:00
  So we're going to experience experience characters in all kinds of different forms throughout the show.
• 13:06
  And this goes for not just the main ones, but all the characters.
• 13:09
  You know, sometimes they'll be represented physically, sculpturally.
• 13:12
  Other times it will be multimedia audio.
• 13:16
  Of course, we have, like, video and animation in a lot of our shows.
• 13:20
  So we're.
• 13:21
  We're kind of amping that up for la because we're in this world of storytelling here.
• 13:26
  So you're going to get a lot more multimedia, immersive storytelling in this show than any of our Exhibits leading up to this.
• 13:34
  Okay, Hunter, are those clues?
• 13:35
  Do those mean anything to you?
• 13:37
  Well, I mean, what you remember, it's easier for me to understand because I kind of know how it works.
• 13:43
  And it is so involved that poor Shakti cannot explain it.
• 13:49
  I cannot explain it.
• 13:50
  But there is literally stories that you follow along and it involves personalities, in some cases families or, you know, co workers who have things happen to them.
• 14:03
  And you as an observer have to kind of figure out what the storyline is and what happened to them and who they are.
• 14:10
  And literally, Meow is so layered.
• 14:14
  There's videos.
• 14:16
  You go into a room and you hear someone whispering a story to you.
• 14:20
  You see animations come to life and you piece all these things together.
• 14:25
  And I feel like I'm doing your job, Shakti, but I just love it.
• 14:28
  Please, I love it.
• 14:30
  You have a new spot, Shakti.
• 14:31
  Hunter could work for Meow Wolf, by the way.
• 14:35
  Maybe Hunter will become one of the characters in Meow Wolf.
• 14:39
  Meow influencer.
• 14:41
  We need one.
• 14:43
  Yeah, but why do I do it?
• 14:46
  The thing I love about it is the layers.
• 14:48
  It's just, it's so involved.
• 14:50
  And like she said, you can enjoy it on just a.
• 14:54
  I'm going to stand here and be gobsmacked level down to the minutiae where you can like literally open people's mailboxes and read their mail and figure out what happened to them.
• 15:07
  And the detail is beyond.
• 15:09
  I don't know how many people work on this, Shakti, but how do you do it?
• 15:16
  So many people.
• 15:17
  And the cool thing is I think this is what sets us apart from other themed entertainment experiences where those are so incredible and they're often driven by ip.
• 15:28
  So everything is really well defined before the project begins for us.
• 15:32
  We are collaborating.
• 15:33
  Every person at every level in the company is contributing ideas.
• 15:38
  And as a creative director, part of my job is to create stuff, space for those ideas to flourish.
• 15:44
  So I'm looking for those opportunities where someone else can come in and say, I want to do this in this area.
• 15:51
  Like, what do you think about that?
• 15:52
  You know, instead of top down telling how it's going to be, you know, we.
• 15:57
  We create this seed and then we all grow that seed together.
• 16:00
  Everybody's like nurturing it with their different talents and their different creative ideas.
• 16:06
  I don't want to create spoiler alerts here, but, you know, I don't know why, but I have this sort of feeling that, you know, maybe some of these characters might.
• 16:15
  Because they sound mysterious.
• 16:16
  It might be ghosts.
• 16:17
  Are there ghosts who.
• 16:23
  It's not really ghost based.
• 16:25
  But what I will say is that, you know, we're in a multidimensional, multidimensional reality in our world here.
• 16:32
  So, like, in our physical matter reality that we all exist within normally, you know, we have the concept of like maybe an afterlife or.
• 16:41
  Or other dimensions or other realms.
• 16:44
  You know, these are the kinds of concepts that we love to play around with.
• 16:49
  And what are the spaces between worlds?
• 16:52
  What are those liminal spaces that connect it all?
• 16:56
  We like to travel in those spaces, and that's what we want to take our guests on.
• 16:59
  We want to take them on a journey between worlds, into those in between spaces, and then pop out in some other dimension and learn about what's going on.
• 17:08
  It's kind of like if you could just travel in your dreams, you know?
• 17:11
  You know, can't land on the name Meow Wolf.
• 17:15
  I.
• 17:15
  I love it because it's just so random, but it's just so fun to say Meow Wolf and people going, what the heck is Meow Wolf?
• 17:23
  It's one of those things that, you know, is.
• 17:25
  It's a pretty funny story, actually, but back in the warehouse days, when it was just an art collective before it became a company, they were trying to figure out the name by kind of an exquisite corpse exercise.
• 17:38
  But it was basically just drawing names out of a hat.
• 17:41
  So the whole group of creators put a bunch of different words and they shuffled it all together, and when they pulled out those two, everyone loved it.
• 17:49
  And that's what stuck.
• 17:51
  Wow.
• 17:52
  Yeah, I love that.
• 17:53
  It's just as random as the exhibit.
• 17:56
  By know,.
• 17:58
  You know, but.
• 17:59
  But having watched those YouTube videos and Elsa, you and I are in a league different than Hutter because she's.
• 18:04
  She's experienced this, but she's an expert.
• 18:07
  Yeah, she is.
• 18:08
  But I mean, you know, having watched the video now I'm starting to think maybe have some clarity on what you're talking about.
• 18:16
  Traveling within dimensions and things like that.
• 18:18
  Before it was like, what the hell?
• 18:21
  You know, what are we talking about here?
• 18:23
  You know, it seemed pretty, you know, pretty obscure and.
• 18:28
  And now I'm starting to get a little clear now.
• 18:31
  I want to go now.
• 18:31
  I want to see what it is now.
• 18:33
  I'm more curious than I was before.
• 18:35
  And hopefully, you know, we launched this app that we're trying to build out more and more with each exhibit.
• 18:43
  And I think that eventually that will serve us really well to give people the opportunity to take their own kind of tour.
• 18:50
  Like, you can go and learn about the story or you can Just go and have this multidimensional, psychedelic kind of experience of art.
• 18:58
  Or you could go a layer deeper and find out who are all the collaborating artists that worked on this.
• 19:04
  Because we're pulling in a lot of really interesting local talent everywhere we go.
• 19:09
  And if you don't know what to look for, you might just miss it.
• 19:12
  You know, it might just feel like it's part of the overall chaos.
• 19:15
  But for example, I'm working with this incredible LA artist, born and raised, Charles Dixon, who's been in it for like 65 years.
• 19:24
  And he, he's coming to the table with this really exuberant idea that's like so different from what he normally does in his sculpt.
• 19:34
  He was inspired by the creator of the Super Soaker.
• 19:38
  If you all know this story, it's.
• 19:41
  It's Lonnie Johnson and he is a black man, a NASA engineer, and he's also an entrepreneur who created this like joyful fun toy that like served all these different communities throughout the years.
• 19:55
  And Charles has been collecting these and he has this massive collection of these toys.
• 20:00
  And so his Flex Room that he's creating for our show is, is based in that collection.
• 20:05
  And so there's going to be these little splashes that are kind of non sequiturs in the world where you just get to connect to a local LA artist.
• 20:13
  And we have a whole list of those that are slowly being unveiled as we get closer to opening.
• 20:18
  So I really want people to keep an eye out for that because that's another layer to what we do that I think is so special and important.
• 20:26
  I saw the pictures of that.
• 20:28
  It's going to be really cool.
• 20:30
  But let me just speak from my inner 10 year old, when I try and tell people about the Meow Wolf experience, I always say it's an art installation.
• 20:39
  And I'm sure they picture walking through a museum with paintings on the walls.
• 20:43
  But to me, half of the joy of this is the fact that it is interactive.
• 20:50
  You get to play with it and it plays back.
• 20:53
  And it is this massive busy box for adults as well as humans.
• 21:01
  And every time I walk through one of these things, all I can think is, how can you let people touch all this stuff?
• 21:08
  How do you possibly keep it clean, keep it functioning?
• 21:12
  My gosh, Hunter, like that is one of the biggest challenges of what we do.
• 21:17
  And it really sets us apart because everything that we make has to go through these extreme durability tests before we put it in the show.
• 21:25
  But then after we open, it's really the crew that takes over that place, that maintains it.
• 21:31
  So we have in every city, you know, our operations team and our maintenance team, they are part of the whole Meow Wolf collective.
• 21:40
  These are people who are creatives.
• 21:42
  They are incredibly brilliant artists in their own rights.
• 21:45
  And they come in and they breathe life into the exhibit every single day.
• 21:50
  Maintaining things, innovating.
• 21:52
  Sometimes they have to take down an exhibit and make a whole new room and they bring their own creative ideas to the table.
• 21:58
  A lot of times they have to open up the guts of the interactive elements and tweak things and replace things.
• 22:05
  So, I mean, it's those teams in each city that keep these things alive.
• 22:10
  And I'm just like you.
• 22:12
  I'm blown away when I go back and visit Las Vegas, for example, where people really like to get wild, as you can imagine, and the show looks pristine and, you know, everything is still holding up.
• 22:23
  It's just like such a joy for me to see that.
• 22:25
  But, yeah, it's a big challenge and it.
• 22:28
  It makes what we do really complicated.
• 22:33
  But when does the one.
• 22:35
  When.
• 22:36
  When does the one in LA open up?
• 22:38
  And.
• 22:38
  And where is that?
• 22:40
  And then how far along are you on the one in New York?
• 22:43
  And where is that one?
• 22:45
  And when will that open?
• 22:47
  So Los Angeles.
• 22:49
  I'm here living in Los Angeles right now because I'm going to work to site every day.
• 22:54
  So it's hhla, the Howard Hughes, where the Cinemark is, you can see it from the 405.
• 23:00
  And it's an incredible building.
• 23:02
  And so we're doing kind of an adaptive reuse where we still have the movie theater down below, but we're kind of taking over the upper area.
• 23:09
  And.
• 23:09
  And so we gutted the building.
• 23:11
  We put up our steel framing, the walls are going up.
• 23:14
  Things are happening every day and it's happening quickly.
• 23:17
  So we're slated to open at the end of this year.
• 23:20
  And we'll have announcements when it gets closer about all the different kinds of activations that will be happening at that time.
• 23:28
  And then New York is in process right now.
• 23:32
  Mostly our artists are working out of Santa Fe and then a couple other locations with our remote workers.
• 23:38
  But they're going to be opening in 2028.
• 23:42
  I don't know the exact time, but they're located in the Pier 17 area.
• 23:49
  So that is the Seaport area, right?
• 23:54
  Do you see?
• 23:54
  You know, it's very off the wall, but, you know, we watched over the last few years, malls are dying, and there's a lot of space in malls where there used to be stores and shops and things.
• 24:08
  And is that a, is that a target for you?
• 24:11
  Is that a place where you feel that you can get into the community?
• 24:14
  It sounds like that's what you're doing at Howard Hughes.
• 24:17
  Well, it's an interesting question because I think because we're so young in a way, and we're still figuring things out.
• 24:24
  You know, we are working with what we can get a lot of the time.
• 24:28
  And there's so many factors that go into what's going to make a location desirable for us.
• 24:33
  A lot of it is the infrastructure of the building.
• 24:35
  You know, of course we want to be in places that are going to be convenient for the people that we want to attract and all of that.
• 24:42
  But we're not specifically targeting malls necessarily.
• 24:45
  We're just looking for cool places where we can, we can see that the, the, the actual infrastructure can support what we want to do.
• 24:54
  I have a son in law, I'll just throw this out there, who has a theater company up in Northern California in Oakland.
• 25:01
  Very proud of him, very proud of the theater company.
• 25:03
  But you know, what they did for a very long time until they kind of settled into one location and now they're about to move into a more permanent one.
• 25:10
  They used to move around and do plays in, in, in churches and in stores and in different places that, that weren't your traditional theaters.
• 25:20
  And that worked really, really well.
• 25:23
  So sometimes, you know, throwing things at people in places they don't expect actually add to the excitement.
• 25:31
  Exactly.
• 25:32
  It's kind of fun, you know, and that's like something that I've learned as an artist over the years too.
• 25:37
  Sometimes the parameters that we're given, they feel kind of like a restriction at first, but then they end up being a benefit to the process.
• 25:45
  And so we're just leaning into whatever it is that we have to work with at any given time.
• 25:50
  And we've already been through so much as a company.
• 25:52
  I mean, you guys brought up the pandemic earlier, you know, that I was deploying to Las Vegas right as that was happening, you know, we still had to build our show.
• 26:01
  And so we're all in a new city, like trying to make this thing come to life.
• 26:05
  And, you know, everybody's masked up and it's, it's, it's interesting, but we lean into the challenges and I think that's part of the magic of what we do.
• 26:13
  There's a lot of soul in this, you know, there's a lot of heart and it's very spirited and it's Very messy, and we're figuring things out as we go.
• 26:22
  But you feel that spontaneity.
• 26:24
  You feel that aliveness in the experience.
• 26:26
  And the thing that I hope for the most is that people see the hand of the artist and they really understand that this was just made by someone just like you, you know?
• 26:36
  And I want people to walk away with that feeling of empowerment and inspiration that, like, we can collaborate to make anything possible in this world.
• 26:45
  You know, it's about working together.
• 26:47
  And hopefully this can inspire people to see that, like, if we can do this crazy thing that's almost impossible, all of us can do anything that we want, you know?
• 26:57
  Well, you have one fan.
• 26:58
  No, you got one fan over there.
• 27:00
  Hunter Lowry.
• 27:01
  Big fan.
• 27:03
  I think schools would really.
• 27:05
  I mean, I don't know.
• 27:06
  Personally, I think it'd be great, a great field trip for schools to bring the kids.
• 27:12
  Kids who are interested in art or maybe even not interested, but.
• 27:16
  But to maybe just be a spectator.
• 27:19
  Oops.
• 27:20
  I don't know.
• 27:20
  I've got, like, all these visions now.
• 27:21
  Of what to do with Meow Wolf.
• 27:23
  Please.
• 27:25
  Sounds like we all have to go to Meow Wolf and get sort of the Hunter experience there.
• 27:31
  Well, let's sort of wind this down a little bit and, you know.
• 27:34
  Do you have a website?
• 27:35
  Oh, go ahead.
• 27:36
  Yeah, go ahead.
• 27:37
  Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
• 27:39
  I know I'm.
• 27:40
  I'm kind of an outlier in.
• 27:41
  In some of these cases, but having been to all of them and looking forward to the new ones, do they change?
• 27:49
  Are there things added or changed or subtracted?
• 27:53
  So you can go back to one that you've been to before, and it's different?
• 27:57
  So they definitely change all the time.
• 27:59
  And they change for all kinds of different reasons.
• 28:01
  Some of it is planned.
• 28:03
  Like, we have these phased spaces that we keep empty until later so that we can keep building on the world, expanding it out and so opening up secret rooms and things like that and other changes happen as a
• 28:15
  result of wear and tear or if we just want to freshen something up, or if we want to bring in some local talent to leave their mark on the space.
• 28:26
  I'm a big fan of secret rooms, and I got all excited.
• 28:29
  Oh, yeah.
• 28:31
  I'm a big fan of unusual art.
• 28:34
  You remember the umbrellas out in the grapevine?
• 28:37
  Who was you?
• 28:38
  Was it Kristoff?
• 28:39
  What was the name of the artist that put all those umbrellas out there as part of an art installation?
• 28:47
  I can't.
• 28:47
  Well, it's been a few years, but I like things that are different.
• 28:50
  I like Things that are unpredictable.
• 28:53
  I like things that you walk into them.
• 28:55
  You don't know exactly what you're about to walk into.
• 28:58
  So I'm looking forward to the opportunity to go see this myself because now that I have a better understanding of it, it'll.
• 29:06
  It'll be a little more interesting to do you have a website?
• 29:10
  You have a place where people can get more information?
• 29:13
  Yeah, yeah.
• 29:14
  It's Meowwolf.com so everyone can go and find out about all of our different exhibits.
• 29:19
  You can get your tickets there.
• 29:20
  You can read articles about what we've got going on.
• 29:24
  We're on the different social media platforms.
• 29:27
  You can find us anywhere.
• 29:28
  It's all just under Meow Wolf.
• 29:30
  Well, Shakti, thanks so much.
• 29:32
  I.
• 29:33
  I'm all excited now.
• 29:35
  Good.
• 29:36
  I first thought it was like the sound of a cat and the sound of a dog and I was quickly told no, no, no, no, no.
• 29:43
  So it's not Meow Wolf, it's Meow Wolf.
• 29:45
  Well, I can't wait.
• 29:47
  I really can't wait for you to see it.
• 29:49
  And I hope you all let me know when you go because I want to hear your impressions and like your take on it because it's such a unique experience for each individual.
• 29:58
  And you have to give us advanced warning when LA opens.
• 30:01
  So we can all go first.
• 30:03
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 30:05
  We gotta reach out to you for that softening.
• 30:08
  Yeah.
• 30:08
  Thanks so much.
• 30:09
  Thank you.
• 30:10
  Good luck to you.
• 30:11
  Thanks, Shakti.
• 30:14
  And that's what the hell 2.0.
• 30:16
  I'm Hal Eisner along with Elsa Ramon and Hunter Lowry.
• 30:19
  This podcast is produced by Hunter.
• 30:22
  Jamie Knapp is our technical director editor and he handles all of the post production.
• 30:27
  Our original theme music is composed by Stuart Pierce.
• 30:31
  Earlier versions of of the podcast were produced at the studios of Fox 11 in Los Angeles and are available through the link in our show Notes.
• 30:40
  This version of the podcast is available on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts.
• 30:45
  And what the hell.
• 30:46
  2.0 is produced in Los Angeles, California.