Meow Wolf coming to Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts
calendar icon29 Mar 2022
Lincoln, Neb.--Members of Meow Wolf, an arts and entertainment company that creates large-scale, immersive art installations, will be guest artists in the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts April 1-3.
Meow Wolf’s Lead Experience Designer Laika Young O’Brien and Experience Designer Max Neutra will give a public presentation at IGNITE on Friday, April 1 from 12:30-1:50 p.m. in the Carson Center, which is located at 13th and Q sts. IGNITE is free and open to the public.
Young O’Brien is one of the most in-demand speakers in experience and immersive design. They will talk about the experience economy, new emerging media art forms and what the future holds for immersive design. As lead experience designer, they are responsible for crafting meaningful and transformative interactive experiences. Young O’Brien is also the co-founder of No Sleep Studio.
Neutra is an artist and musician. Before joining Meow Wolf, he painted in the catacombs of Paris, in Mumbai, on the patio of a restaurant in the middle of a monsoon, on a rooftop in Madrid, on stage with rock bands and on stage with poets. His debut album is titled “Automationi Addiction.”
Young O’Brien and Neutra will present a workshop on April 2-3. The workshop is available by application only for Emerging Media Arts and Theatre majors at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
The workshop will focus on the fundamentals of experience design and extended theatre, through hands-on rapid prototyping sessions, technical and creative skill building, and more. The workshop will culminate in a private performance on Sunday, April 3.
Assistant Professor of Practice in Emerging Media Arts Anna Henson met Young O’Brien when she took students to the Next Stage Summit and Festival last year, a gathering of the immersive creative community, where they were a featured speaker. Henson and Young O’Brien corresponded and began to develop this workshop opportunity for the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
“This is their first university-level collaboration,” Henson said. “I’m excited about this opportunity for students to get hands-on, direct experience from two designers from Meow Wolf, who are on the cutting edge of this immersive industry and building the future of this industry. This will help prepare our students to work in this changing industry and expose them to the careers available in this growing field.”
Meow Wolf is a key player in shaping the burgeoning “experience economy,” creating transformative experiences for the public. They have been featured in Fast Company, the BBC, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, the Economist, as well as top presenters at the interactive media festival South By Southwest (SXSW). They are the recipients of a THEA award (recognizing outstanding Themed Entertainment and Experience Design Projects Worldwide), and their impact is so significant that a documentary of their origin story was produced in 2018.
Beginning in 2008 as an informal DIY collective of Santa Fe artists, these collaborative roots lay the foundation for Meow Wolf’s distinctive style of immersive, maximalist environments that encourage participation. In 2016 they established a permanent installation in Sante Fe (House of Eternal Return), and they have since been commissioned to produce permanent immersive experiences in Las Vegas at Area 51 (Omega Mart) and in Denver where in September 2022 they launched Convergence Station.
In the workshop, 30 students will investigate the Meow Wolf methodologies for rapid prototyping and experience design.
“Students will get hands-on experience creating installations,” Henson said. “This workshop has been custom developed for our program. I’m excited also to have emerging media arts and theatre students collaborate in this workshop, which will hopefully plant a seed for future collaborations.”
For more information on the Meow Wolf residency, visit https://go.unl.edu/ht4b.