Friday, April 1, 2022
Artist Talk: Meow Wolf
12:30 PM
JOHNNY CARSON CENTER FOR EMERGING MEDIA ARTS, CEMA 101
Meow Wolf is an award-winning industry-leading arts and entertainment company that creates large-scale immersive art installations as well as produces streaming content, music videos, and arts and music festivals. 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 Sante 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.
ABOUT LAIKA YOUNG O’BRIEN
Laika Young O’Brien is a storyteller and waking dream designer.
They are currently the Lead Experience Designer for Meow Wolf, the award-winning industry-leading arts and entertainment company that creates large-scale immersive art installations as well as produces streaming content, music videos, and arts and music festivals. At Meow Wolf they spearhead the narrative and experience design of interactive adventures within Meow Wolf’s physical exhibits and beyond. They collaborate with a team of writers, content creators, technologists, and developers to bring Meow Wolf’s story universe to life in ways that are discoverable, narrative-driven, and dimension-bending. Highlights include:
- Meow Wolf Outside: A narrative-driven scavenger hunt across the city of Santa Fe, inspired by existing local legends.
- Omega Access Program: An RFID-enabled alternate reality game for Meow Wolf’s latest exhibit, Omega Mart at Las Vegas’s Area 15.
Laika is also the co-founder of No Sleep Studio.
ABOUT MAX NEUTRA
Max Neutra is an artist and musician who currently works as an experience designer with Meow Wolf. Before joining Meow Wolf, Max 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 rockbands and on stage with poets. His debut album is Automation Addiction.
The event is free and open to the public in person or on Zoom at: MEOW WOLF
