There's a great scene in the movie LA Story that illustrates this problem perfectly. Harris Telemacher, played by Steve Martin, is in a gallery viewing a painting with some friends, one that the audience can't see. He goes into great detail explaining how the characters in the painting are in relationships even though they are still images. He says he's picking up on the subtle emotions of the figures who are watching a torrid love scene play out, "peeking at them from beyond the doorway like they're all shocked. They wish. When I see a painting like this, I get, uh, emotionally erect."
The camera cuts to a wide shot of the painting, revealing a giant red canvas with a few darker strokes that reveal nothing even close to the perceived shape of another human being.
Meow Wolf, the popular art collective that started in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and just opened its fourth immersive gallery in Grapevine, has come up with a novel way to combat this common issue with art. It commissions a variety of artists to paint, design and construct works that envelop the viewer in a space where the outside world melts away from our consciousness. You're forced to focus on the works because there's no frame containing the art. It weaves all around you because there's no edge to the art separating the real world from the work.
Meow Wolf's Grapevine experience, dubbed The Real Unreal, is like being transported into a point-and-click adventure game where seemingly ordinary objects and images offer bigger clues and have more uses outside of their obvious forms.
The only way to unlock new pieces of the story and the collection's themes and hidden meanings is to explore and experiment. There's no way you'll be able to figure out every angle in one go, so here are some places to help you get you started.
A laptop introduces visitors to a family that experiences an otherworldly event during a difficult time.
Danny Gallagher
The Real Unreal starts in an ordinary-looking suburban home that slowly warps into different realities as you move deeper into the space. You can physically interact with most elements in pretty much every room. If you want to understand just what the hell is going on, then you have to get curious by pushing buttons and looking for little details.
Science fiction writer and Meow Wolf's lead narrative writer LaShawn Wanak constructed a full narrative story that plays out throughout the space and some of the artwork, which is about "faith and trust" as well as "opening our minds to new possibilities." The central story involves the occupants of the house and the clues they've left behind as to their whereabouts and happenstances. It involves a struggling single mother and her son who've moved into a friend's house during a time of great duress in their lives, when the son suddenly goes missing. The laptop computer in the upstairs office and the one in the dining room probably hold the most clues to this family's unusual and moving story, which plays out in videos, emails and a collection of photos just to get you started.
A mysterious creature greets guests as they enter the bathroom of Meow Wolf's The Real Unreal.
Danny Gallagher
The Real Unreal is inhabited by all sorts of strange creatures and beings that are part of the installation's central story, including an unusual toilet monster.
Scenes like this may seem like you're walking through a horror show, but it's not a haunted house experience where you're expecting things to jump out at you and hoping you'll feel the rush of almost dying without actually dying. It's more of a middle ground between a haunted experience and an escape room, where all the hidden keys are ethereal. This tentacled creature is one of the first you'll see as you move deeper into The Real Unreal, and it pops up throughout the experience. Strange creatures play a big part in a lot of the exhibition, but this one carries an existential representation of childhood imagination and how the loss of our innocence erodes it over time. Think of this little guy like some kind of E.T. if David Lynch had directed the film.
Some children's drawings in a sketchbook help tell the story of Meow Wolf's The Real Unreal in Grapevine.
Danny Gallagher
We're floating dangerously close to spoiler territory with this wealth of information, but if you're interested at all in learning about The Real Unreal's story, then you need to make time to thumb through this clue on the dining room table.
Jared's drawings provide a bunch of clues to not just his whereabouts but how he got there. It's part of the charm of the whole installation. Things that seem innocent and even disconnected are interwoven into a larger narrative chronologically and thematically in ways you may not fully understand on the first walk-through.They are breadcrumbs that take you down a path, even if you don't find them in a linear sense.
Letters, receipts and other correspondence are located throughout the house at the beginning of Meow Wolf's The Real Unreal.
Danny Gallagher
Have you ever walked into someone's house and seen a pile of mail sitting on the little table they keep next to the door and had the feeling that you wanted to just leaf through it? It's a natural curious urge, even if it's just about learning what kind of electric rate they pay or what kind of junk mail shows up in their mailbox.
If you're comfortable with invading another person's privacy in their domicile and opt into Meow Wolf's story mode, then keep your eyes peeled for letters and mail through the main house. There's at least a handful of handwritten letters and printed bills throughout the place that connect to the other part of the dimension in some strange and creative ways. Something as simple as a bill for fertilizer or a postcard could lead you toward an amazing discovery, so be curious and willing to take the time to examine as many details as you can, especially from seemingly ordinary places and things. 5. The Gloquarium
Just like the central story of The Real Unreal, there is also more than one path to each area and installation, so you really have to open your mind to the possibilities to find all of them.
This neon seascape has more than one entrance, including one that requires you to set aside any claustrophobic tendencies you have in order to access it. Once you enter, you start to get a real sense of the playfulness that the artists are allowed to express. This space of glowing plant life and unusual creatures is a great appetizer to the overall theme, but it also has connections to the more mundane aspects in ways that require an eagle's eye to find them. We're not gonna reveal exactly what those connections are or parts of the story they may entail. Plus, it's more fun if you discover them on your own.
A strange creature known as The Greeter made by local artist Morgan Grasham welcomes guests at Meow Wolf's The Real Unreal.
Danny Gallagher
6. The Greeter
This mind-bending creature may be completely still, but it can pop out at you if you're not careful. It all depends on what entrance you're using and where your attention is when it's revealed. That's also part of the fun. You get to enjoy the startling reactions of people who have no idea what they're getting into as you walk through the place.
The Greeter also offers a way to connect some of Meow Wolf's other exhibitions in places like Santa Fe and Denver. Local artist Morgan Grasham built this hairy, friendly beast for the Grapevine location, but other versions of this curious creature seem to inhabit the other Meow Wolf dimensions in different forms and functions. It may just seem like something weird for the sake of being weird, but there's something bigger at play that can connect to all of us.
7. The Janitor's Room
This is just the door to the janitor's room. It took a few seconds for that to sink in since it's toward the back of the place that's filled with hidden passages and doorways. It's worth mentioning though, so it doesn't bog you down. It's just a door to a janitor's room ... maybe.
The Desert Room at Meow Wolf Grapevine has symbolic connections to other Meow Wolf exhibitions in Santa Fe and Denver.
Danny Gallagher
There are so many great clues in this one space that you won't have time to take them all in on one viewing. It's a re-creation of a broken down, single-room trailer with something unusual: anomalies such as a pair of Western-dressed hot dogs enjoying a hot soak in a pot on the stove and a TV that seems to be delivering some kind of message by one of its inhabitants who doesn't have total control over the broadcast signal.
The biggest clue in this place is the radio that sits on a rock on the opposite side of the trailer. The DJ spits out some Welcome to Night Vale-ish announcements that are bound to fill up Meow Wolf's Reddit page with all sorts of theories and breakdowns as to its origins and the places it's pointing you to go.
9. The Lightning Room
The deeper you go through The Real Unreal, the connections and clues to the story get more unusual and less tangible. Everything in the place has something to say, whether or not it's connected to the story, and to evoke some kind of image. The main feeling of The Lightning Room is just dread — pure dread.
The Lightning Room is something you should make time to experience even if you're extremely squeamish and think you can't endure the slightest hint of suspense. The room is some kind of industrial laboratory where anyone can operate the controls. There's a surprise that we don't want to spoil, but the lightning display that plays out on the ceiling and throughout the machine is something that draws out a palpable feeling of unease and trouble. It also has an eerie connection to another room designed and built by another artist — supposedly they weren't working together on the same idea, but came to the same scary conclusion. We've already said too much.
No, this ATM at Meow Wolf does not hand out money. But we hear it's got some other surprises if you know the right code.
Danny Gallagher
One of the charms of all Meow Wolf attractions is how they play out things that seem ordinary in some extraordinary ways, and few pieces fit that description better than this automatic teller.
The ATM is fully interactive — except for the fact that it doesn't spit out any cash, real or otherwise. It's one of the more mesmerizing discoveries when you use it, and we're told that it has another tangible connection to another part of The Real Unreal if you can find the right code to crack its secret. We weren't able to do that, but you might be able to find it if you can keep your eyes, ears and brain peeled.
