Tonight my housemate and went down to Convergence Station in Denver. I have been aware that it’s a place that exists because, hilariously enough, I spent two days testing the subgrade and asphalt in the north parking lot when they were building it. It was one of the few places where the site super made me do an extra safety orientation even though I wasn’t going to be anywhere near the building. All I got told then was that it was “some kind of art installation.” And something about Meow Wolf being an artist collective. (Which is not quite true. An arts production company is not the same as a collective.)
Anyway, calling it an art installation doesn’t do it justice. I’ve also heard it framed as “like the Children’s Museum, but for adults.” Which is closer, because there are a zillion things that you can interact with, buttons to push and phones to pick up and dial and listen to various messages, even spaces to crawl into if you have better knees than I do.
What I wasn’t expecting was the story that came with it. There’s a whole sci-fi tale about the multiverse and memory sharing and a bad scientist who wants to enforce world peace by basically removing everyone’s memories… and I can’t even tell you the whole thing at this point. Because the part that grabbed me the most is this story is lore based, which means you wander through the installation and read little tidbits here and there (or occasionally remember phone numbers from different areas and then try to call them on one of the phones) and build more questions on the answer, which take you toward… something I haven’t figured out yet. This is exactly the kind of fictional primary source plus vignette catnip that’s made me such a dedicated follower of Destiny‘s lore. And both work because there’s a solid emotional story with a lot of mystery and space to theorize and enough bread crumbs to keep you following along.
Well played, Meow Wolf.
This first trip was about two hours, which was definitely not long enough to see everything. I also don’t think this is the kind of place where you should even try to see everything at once. It’s something that wants multiple trips, and slower explanation, and noticing new things every time you go to keep building the story in your mind.
Also if you’re me, about two hours is also all you’ve got into you before it’s total sensory overload and you go from THIS IS SO COOL to please there is too much noise and too many flashing lights just let me out of here.
This is also the most people I’ve been around in two years of the pandemic, and that probably contributed to my overload and rising claustrophobia level. I’ve never done that well with crowds, but what constitutes a “crowd” for my has apparently gotten a lot smaller these days. The only reason I was even willing to give it a whirl was that I had an N95 to wear, but it’s not something I’d feel comfortable doing again soon.
Which is a shame because I wanna go look at everything again. And I want to take all my friends so we can look through things and all find different tidbits to share with each other.
Soon, I hope. Soon.
