Omega Mart opens a mysterious interactive world at Area15
Updated February 19, 2021 - 12:08 am

Corvas Brinkerhoff, executive creative director of Meow Wolf Las Vegas, walks through the multisensory installation in the Omega Mart at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. Many of the experiences include collaborations with music artists, like Brian Eno and Beach House. This installation is meant to be a synesthetic experience, meshing the boundaries between sight and sound. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Corvas Brinkerhoff, executive creative director of Meow Wolf Las Vegas, explains a projected desert art installation in another dimension of the Omega Mart at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. In the installation, 10 artists portray space with light projections of paintings to a score by Brian Eno. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

The office space at "DramCorp" within the Omega Mart at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. In this room, participants are able to watch videos and interact with the characters woven throughout the experience. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

The different dimensions are designed to bring viewers through unexpected portals and spur imagination at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. There are no maps for participants. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Slides, tunnels and tactile experiences are included in encounters in Omega Mart at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

In this dimension of the Omega Mart, 10 artists portray altered space with an animated, projected desert, set to a score by Brian Eno, at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Corvas Brinkerhoff, executive creative director of Meow Wolf Las Vegas, walks through the cooler that leads from the Omega Mart grocery store into another dimension at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

The Omega Mart experience begins in a grocery store, where the items are actually for sale, at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Lemonade labeled "vegan goat pus, cruelty-free goat pus alternative," is for sale in the grocery store in the Omega Mart experience at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Throughout the Omega Mart experience, viewers learn about different characters, including this image of Omega Mart founder Walter Dram seen on L'Omega sparkling water cases at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. Some of the flavors of the water include mashed potato and "dispassionfruit." (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Corvas Brinkerhoff, executive creative director of Meow Wolf Las Vegas, shows the first part of the experience at Omega Mart at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. In the immersive art installation, viewers begin in a grocery store before being transported into another dimension. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Corvas Brinkerhoff, executive creative director of Meow Wolf Las Vegas, demonstrates how the "happles" squeak at the grocery store in the Omega Mart experience at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Cleaning supplies are cleverly named in the Omega Mart at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

In the meat market at the Omega Mart, "romantic steak cakes" are for sale at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Bags of chips are actually pillows in the first part of the Omega Mart experience at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Corvas Brinkerhoff, executive creative director of Meow Wolf Las Vegas, explains an interactive experience within the "DramCorp" dimension of Omega Mart at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

A small tunnel leads into "Juke Temple," an immersive room of light and sound based on Wurlitzer jukeboxes and created by artist Carey Thompson, in the Omega Mart experience at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

An installation created by Claudia Bueno, "Pulse," was constructed by stacking ten hand-painted translucent panels and incorporating light design to create a subtle animation in the Omega Mart at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. The piece was inspired by Bueno's trips to Yellowstone National Park. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

A runoff stream of "metaphysical, psychoactive industrial waste" flows through the desert dimension of the Omega Mart experience at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

A runoff stream of "metaphysical, psychoactive industrial waste" flows through the desert dimension of the Omega Mart experience at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Corvas Brinkerhoff, executive creative director of Meow Wolf Las Vegas, shows the first part of the experience at Omega Mart at Area15 on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Las Vegas. In the immersive art installation, viewers begin in a grocery store before being transported into another dimension. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

A couple browses the produce section on opening day at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

For $19.99, customers can purchase "weird dogs," a single leg or "stupidest animals" on opening day at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Customers browse the shelves on opening day at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. The cleverly named items are actually for sale. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Baylie Moncrief demonstrates "Kaleidospice," a spice grinder that's actually a kaleidoscope, on opening day at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Jonate Spiewak, 7, wearing a Fortnite mask, intereacts with the art installation during opening day at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Miguel Pelayo poses for a photo in one of the dimensions at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Viewers of the Omega Mart art installation roam through the desert area on opening day at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

A beauty mirror allows customers to view themselves in a different way inside the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Brian Rogers and Sue Roh laugh at the comedically titled products for sale on opening day at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Food for cats and wolves is for sale in the grocery store at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

James Palmer and Rebecca Alexander debate whether to purchase a "Banana Flask" on opening day at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Heidi Appe of Los Angeles attempts to figure out the mystery behind DramCorp during opening day at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. "I'm just scratching the surface," she said of her progress. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Jamie Morris, a "DART scientist" in one of the dimensions at the Omega Mart, uses a device to read auras on opening day at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Allie Thompson, of Pennsylvania, reacts to one of the slides at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

The grocery store is open for business during opening day at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. All of the products are actually for sale despite their clever branding. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

Opening day at the Omega Mart at Area15 on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt
There is something wrong with this grocery store.
While the products that line Omega Mart’s linoleum floors, produce section and deli counter reveal themselves to be peculiar under even mild scrutiny, the store faces a more pressing problem: The customers keep getting misplaced in other worlds.
At Omega Mart, which opened Thursday, the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based art collective Meow Wolf used the setting of a grocery store to create a story that pushes the bounds of space and reason.
The anchor tenant at Area15 is a 50,000-square-foot immersive experience in which visitors are invited to shop at a market that quickly gives way to an experimental art gallery, an indoor theme park, an escape room or some combination of those elements.
While browsing products such as “Camel’s Dream of Mushroom Sop,” “Emergency Clams” and “Who Told You This Was Butter,” customers must be wary not to reach too far into the beverage refrigerator, or sneak past the PVC curtains at the deli counter, or slip between the shelves of the cereal aisles — as they may find themselves in a different dimension.
“We create experiences that allow people to actively explore and discover,” says Corvas Brinkerhoff, executive creative director of Meow Wolf Las Vegas. “There are no maps. You just wander where your curiosity takes you.”
Visitors may choose to ogle the oddball products on the grocery store shelves and meander through the 60 or so rooms in the labyrinthine world beyond.
Other visitors may discern that the founder of parent company Dramcorp has gone missing. And that the company’s experiments with portal technology and a mysterious additive in its products may have something to do with it. Those visitors may choose to dig through the employee’s computers and filing cabinets for evidence, to ask pointed questions to the HR robots and search for clues within the exhibit’s payphones, video transmissions and anomalies.
Origins
The premise for Omega Mart originated in Santa Fe in 2009, when Meow Wolf artists pooled money for a DIY version that amounted to little more than cinder-block shelves with bottles of colored water.
“We kept coming back to the idea of the grocery store,” says Emily Montoya, cofounder of Meow Wolf and creative director of the grocery store. “It’s a staple of American life, and it has this reality-warping branding. To have a familiar environment as the jumping-off point gets you thinking about what’s around you.”
Meow Wolf’s flagship attraction, the House of Eternal Return, where a family home leads to a multiverse of musical mastodon skeletons and ultraviolet forests, was drawing 500,000 visitors a year before it was shuttered because of the pandemic.
COVID-19 has necessitated modifications to the Omega Mart experience.
Otherworldly spaces like a desertscape with psychedelically swirling walls and dark corridors that pulse with synchronized light are grounded with hand sanitizer dispensers at either end.
An interactive mirror that uses facial recognition comes with a small paddle imprinted with a nose and mouth, to skirt around a face mask’s obstruction.
COVID-19 protocols have meant some artists, like Carey Thompson, who used light, sound and sculpture to create a walk-through Wurlitzer jukebox, had to trust his exhibit to be installed over Zoom.
“I wanted to build something large and immersive and full of light and color and motion,” Thompson says of his Juke Temple. “They approached me to submit a proposal. And they gave me creative freedom to fuse this futuristic tech with an ancient temple.”
Senior creative producer Marsi Gray says Meow Wolf’s practice is not just to empower artists to create what they want to, but to push them further.
“One artist proposed creating an interactive robot,” Gray says. “We weren’t planning on having any robot before that. I said, “Why don’t you make two?’ ”
Uniquely Las Vegas
In 2017, Las Vegas artist, Spencer Olsen created a two-dimensional wormhole as part of the Meow Wolf-supported Art Motel at the Life is Beautiful festival.
Olsen, now a creative director for Omega Mart, expanded the idea, incorporating the bold design and graphic lighting from the first iteration but replacing the matte black wormhole at the center with a dark tube slide that leads … somewhere.
“A lot of the process is in meeting rooms and playing pretend with friends,” Olsen says. “Now it’s like having my imagination on the outside.”
More than 325 artists, from Las Vegas and abroad, collaborated on Omega Mart.
“In the last four or five months, we brought in all the local artists we knew to do the final stage,” Olsen says. “A lot of the contracted things looked nice — too nice. We wanted texture and artists’ hands on everything.”
A leap forward
Brinkerhoff considers the blend of media within Omega Mart to be a generational leap in storytelling.
“There isn’t just one storyline to uncover,” he says. “ It’s like an open-world video game. This is about exploration.”
Some of the spaces to explore can be accessed only by crawling through a tunnel or scaling a rock facade or sliding headfirst down a portal.
“We found that if we can get people to crawl or climb or get their body into different physical modes, we can open up their minds,” he says.
Brinkerhoff acknowledges the unlikelihood that a group of “artists and weirdos” from Santa Fe would have the opportunity to create something like Omega Mart.
“I hope people walk away feeling like, if we can do this, then you can do anything you might dream of.”
Contact Janna Karel at jkarel@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jannainprogress on Twitter.