Lost in Space-Time -- A D-Ticket Ride
M. Schippling   6/8/2011


The Meow Wolf production at the CCA -- The Due Return -- presents the viewer with a dystopian view of a parallel universe where science has failed to make sense and technology has just plain failed. The survivors of the disaster wander through the debris listening to plaintive sounds while performing meaningless tasks. All in a slightly noxious haze of generated fog.

As an installation it is an over-whelming accretion of material culture. The ephemera collected during the voyage of a huge time/space ship are assemblaged throughout a two story hybrid sea-going vessel. Lights blink, beakers bubble, and control panels look as if they should, but don't. Kurt Schwitters or Joseph Cornell might be proud of their descendants -- or not. A large section of the ship is given over to personalized living compartments and the extra-vehicular space is populated by mysterious life forms. The ship's logs and archives of observations provide a back-story which seems to have been written on a Burroughs office machine. One surmises that the crew have a very alien biology because the rest rooms are off-board and there is no galley.

But it's not an installation. It's a theatrical set. There is a massively complicated history written by the collective and performed by its members. The story owes a lot to Star Trek -- you can play Name That Episode if you like -- but sews the threads into a dizzying quilt. Add the audience as extras in the performance and you have something that could make Julian Beck or Jerzy Grotowski nostalgic for the days of agit-prop. As an entertainment it's pretty swell and, with CCA's five -- make that ten -- finger discount on labor, well worth the price when compared to what Disney might have spent.

Plus there are some really amazing bits.

First, the collaborative social engineering that went into creating a tent big enough to keep over 100 young artists engaged for the time it took to plan, build, and decorate this hulk, on time and within budget.

Second, the fact that niche-consumer products have progressed to the point that all the techno-gim-crackery involved could be conceived, constructed, and more to the point, integrated, at what amounts to break-neck speed.

Third, apparently a small number of the artists are putting the Muņoz Waxman Gallery to good use in providing rent-free accommodation during the most expensive of Santa Fe's seasons.

Also, I did quite like the ship's metal-shielded bow and multi-breasted feline figurehead which presents itself upon entrance to the space, and the ever changing glowing-jelly-fish and alien extruded-telephone-wire creature at the back. Furthermore, I find it interesting that the two installation shows I've seen in this space, this and Thomas Ashcraft's a couple years ago (full -- as they say -- disclosure, I did briefly consult on both), have gone to great lengths to blackout that magical Santa Fe Light coming through the large glass doors at the entrance.

Given that, here in the Other White S.F., there is precious little for the age group most highly represented in this piece's demographic to do, it is a triumph of the Local over Franchise Art. However, the message for our future is somewhat chilling.

If the net result of 60 years of Art's engagement with electronics is a steampunkish -- post-modern technology tarted up in an early-modern corset -- blinking of lights and bleeping of sounds, we might need to reconsider the match. On the other hand, it has only been a few years since that technology has matured to the point that "regular people" can use it, so perhaps MaxMSP and the Arduino are the equivalent of the pre-mixed jars and tubes that democratized Painting. Time may tell.

But more disturbing to me is the 1950's SciFi vision of science. All the signifiers -- save a Jacob's Ladder sparker -- are in place, with none of the significance. If boiling test tubes and miscellaneously labeled bottles are truly what the lay-person believes science is all about we are headed into another dark age.