Anyone familiar with the art punks-turned-entrepreneurs at Meow Wolf know that Kaleidoscape was always going to be weird.
The amusement-park ride, which opens to the public at Elitch Gardens on April 20, repurposes Elitch’s roughly 20-year-old Ghost Blasters II — an indoor cart-on-rails experience (or “dark ride,” as they’re called in the industry) — into a hallucinogenic gallery of densely packed, neon-spiked art.
But instead of having to stroll that gallery, wait for Meow Wolf’s 90,000-square-foot Denver outpost (tentatively opening late next year), or visit the art collective’s House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe, the art comes to you.
“Elitch Gardens approached us because they were ready to do something different with the space,” said Jenny Weinbloom, executive producer of Kaleidoscape and the upcoming Denver exhibition. “What made it feel like such a great fit is that we’re best at working with salvaged materials, so when we inherited the facility there were all kinds of crazy items to use in creative ways.”
Riders are introduced to Kaleidoscape’s self-consciously ridiculous, cosmic theme while waiting in line. An animatronic figure resembling the skinless C-3PO from “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace” whirs next to a “training video” from the Quantum Department of Transportation.
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There’s a story about shooting an egg with the laser tag-like Conglomatrons (a.k.a. cleverly repurposed, green plastic “guns” from the previous ride) and some other nonsense. But really, it’s an excuse to be carted through arguably the most surreal three minutes of theme-park imagery you’ll ever see.
“We pulled out about 50 of the hydraulics from (Ghost Blasters II) and worked on them,” said Matt King, a co-founder of Meow Wolf and co-creative director of Kaleidoscape. “It was a really exciting opportunity to be able to come in, strip everything out and reimagine it. We definitely let the materials on-hand guide what the final product was going to be.”
That’s been one of Meow Wolf’s guiding principles since it launched in 2008, and with the smell of paint and freshly cut wood infusing the space, it’s clear technicians and artists were working up until the last minute on these particle board surfaces, LED arrays, pastel animal heads and other elements that give Kaleidospace its busy, eclectic feel.
In advance of its opening weekend April 13-14 (for season-pass holders), Elitch and Meow Wolf staffers invited media and 50 members of the public to test the ride starting early Friday morning. After sitting down in one of the retrofitted cars, riders are pushed through double doors into a dark space where blasts of smoke set a disorienting tone.
Each room sports its own loose theme, courtesy of the half-dozen Denver artists recruited by Meow Wolf. An unobtrusive but insistent electronic soundtrack guides riders past pink-and-black geometric mountains and volcanoes that act like 3D, mechanical sculptures inspired by a 1980s video game. Like a lot of vaporwave culture, as it’s often called, it’s part “Miami Vice,” part “Blade Runner” and all delightfully, knowingly retro.
Riders are invited to make connections to alien worlds, akin to the black-lit psychedelic forests in James Cameron’s “Avatar,” with other scenes reminiscent of stop-motion animation (think Peter Gabriel’s immortal “Sledgehammer” video), “H.R. Pufnstuf” and children’s storybooks. Chairs break seemingly in mid-air, boxes tumble but stop just short of falling over, and tunnels of light stream by slowly enough to leave an impression, but too quickly to allow for full absorption.
“It’s all about creating containers that can be flexible enough to hold as many aesthetics and points of view as possible,” said Emily Montoya, another Meow Wolf co-founder and co-creative director of Kaleidoscape. “We wanted to have a story arc going through it, but within that have infinite variety to the landscape and color and sound, with maximum density at every turn.”
If that sounds a bit much, it is. And that’s the idea, Montoya said. House of Eternal Return, which has been a hugely popular tourist attraction since opening in Santa Fe just over two years ago, keeps bringing people back because there’s only so much the mind can take in on a single visit. The same is true of Kaleidoscape, even if it’s a much shorter, self-contained experience.
“It’s more singular because you’re traveling on a track and can’t choose your own path like you can (in Santa Fe), but we still wanted to make it the kind of ride you have to go on multiple times to appreciate everything,” Montoya said.
Neither Meow Wolf nor Elitch Gardens were willing to disclose the project’s budget, but their partnership is mutually beneficial. Elitch’s, which faces an uncertain long-term future as developers look to transform its Platte River-adjacent location into sleek, high-rise River Mile condos in the next decade or two, gets a temporary yet buzzed-about branding boost. And Meow Wolf gets to bolster its community-relations efforts in Denver by planting another freak flag in the heart of the city.
Meow Wolf’s Weinbloom touts the ride as the first of its kind, and with most theme parks leaning on established intellectual property from comic books, cartoons and movies, she’s likely right.
“I feel like it takes courage to come to a group of artists like ourselves and say, ‘Here’s an opportunity to do an artist-driven ride,’ which is unprecedented in the amusement park world,” King added. “They’re the ones responsible for their customers, but whether it’s a hit or miss, that’s back on us, too.”
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