{"id":2424722,"date":"2026-05-20T13:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T13:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2424722"},"modified":"2026-05-20T13:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T13:05:10","slug":"heres-what-we-know-about-everything-is-terribles-new-meow-wolf-l-a-installation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/heres-what-we-know-about-everything-is-terribles-new-meow-wolf-l-a-installation\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s what we know about Everything Is Terrible\u2019s new Meow Wolf L.A. installation"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

When Meow Wolf\u2019s Los Angeles location opens later this year, one of its biggest residents will be a 20-foot-tall, 1,000-pound amoeba-like creature named WoWoW.<\/p>\n

Created by the L.A.-based multimedia collective Everything Is Terrible, WoWoW is alternately described as a \u201ccosmic entity\u201d and a \u201ccartoony, root vegetable floating alien god.\u201d The multi-eyed organism will serve as the centerpiece of \u201cthe N.E.S.T.,\u201d an EIT-designed section of Meow Wolf\u2019s new 26,000-square-foot immersive exhibition space.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/picture>\n
\n

In-progress detail of Everything Is Terrible\u2019s WoWoW sculpture for the forthcoming Meow Wolf Los Angeles, shown with multi-color eye lighting.<\/p>\n

(Photo by Allyson Lupovich \/ Meow Wolf)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

That acronym has yet to be explained, and is cloaked in Meow Wolf\u2019s intentionally mysterious messaging about its latest incarnation, which is set in an old Cinemark movie theater in West L.A. and will tackle the ephemeral joys and hardships of Hollywood\u2019s dream factory. The L.A. location will be the Santa Fe, N.M.-based immersive art and entertainment company\u2019s fifth outpost after Denver, Las Vegas, Houston and the Dallas suburbs.<\/p>\n

The L.A. space boasts 45 local collaborating artists including Gabriela Ruiz, David Altmejd and more. Each is building their own unique installation featuring a variety of sculptures, dioramas and new media.<\/p>\n

Everything Is Terrible is one of Meow Wolf\u2019s most prolific partners, creating a variety of psychedelic characters for various installations over the years. The collective dreamed up the N.E.S.T. about two years ago as a way of paying tribute to maximalist roadside attractions like Wisconsin\u2019s House on the Rock or New Mexico\u2019s Tinkertown Museum. It also tells the story of the Noothies, a made-up community of former below-the-line film workers who stumbled upon a god \u2014 and a hidden truth about the nature of reality.<\/p>\n

The installation presents a paradox by being a Hollywood idea that is completely un-Hollywood. It may wink at the industry\u2019s unseen heroes, but who can afford to make art for art\u2019s sake in the entertainment industry anymore? That seeming contradiction makes it a very Everything Is Terrible idea.<\/p>\n

Founded nearly 20 years ago by a group of friends who met at Ohio University, Everything Is Terrible was launched as a found-footage website that created wild and singular art pieces using thrifted VHS tapes. It found viral success with videos about cat massage, and a dancing dinosaur who warns kids about the dangers of pedophilia, as well as its lauded quest to amass as many VHS copies of \u201cJerry Maguire\u201d <\/i>as humanly possible. (The group has about 45,000 at the moment, all stuffed in boxes and waiting to be unleashed on the world \u2014 perhaps as a pyramid in the desert or maybe featured in some sort of coffee table book.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our outlook on life has become, \u2018look at the worlds that these people created,\u2019\u201d says EIT co-founder Dimitri Simakis. \u201cNo one asked them to do this. Someone just wanted to do a kids puppet show in some garage in North Carolina and now they\u2019ve created a simulacra.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s also what the collective is doing with its Meow Wolf exhibit, adds Nic Maier, another EIT member. \u201cIt\u2019s what we\u2019ve done for the last 20 years, really. We\u2019re just a bunch of kooks who got together to obsessively make things in celebration of life and in appreciation of each other\u2019s time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The marriage of Everything Is Terrible and Meow Wolf is a match made in heaven. The groups first met in 2009, bonded by a shared commitment to interactive art experiences that twist reality using an ornate handmade aesthetic.<\/p>\n

A few years later, Maier was hired to work on what would become Meow Wolf\u2019s first large-scale installation, Santa Fe\u2019s \u201cHouse of Eternal Return.\u201d As he spent hours sculpting large, foam trees for the group, he says he fell in love.<\/p>\n

\n
\"A <\/picture>\n
\n

A mystical, neon-colored forest in Meow Wolf\u2019s Santa Fe, N.M., exhibition, \u201cThe House of Eternal Return.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Meow Wolf)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

\u201cWe always joke that ever since then, EIT has been a barnacle on the side of the Meow Wolf ship, just hanging on but also occasionally hopping in to contribute,\u201d Maier says.<\/p>\n

When Meow Wolf announced it was opening two new spaces, in Las Vegas and Denver, it called on EIT for ideas. Simakis and Maier threw out a few pitches for Denver and one landed: a McDonald\u2019s-like retro freak-out known as Pizza Pals Play Zone, which went on to become one of the attraction\u2019s most talked about, photographed and beloved spaces.<\/p>\n

\u201cPizza Pals Play Zone is super character dense,\u201d says Han Sayles, Meow Wolf\u2019s director of artist collaboration. \u201cIt\u2019s just one of those spaces that feels <\/i>like Meow Wolf. There\u2019s hundreds of different pieces of media framed all around, featuring all of these different characters they created. They even made a bible \u2026 that had the narrative backstory of every single character and every deliverable they wanted for that room.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"An <\/picture>\n
\n

Pizza Pals Playzone, created by Everything Is Terrible, at Meow Wolf\u2019s Convergence Station in Denver.<\/p>\n

(Jess Gallo \/ Meow Wolf)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

When Meow Wolf\u2019s Los Angeles project became a possibility, Sayles says Everything Is Terrible was one of the first groups she pitched as a potential contributor. EIT ended up being offered a custom project, in which the group used Meow Wolf\u2019s extensive production facilities and resources to create their vision for the space, weighing in on everything from the shape of their room to the merch it might inspire in the Meow Wolf gift shop.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a super trusting relationship with them,\u201d Sayles says. \u201cWe recruited them as partners and negotiated a deal without knowing what they were going to put in the room. Both Nic and Dimitri have such a beautiful, strong sense of the exact genre of whimsy that we go for and they always deliver super deeply, so we knew it would be amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sayles says she also thought the group\u2019s experience of Los Angeles would lend itself well to the overall theme of the venue. Shakti Howeth, a creative director at Meow Wolf, agrees, saying that while Meow Wolf attractions are typically pretty otherworldly, they\u2019re always built around an overarching story<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Meow <\/picture>\n
\n

At Meow Wolf\u2019s \u201cOmega Mart,\u201d in Las Vegas, guests first enter a satiric take on a grocery store, where portals lead to otherworldly art exhibitions. <\/p>\n

(Christopher DeVargas \/ Meow Wolf)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

The N.E.S.T., Howeth teases, will relate to some of the L.A. attraction\u2019s character groups and themes, as well as its overall story. How audiences first encounter WoWoW and the N.E.S.T. will depend on which door they use to enter the room. From there, the points of visual interest will compound upon each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just incorporating all the things we love,\u201d says Maier, noting that includes roadside attractions, folk art and anything \u201coutsider.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt involves everything from the importance of dirt and worms to video games to experimental film to worker uprisings to entering literal other dimensions where you can meet what might be God, all within a [553]-square-foot space,\u201d Simakis adds. \u201cThere have been times when we\u2019ve been in the N.E.S.T. and thought we crammed in too much … but then you realize it has to be like that, because we\u2019re trying to tell the whole story of the universe in just that room.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, Maier spent much of the last two years building 45 beautifully weird costumes for the attraction, only two of which will be physically in the N.E.S.T. The other 43, he explains, are there for \u201cworld-building\u201d and to make the story feel lived in. Everything in the space will have been created by Everything Is Terrible and Meow Wolf, including what seems like real found footage.<\/p>\n

Simakis calls the group\u2019s vision for the space \u201cunrelenting joy mixed with benevolent chaos,\u201d as well as \u201ca beautiful folk art museum that\u2019s also a space rave.\u201d He likens what the group is doing to \u201cbuilding a puzzle out of thousands of other puzzles, gluing it together to make a new thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like we\u2019re making a movie that\u2019s not a movie,\u201d Simakis adds. \u201cIt\u2019s a video game. It\u2019s a living space. It\u2019s all of these things, but you get to walk around in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s confusing, it\u2019s because it\u2019s meant to be \u2014 at least a little. How each visitor absorbs or receives the space will be entirely up to them. And while that could be a bit terrifying for some artists, to pour everything into a piece only to have the public possibly misinterpret or even ignore it, Maier and Simakis say they\u2019re open to whatever comes.<\/p>\n

\u201cMillions of people are going to potentially walk through our space, so it has to be really special,\u201d Simakis says. \u201cWe\u2019ve also thought about all the different ways people could enjoy it, whether they\u2019re a baby or a stoner or someone who\u2019s just really into immersive entertainment or escape rooms. Even if you just go to take selfies, great. We\u2019re pro-that. But also, if you want to keep going back or you want to spend hours there, I promise we\u2019ve made it worth your while.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meow Wolf L.A. opens later this year. You can catch both Meow Wolf and Everything Is Terrible in the <\/i>Los Angeles County Museum of Art\u2019s Art Parade on June 20<\/i><\/a>, marching in some of Maier\u2019s 45 costumes from the N.E.S.T.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Meow Wolf\u2019s Los Angeles location opens later this year, one of its biggest residents will be a 20-foot-tall, 1,000-pound amoeba-like creature named WoWoW. Created by the L.A.-based multimedia collective Everything Is Terrible, WoWoW is alternately described as a \u201ccosmic entity\u201d and a \u201ccartoony, root vegetable floating alien god.\u201d The multi-eyed organism will serve as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2424723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2424722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Heres-what-we-know-about-Everything-Is-Terribles-new-Meow.com2F532Fb42F753c6321481c8d278c54d77a-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2424722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2424722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2424722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2424724,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2424722\/revisions\/2424724"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2424723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2424722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2424722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2424722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}