Get Surreal: Our 3 Favorite Immersive Exhibits in Texas
Over the last few years, the average date night, group outing, and family field trip has evolved from traditional excursions at art museums and movie theaters to much more interactive experiences, such as escape rooms and indoor skydiving. The latest in this trend: permanent immersive art exhibits.
Immersive exhibits are multisensory, digital-meets-reality art pieces that guests can get hands-on with while admiring. They’re created and presented by artist collectives who bring things such as hologram houses, artificial intelligence aliens, and whole other worlds to life.
Here are our three favorite immersive exhibits in Texas.
Hopscotch, San Antonio
Hopscotch, in downtown San Antonio’s Travis Park Plaza, is a 20,000-square-foot gallery that’s home to more than a dozen interactive, immersive exhibits dreamed up by artists from all around the world (many of whom are homegrown San Antonians). It’s hard to describe some of the installations at Hopscotch — there’s a laser graffiti wall, a neon-rainbow ball pit for adults, and something called a “quantum trampoline” that responds to your bounces with a light show. Perhaps the most famous exhibit at Hopscotch, however, is a room called “Secrets,” where guests can whisper secrets in an old-fashioned telephone booth and listen to other anonymous secrets that have been revealed there before.
Meow Wolf’s “The Real Unreal”, Grapevine
Originating in Santa Fe, Meow Wolf is a group of artists with six permanent immersive art museums around the Southwest, including one in Houston and one in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The latter museum — in Grapevine, just north of DFW International Airport — is called “The Real Unreal,” and is essentially a giant, surreal fun house. Their most buzzed-about exhibit is a life-size suburban house, which guests can explore at their leisure. At first glance, it’s nothing more than an opportunity to snoop into the private lives of the fictional family who “lives” there (read their diaries, go through their fridge, etc.), but look deeper into the home and you’ll find yourself drawn into a supernatural storyline that’s unfolding right under your nose.
Seismique, Houston
Just west of Houston and north of Sugar Land is Seismique, a 40,000-square-foot immersive art museum filled with more than 40 galleries (or “galaxies,” as they call them) filled with tech-y, mind-bending permanent exhibits. The museum’s displays are the product of love by more than 60 artists who used 9 million LED lights and more than 100 projectors to create extraterrestrial experiences, holograms, and AI-fueled games. Seismique also hosts field trips for K-12 students looking to learn about how art can blend with science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) studies.
Continue your interactive and educational fun at our 10 favorite science museums in Texas.
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