Immersive Review Rundown: The Watchword Is ‘Whimsy’

You’d think it would be hard to find a thematic link between an art installation about public restrooms in NYC, a park puzzle hunt in Toronto, and the latest courses for our favorite VR mini golf game. Yet there it is, in all it’s quirky glory: whimsy.

Sometimes you just gotta mainline some, and that’s exactly what we do this week on the Rundown.

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Hughmans — Hugh Hayden at Lisson Gallery on 24th Street
Free; New York, NY; Run concluded

Hugh Hayden’s punnily named Hughmans installation is an absurd and playful take on privacy, interiority, and … bathrooms.

Throughout the Lisson Gallery exhibition room, Hayden installed about a dozen different metal bathroom stall doors each hiding its own delightfully strange work of art — everything from a wooden skeleton with a plunger for a hand to a series of cooking instruments fused with musical instruments to a basketball hoop with a woven basket for a net.

It’s a brilliant yet simple format, one that encourages constant discovery and subversion of expectation. Guests run around opening stalls to reveal the oddity behind the closed doors. It reminded me a lot of the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride’s Trick or Treat haunt experience over the years.

To paraphrase one fellow visitor, the installation fascinatingly subverts the very idea of the bathroom: Guests are encouraged to barge in on occupied stalls.

This playful reimagining turns one of the most private spaces public. Yet, not too public. Two of the stalls (one hosting a pair of shoes crafted out of tree bark and one seemingly empty) are permanently locked.

Juxtaposed with the other works, these two stalls both showcase interiority and remind the guests that all of the stalls also have functioning locks. At any moment, viewers can close the doors and privately view the pieces, if they so desire.

This lock comes in handy for one of the more absurdly interactive stalls in the exhibit, which features working urinals, sinks, soap, and what appeared to be recently used damp towels. Right next to the other works. When I asked the gallery assistant whether or not patrons have interacted with these pieces in the past, she cheerfully responded, “The artist encourages it.”

Whether or not I joined that list is between me, God, and the gallery security camera I thought to look for just a bit too late.

This artistic decision — as crass as it may seem — to install a fully functioning bathroom and to test whether or not patrons will interact with that bathroom in an exhibition about bathrooms is perhaps the most wonderfully absurd and necessary piece in this entire fever dream.

With Hughmans, Hayden has out Duchamped Duchamp.

— Alec Zbornak, NYC Correspondent

The Hunt for the Brightwing Butterfly — Lockwood Immersive
$39.67 CAD; Toronto, Canada; Until September 8

After years of searching, Sir Charles Lockwood has finally found evidence that the fabled Brightwing Butterfly exists. Thus, armed with his research notes, some strange clues, and the ClueKeeper mobile app, we raced against our follow research associates with the hopes of earning a “co-author” credit on Lockwood’s upcoming paper.

The Hunt for the Brightwing Butterly, Lockwood Immersive’s debut creation, is an outdoor puzzle hunt that makes excellent use of High Park — Toronto’s largest park. Puzzles cleverly incorporated the space’s unique structures (including a labyrinth, plaques, statues, and the iconic floral maple leaf display), as well as some temporary puzzle pieces strategically camouflaged to fit the setting. At 400 acres, High Park is a sizable space, and my team did a fair bit of walking over our 2.5hrs of puzzling — albeit, a bit more than we were supposed to, due to some inefficient navigation on our end! Though I’ve lived in Toronto for almost a decade now, I’m not as familiar with High Park’s pathways and landmarks as I should be. Though this did put me at a slight disadvantage during the hunt, it was also an excellent way to finally explore the space!

As always, the stars of any puzzle hunt are the puzzles themselves. In this case, they were well-desiged, in-theme, and with a solid peppering of satisfying “Aha!” moments throughout. We did struggle with two puzzles — one which we ended up (accidentally) brute forcing, and another that I suspect would have been easier had the gated entrance that would have let us closer to a statue not been locked. However, Sir Charles Lockwood himself offered advice to any especially stumped researches along the way, which coupled with an accessible clue system, ensured participants wouldn’t stay stuck on a single puzzle for too long.

Lockwood Immersive’s debut offering is a strong entry with a charming narrative, well utilized setting, and a solid serving of surprise and delight. After much exploration in High Park, I can confirm that the brightwing butterfly does in fact exist. For those of you in the Toronto-area, don’t just take my word for it — gather your fellow researchers and go discover it for yourself!

— Katrina Lat, Toronto Curator

Walkabout Mini Golf: Wallace & Gromit — Mighty Coconut
$3.99 DLC, Meta Quest & Steam VR

“Holy Cheese!”

That wasn’t exactly what I shouted when I first teleported in front of 62 West Wallaby Street, the site of the latest expansion for Walkabout Mini Golf, but it was something very, very close.

Like the Meow Wolf collaboration before it, this effort sees two studios with a mind for mischief and whimsy teaming up to make an exceedingly clever bit of entertainment. Yet I’d had questions, big questions, about how the Walkabout look — hard polygons that make for worlds that feel made up of handcuffs blocks — was going to mesh Aardman’s claymation vibe of soft curves.

The solution, aside from amping up the number of polygons to realize our title characters, was to nail the animation frame rate. The effect is that it feels like one is standing in front of Wallace or Gromit, while viewing them through a “Walkabout” filter. It was almost a shock — another “Holy Cheese” moment, if you will — but one that drew me further into the vibe as opposed to pushing me out.

On sheer aesthetics alone, unless you’re someone who despises Wallace & Gromit (I suppose every kind of person exists) this set is worth picking up.

As for the courses themselves: either the initial 18 are one of the easier sets or I’ve gotten a hell of a lot better at mini golf while I wasn’t looking.

In my first run I finished just one above par, and I would have finished below par and unlocked the alternate course if not for some deliberately cheesy trick holes that only make sense once you’ve played through them once. Part of me thinks the course is split between relatively easy skill shots and frustratingly random contraptions. That said: I got a hole in one multiple times, something that is not a usual occurrence for me.

As befits both Mighty Coconut and Aardman the more Rube Goldberg-esque holes are exquisite, and invite one to marvel at the construction. The course may not be broad, but the level of detail is enthralling and some of the surprises quite surprising indeed.

As always, Mighty Coconut is generous, requiring only one player to own a course in order to host a round with friends. Which means that someone in your Walkabout circle has a duty to pick it up, although at $3.99 for the DLC, we can all toss Mighty Coconut a few bones. If somehow you have a VR set and haven’t picked up Walkabout proper yet this is a great excuse to jump in.

— Noah Nelson, Publisher & Podcast Host

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