Sensory Experiences of Museums: How Museums and Artists can Learn from Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart
Essay , April 25, 2026
Upon viewing Alphabet by Good Humor, many people’s first impulse or desire might be to touch it. The sculpture, made of painted fiberglass and bronze, has an appearance similar to silly putty. Though one’s first impulse might be to explore the sculpture’s physical dimension, there is a black stanchion rope barrier about five feet away surrounding the statue, keeping visitors at bay. Something I’ve often noticed in my visits to museums is a juxtaposition between exhibits and their surroundings. The surroundings of paintings and sculptures, as well as a viewer’s position to them, changes the viewer’s experience. There’s incredible variety in how different curators might set up an exhibit, especially if there is no artist intervention involved. (Lenz, 2026) Visitors might interpret a piece drastically differently than the artist’s intention because of how it is set up in relation to the other pieces surrounding it, as well as their own schemas and prior experiences. (Falk & Dierking, 2013) This paper explores how museum exhibitions structure visitor experience through physical distance, sensory restriction, and spatial design. It asks how these practices developed historically and what might change if museums took inspiration from immersive, visitor-centered environments.
Past Interpretations
In her article Embodiment in the Museum – What is a Museum? Harris discusses how the separation of the mind and the body has impacted both viewer experience as well as the definitions of museums as a whole. She begins with discussing the history of museums as private collections open only to select few visitors. Harris discusses how visitors were often allowed to touch different artefacts on display despite their knowledge that it may harm or damage the artefacts. Harris states that in the 19th century, the idea of museums shifted. Rather than being small, intimate, private collections, they shifted to be “transparent, container-like space in which artefacts and interpretation were displayed.” There was no connection between the exhibits, the exhibit space, and the visitors. Alongside the museums themselves physically changing, the way that visitors were expected to interact with museums changed as well.
In the 17th century, René Descartes published Meditations on First Philosophy, a philosophical treatise made up of six different philosophical meditations. In this book, he argues for the concept of mind-body dualism. Descartes is widely credited to be the first popular western philosopher to discuss the idea of the mind and the body being separate. As this philosophy became popular, the nature of how people in the west interacted with museums changed as well. She quotes Descartes’ writing on detached observation:
“fixing… eyes on a single
point, to acquire through practice the ability to make perfect
distinctions between things, however minute and delicate”
(Descartes, 1637-1701 / 1985, quoted by Harris,)
In this context and philosophy, it is necessary to separate from your body in order to properly comprehend and understand. Descartes discusses that things viewed with our eyes are then only understood by our minds. This way of viewing things hoists up ocular viewing of artefacts and items and almost discards other ways of interacting with the world. The 2012 book Museum Bodies: The Politics and Practices of Visiting and Viewing by Helen Rees Leahy discusses the ways in which museums hold social authority and etiquette over their visitors. In the introduction, she discusses a direct guide for museum-going from 1832, which included three specific rules: Touch Nothing, Do not talk loud, and be not obtrusive. She describes the end of the article as stating, “real knowledge’, as opposed to ‘the gratification of passing curiosity’, can only be obtained through ‘self-discipline of the body as well as the mind’” (Helen Rees Leahy, 2016) In this way, it becomes apparent that visitors are/were not only thought to be disembodied, ocular focused, thinking creatures, but their bodies were also thought to be a problem for curators. In a museum, curators have to think of ways to keep their artefacts, art pieces, animals, etc. safe from visitors. A large amount of variety of sensory experience tends to be lost in these exhibits.
Current Interpretations
At present, the role and position of museums is up for much debate. Harrison claims that the current ICOMs definition of museums and how it is incongruous to current pedagogical practice and theory. The International Council of Museums defines a museum as:
“a not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing.”
She points out that in this definition, museums are separate from visitors. They are disembodied, detached vectors for information. In this definition, there is no discussion of visitor experience at all. There is the vague suggestion of “communities,” but no actual elaboration on what that means. While the definition states “knowledge sharing” as something museums offer, its lack of inclusion of visitor experience implies that the museum is the one sharing the knowledge to its visitors.
As museum culture and pedagogy has shifted alongside post-modernist ideas of philosophy and art, museums have also begun to shift away from the purely mental idea of a visitor. In her book Museum Theory, Andrea Witcomb coined the term “pedagogy of feeling” to describe contemporary museum strategies that invite visitors to engage with museum exhibits in an embodied and sensory way. (Tzortzi, 2017) She introduces a technique she calls “parataxis,” which originates from poetry. In the article Museum architectures for embodied experience, Tzortzi describes this technique as “the juxtaposition of objects without specific narrative, resulting in the ‘prioritising of experience over abstract forms of reasoning.” This is paired with Mark Salber Phillips’ discussion of the term “affective distance.” Affective distance describes the emotional distance viewers feel from objects of the past. He argues that in order to lighten the distance and detachment visitors might feel from the past and increase affective engagement, contemporary museums should take inspiration from “evocative and immersive displays of contemporary museums that aim to provide ‘a visually immediate sense of the past.’”
Alongside pedagogical shifts regarding how exhibits are set up to engage with viewers embodied emotional and sensory experiences, physical museum exhibits have also begun to explore more sensory ways of demonstrating information and displaying artefacts. For example, the Soundscapes exhibition at the National Gallery was an immersive exhibit in which the museum commissioned six different sound artists, ranging from an “Oscar-winning film composer” to a “DJ, music producer, and member of a Mercury Prize-winning band” to “one of the world's leading recorders of wildlife and natural phenomena.” (The National Gallery, 2016) The artists each chose a painting from the gallery to create sound or musical responses to accompany viewing of the paintings. Tzortzi describes several other examples of sensory integrative experiences and exhibits in museums across the world. She describes the similarities between many of these exhibits, stating that each are works designed to be experienced in “single enclosed spaces,” as well as having one opening and being primarily in closed, visually insulated, dark rooms. Many of these exhibits also “take the form of display spaces linked to a corridor or a mediating space.” Specifically, these exhibit spaces are often referred to as “black box” rooms.
Case Study: Meow Wolf Las Vegas' Omega Mart
Originally, I was curious to learn more about the process in which museum curators physically designed their exhibits to appeal and engage visitors, but as I researched more and reflected upon my own experiences with interesting and engaging museum spaces, I began to reflect on my own experiences with distinctly un-museum spaces. In this, I began to ask two specific questions to guide the rest of my research: How would incorporating more embodied, interactive exhibition strategies change the physical presentation of museum exhibits, and how might these changes affect the culture and educational role of art museums?
In particular, I thought about my memories of visiting Las Vegas for my 21st birthday. While I was there, I constantly was engaged with tourist attractions, art exhibits, and “educational” entertainment events. As the definition of what constitutes a museum remains in contention, I questioned why a particular experience did not fall under any real institutionally backed definition of an art museum. While I was in Las Vegas, I got the chance to visit Area 15 with one of my closest. Area 15 describes itself as “the world’s leading immersive entertainment destination.” (“AREA15 | Immersive Entertainment & Events District in Vegas,” n.d.) The physical space of Area 15 is incredibly dependent on viewers' physical, sensory, and emotional experiences. Every exhibit focused on engaging viewers in this way. It was almost the opposite from the solely cognitive engagement of museums. The museum’s physical appearance takes inspiration from the Hollywood interpretation of Vegas’s Area 51. Visitors enter a huge, dark warehouse with neon lights and attractions throughout. Inside are several huge art installations, though the one this paper will focus on is Meow Wolf’s Las Vegas Omega Mart.
Meow Wolf describes themselves as an “arts production company that creates immersive, multimedia experiences that transport audiences of all ages into fantastic realms.” (Meow Wolf, n.d.) Their permanent installation inside of Area 15, Omega Mart, opened February 18, 2021. It is 52,000 square feet and had over 300 artists contributing to its creation. (Sheckells & Sheckells, 2021) The exhibit is described as an alternate reality game, and it has 6-10 hours worth of story content to explore. It’s a huge, dense project full of a myriad of different rooms, environments, and interactable experiences. (Barnhart, 2021) In essence, Omega Mart is the ultimate interactive art exhibition. It has something for everyone of almost all ages, much like the intended spirit of many museums. There are spaces to crawl through, puzzles to figure out, corridors to wander, and an impressively detailed story for visitors to explore. The main exhibit is a satirization of America’s consumerism culture and supermarkets in general. The website also describes activities guests may find themselves engaging in with “Guests to Omega Mart may shop for one-of-a-kind products, contribute their human element to the factory production process, and explore the ruins of an alien world.” (Meow Wolf, n.d.)
Much like a video game, Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart requires visitor interaction to function. Without visitors, it would just be another blank, container-like space in which weird art like “gender fluid” or turnips with arms and legs were displayed. Effectively, the story would cease to exist without anyone to tell it to. There would be no need for tubes to crawl through, or slides to different areas. There would be no need for doors leading deeper and deeper, or an interior design that leads visitors to get lost. There would be no need for a morse code puzzle coming through an old rotary phone, or for the painstaking details of a character’s childhood family photo in her home. One has to wonder if this same thing can be said for typical art museums, which exist to house art, but not to inhabit it.
If museums incorporated more interactive and sensory exhibits, they would need to create art as well as display it. If a museum wanted to display themes of surrealism, for example, in a way that interacts with multiple of the visitors’ senses and physical affections, they would not just place surrealist paintings in a blank white canvas of a room, they would design the room to inhabit surrealism. They could take inspiration from different surrealist artists to craft these spaces. These changes would absolutely affect the culture of museums. The role of museums in our society is already in a constant state of flux and change. Certainly, the definition of museums should rely on the humans that create, visit, and curate them. In our current ultra inspired, online, and interconnected culture, it may be vital for museums to focus more on visitor experience in ways that aren’t entirely cognitive.
References
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