![]() ![]() Although as soon as you enter the exhibit there are hidden passages you can take to the far left or the far right, most first-time visitors aren’t even aware of these options. Would I look back on how I made use of my limited time here with gratitude or regret? With so many possible worlds ahead of me, each choice in every moment became impossibly heavy. I had three hours, give or take, to experience whatever I was going to experience here… and the House of Eternal Return is nothing if not experiential. Every masked breath was a reminder of this fixed moment in history I found myself in. I’d been hearing about Meow Wolf since its debut in March 2016, and now five years, three presidencies, and one global pandemic later, I was finally, belatedly making my pilgrimage. On my first visit to Meow Wolf’s debut installation, Santa Fe’s House of Eternal Return, time felt heavy. The question Nietzsche ultimately asks, when you take stock of the life you lived and are living, does the prospect of eternal return becomes a horrifying burden, or a divine prospect? The consequences of each moment weigh forever. Rather, they are cemented into the timeline, with all other possible worlds now closed off for all eternity. By considering that every moment will repeat infinitely, our relationship to time becomes incredibly heavy. Often, we treat any given moment as something fleeting, ephemeral, and thus of little lasting value that cannot be made up for later. The question asks us to reconsider our relationship to time. While the concept has roots in ancient cosmology, Nietzsche was more interested in the existential implications of believing it to be true, even if only as a thought experiment. “What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness, and say to you, ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence.’”įriedrich Nietzsche popularized the concept of eternal return, which is that all the universe and the life within it will eventually repeat itself, and continue to repeat itself ad infinitum. Santa Fe, New Mexico – Sunday, August 22nd, 2021 Late in 2020, Meow Wolf attempted to have the case dismissed, arguing that its employees' verbal agreement with Oliver did not constitute a viable contract, but the court denied the motion. The artist also claimed that Meow Wolf used images of Space Owl-a furry, otherworldly creature that stands seven feet tall- to promote the installation, despite not having her permission to do so. Oliver's suit, filed in March 2020, alleges that, in 2016, when she agreed to exhibit her sculpture Space Owl in Meow Wolf's flagship "House of Eternal Return" immersive installation in Santa Fe, the art outfit-which at the point had not yet become a corporation-promised her an "artist revenue share."īut after the installation became a hit, and Meow Wolf a multimillion-dollar enterprise, Oliver said she only received $2,000 for her work. A federal court in New Mexico has granted a partial summary judgment to Meow Wolf in a knotty $1 million copyright and contract infringement case brought against the company by artist Lauren Adele Oliver. ![]()
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