Electric Playhouse teams with ABQ-based artist to create interactive works inspired by nature

Jul. 6—Lea Anderson is used to creating mixed media and installation art.

Oftentimes, her creations are static.

The Albuquerque-based artist has teamed up with Electric Playhouse to bring "Microdose: An Immersive Art Experience" to life.

"Microdose" opens at 6 p.m. Friday, July 8. It will run at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Aug. 30.

Anderson worked on the project for a year and a half with Electric Playhouse.

What the two created is a colorful world inspired by nature.

In the first room, Anderson created a jellyfish-like creature.

Ben Matthews, Electric Playhouse co-founder and software developer, coded them to be interactive.

"They feel and look like jellyfish, but they aren't," Anderson says. "Ben and I played with the idea. He created some that move super fast and others kind of just move along slow. We talked about what was working for the certain environment."

Anderson has lived and worked in New Mexico since 2003 and has discovered much during her adventures in the dramatic, colorful and wild desert environment.

Often working in multiples and accumulations, each installation piece or body of work cultivates forms and patterns that suggest complex biological characteristics, and can be compared to botanical material, fungi, ocean life or microbes. Repetitive patterns interweave with unique and irregular components, creating a dynamic interplay that echoes living systems.

While creating her original pieces, Anderson then photographed the pieces and sent them to Matthews to bring to life.

Matthews then worked at figuring out the color and how to augment the art style without compromising the original.

Anderson says working together was an added bonus for the project.

"I've been fully involved in the process and it's such an interesting concept," she says "It's one thing for an artist to be an electronic artist. I think Electric Playhouse has brought an interesting way of approaching it. They are cooperating with the artist and they've build a playful, nice quality. I'm imagining a lot of possibilities. I want to feel like it is morphing and moving with you. It's really fantastic."

Anderson says the exhibit is as much an interactive experience as it is educational.

She says there's still the traditional side to her work. At the same time there's a new innovative form that it takes through being interactive.

"The whole project was an experiment and it's very playful," she says. "But I'm hoping that it will inspire people about nature, because all my work is by natural design, amazing patterns that you find in nature, the relationships of different biological entities to one another. And I feel like there's a lot of symbolic meaning and that to me, you know you can apply that to human relationships or, you know, to experiences that you've had in your life. And there's this ambiguity, that's really, it's very open to interpretation. And so people can really tell their own story when they're looking at the work and I don't want it to be specific."

Microdose: An Immersive Art Experience

WHEN: 6 p.m. Friday, July 8; 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 12 and July 19; repeats Aug. 2, 9, 16, 23, 30

WHERE: Electric Playhouse, 5201 Ouray Road NW

HOW MUCH: $18 adults ages 13 and older; $15 children ages 3-12, free for children 2 and under, plus fees at electricplayhouse.com