Edible New Mexico: To spend time in Electric Playhouse, a new all-ages recreation space on Albuquerque’s Westside, is to feel a bit like the Alice character in Lewis Carroll’s celebrated books. Instead of a rabbit hole or a looking glass, guests enter this high-tech wonderland through a neon-lit tunnel and are deposited into a giant-scale board game, in which they have become the game pieces. Projectors shoot colorful graphics across the floors and walls of the cavernous space, and motion-detection devices allow guests to interact with what they see.
The surreal experience continues as guests move through the other rooms. Swirling graphics are manipulated with the contortions of their bodies. In a semi-enclosed space, they lob balls at images that appear via projections on a massive wall. An infinity mirror in a small room borrows from the whimsical installations of artist Yayoi Kusama, with brightly-colored geometric projections that reflect back on themselves, creating the illusion of a much larger space. Even for the selfie-averse, the urge to take a photo is irresistible.