Sweetwater and various Masques

I notice that this year at SWSX in Austin they are trialling a scaled back recreation of Westworld. Normal folk can take a bus to a small wild west town of Sweetwater populated by faux robots similar to the automation of the Westworld made famous first in the 70s movie and then later in the HBO TV series. Yep, Season 2 is on its way next month.

Sweetwater reminds me of that PunchDrunk show - The Drowned Man, which was set in Temple Studios Hollywood and featured a whole floor of Wild West theme. If you could get past the casting gate, of course.

I was one of the lucky ones to experience it more than once - each time very different. There were 'home, home on the range' style cowboy camp fires and a small town to walk around in, including secret routes to other 'worlds', sometimes though the back of a cupboard hung with clothes or through a fireplace.

The huge wild west area was only one of a selection, including a mad scientist laboratory, a dark band playing the walk of terror, a huge and rowdy bar, a theatre out of a David Lynch Blue Velvet experience and a deserted motel, where things were not quite what they seemed.

I loved the idea of the experience it provided and of a preceding vast PunchDrunk experience at the BAC, which was based upon Edgar Allan Poe, and called The Masque of the Red Death. There are echoes of that idea in the Raven hotel in Altered Carbon, although I'd say the first hand Masque variant was altogether more creepy and mysterious.

And yes, Punchdrunk know how to throw an afterparty.