Mesmerize

The story

In a nondescript industrial bay on Shelby Lane—just around the corner from South Austin's St. Elmo district—local artists Clay Lillard and Mateo Gutierrez turned their own 3,000-square-foot fabrication workspace into a walk-through illusion called Living Dream. The fictional lore framed around the space claims a research crew called Diagnostic Dreams, Inc. was brought in after an eight-foot-tall central crystal fractured the building, blurring the line between ordinary Austin reality and sleeping fantasy.

Rather than leaning on high-gloss corporate budgets, Lillard and Gutierrez built the labyrinth in collaboration with over 50 local artists, muralists, and fabricators. You move through 15-plus distinct rooms: stepping inside a rainbow mural designed by Inne Aguilar, ducking into a tufted fiber crawlspace by Hannah Busekrus, walking through Liza Fishbone’s dreamlike yet unsettling 'Mulligrub Meadow,' and standing inside projection-mapped visual environments drawn from animator Bill Tavis's psychedelic painting style. An original score composed by local musicians feeds through the rooms to anchor the soundscape.

At the back of the space, a wishing wall holds hundreds of handwritten notes pinned by strangers passing through before you. It sits at an odd cross-section of photo studio, narrative puzzle, and neighborhood art project—the rare walk-through gallery that feels built out of raw local obsession rather than a touring pop-up kit.