Burning Man-Inspired Outdoor Art Gallery Transfix Opens in Las Vegas

A 40-foot steel-mesh woman rises, gazing toward the eastern horizon with her back to the setting sun over the fiery hues of Red Rock Canyon. A monumental steampunk octopus breathes fire, raising and lowering to thumping bass. Hundreds of racing LEDs pave the way into the dark abyss of the desert night. 

In a scene curiously similar to the visual landscape of the yearly Burning Man festival in northern Nevada’s Black Rock City, an outdoor art gallery called Transfix has just debuted on a four-acre, 200,000 square-foot multi-level site located at the door of Resorts World on the Las Vegas Strip.

Tom Stinchfield, Transfix’s co-founder and CRO, describes it as an exhibition space for artworks — interactive, kinetic, illuminated and fire-breathing — that don’t fit into the typical gallery, physically or psychologically. 

“This is large-scale. It’s very niche. It’s very difficult to sell these pieces or to get them into museums or galleries. In most cases, they literally don’t fit,” says Stinchfield of the more than 41 artworks from 39 artists offering live experiences ranging from light and sound to video, which occupy a vacant lot in front of Resorts World until fall. “Burning Man is the easiest way to reference this style of art because it’s such a famous event that people see in the news.”

At Transfix, attendees embark on their own 90-to-120-minute journey through a two-acre labyrinth with 10 artist-designed bars and speakeasies sprinkled throughout the installations.

Highlights include Marco Cochrane’s giant metal sculpture, R-Evolution, of a woman aiming to challenge the audience’s perception of the female body; Pablo González Vargas’s work Ilumina where visitors take part in an immersive three-minute meditation using biometric technology to activate the massive sculpture by achieving group harmony; Christopher Bauder and KiNK’s Axion, a grid-like arrangement of light tubes and moving lights resembling a device for space exploration or particle detection; and the world premiere of a new sensory reset tunnel designed by Playmodes to take guests on an intergalactic journey.

In 2020 during the pandemic, Stinchfield and business partner Michael Blatter decided to share their love of art from the Burning Man festival with the world and put a business plan behind their passion.

The goal was to promote art experiences that foster a global creative economy, build community and support innovative creators of all backgrounds. (The duo also developed experiential marketing agency Mirrorball 10 years ago after meeting at Burning Man; Mirrorball produces large live events and tours for brands such as Heineken, Jack Daniels, Pepsi and Coca-Cola).

The result is Transfix. “We brought in some friends from the rock-and-roll touring industry, who helped us build an operational budget. Then, we talked to investors and raised the money,” he says. 

Transfix rents monumentally large art pieces from their creators for a period of three years, paying for transportation, installation, maintenance and operation. This guaranteed source of income allows artists to create new pieces and gain exposure from a new audience through the traveling festival environment. Transfix’s residency in Las Vegas is scheduled until fall. After that, Stinchfield hopes it will tour to Los Angeles and Austin. 

“We built this business model with artists in mind. We saw a need in the market. There are a lot of artists we’ve made relationships with over the years, and in some cases, they’re having to go to GoFundMe or private investors. And then, end up having to put their artwork into storage, which costs money,” he says. “By renting these works, we’re giving them predictable income from a regular paycheck, so they can create more. And we’re freeing up space in their warehouses. The ultimate goal of Transfix is to put revenue back into the art. And we will bring this amazing work to the masses as it wouldn’t normally be seen unless you have the means to go to festivals.”

In addition to Stinchfield and Blatter, the core team includes Thor Young, director of artist relations and community impact, and Meranda Carter, curator and experience designer.

Young says he hopes Transfix shifts the pervasive “gatekeeping culture in the art world where gallery owners and museum curators decide what gets seen and what is considered art.”

“We hope this will be a new inclusive format where artists who don’t belong in other spaces feel welcome,” he says.

Immersive and participatory artworks like those found at Transfix engage the viewer as part of the experience, transporting them into another world. Sometimes, they use technology such as virtual reality or projection mapping. Other times, they require the active involvement of the audience to complete or co-create the artwork. 

“One of the things that’s really important about participatory art is that it gives people an opportunity to engage with their own creativity in a new and different way. If you can participate in the art instead of just being a viewer of the object, you show up differently in the world. You are a more creative person who has different opportunities and different options. We’re not only creating a new venue, but we’re creating a new opportunity for people to be able to connect as a creative person,” Young says.

Stinchfield adds, “When you give people the agency to push buttons, to climb things, to experience things, to touch things, it really requires the participant to complete the work.”

More than 600 artists were engaged at various stages during Transfix’s curatorial process. New works from NonoTek, LED Pulse, Axion and Hot Tea fill out the roster.

R-Evolution is the third and final sculpture in artist Marco Cochrane’s series The Bliss Project, which demystifies the nude body and captures the energy and power that arises when women are able to feel free and safe. These monumental sculptures first debuted at Burning Man 2015, and Bliss Dance permanently resides a few blocks down the Strip in front of T-Mobile Arena at Park MGM. R-Evolution invites participants to witness a confident 45-foot feminine figure standing before them. With every inhale and exhale, this sculpture challenges the viewer to see beyond the societally normative sexualization of the female form. The sculpture depicts San Francisco dancer Deja Solis and contains 17 motors. The figure stands strong in her power and breathing, radiating her own humanity. 

“I hope Transfix becomes a business model that works so artists can make interactive art that is fun to be around and that sets a whole other place for creativity to happen. It is the opportunity we all have been talking about: to take it on the road and finally someone is doing it. I think Transfix can have a profound effect on art and art making in general, in turn changing the world. People will be doing what they want, following their bliss and seeing the magic in the world,” Cochrane says.

Light artist Christopher Bauder and electronic music maker KiNK bring the large-scale outdoor experiential art installation Axion to the desert, which serves as Transfix’s centerpiece. With its grid-like arrangement of light tubes and moving lights, from a distance, Axion resembles a giant scientific device for space exploration or particle detection. But once you step inside, it is a reflection on the potential of axions, dark matter and the idea of the unknown. Axion is a hallucination taking shape, a flowing dream of light and sound that meanders through the night.

The Emmy award-winning installation artist Hottea works with yarn to create the Murmuration installation, a new site-specific work using hundreds of wooden dowels to give viewers a sense of movement that is often found within nature. With this piece, Hottea reminds viewers of the importance of embracing not only big events in their lives but also cherishing the everyday moments that bring a sense of awe or peace. Sometimes, it’s these small moments that can have the biggest impact.

DragonO2 allows participants to explore their humanity through the lens of technology. LedPulse, founded by Danilo Grande and Benny Lai, presents this work as an advanced volumetric LED display that emulates humanity and its biological components in three dimensions. The result is a vivid and unforgettable display that blurs the lines between imagination and reality. DragonO2 invites visitors to step into a new creative dimension, limited only by their imagination.

Making a two-week-only appearance at Transfix, El Pulpo Magnifico by Duane Flatmo is probably the most recognizable work within the exhibit thanks to its notoriety from Burning Man. The art car beckons devotees to dance among the flames of a mechanical fire-breathing octopus that resembles a demented wind-up toy, with its eyes popping in and out as its tentacles rise and fall, blasting 30-foot flames into the sky. The 25-foot art car is constructed almost entirely out of recycled and repurposed scrap iron and aluminum. A double cam runs through the center, controlling all its animated parts to bring this beast to life. The firebox controls are made to activate the fire blasts with the sound system as a giant percussion instrument. El Pulpo Magnifico has been featured on an episode of The Simpsons. 

Founder of the renowned collaborative project Mayan Warrior, Pablo González Vargas erects Ilumina, a 37-foot tall interactive light-and-sound sculpture that invites guests to participate in an immersive three-minute long meditation. They connect to biometric sensors and that is translated into data that powers the lighting design and moving soundscapes of the structure. 

FoldHaus Collective, an art collective based out of both the U.S. and Germany, presents Shrumen Lumen, a garden of origami mushrooms with caps that expand and contract from a flat umbrella portobello to a bulbous cap when visitors activate them.

Nonotak is a Paris-based creative duo founded by former visual artist Noemi Schipfer and former architect-musician Takami Nakamoto, who present a dreamlike environment encompassing light, sound and space. This uses the same technology found on the exterior of MSG Sphere, which opens this fall adjacent to The Venetian.

Spanish audiovisual research studio Playmodes presents Stellar Beyond, an immersive 115-foot tunnel that plays with spatial perception, driving the audience into a “travel without moving” experience.

“This will really shake you out of your day, and the journey that you came through in order to get to Transfix,” Carter says. “This is a six-minute experience, and then you get pushed onto a non-linear path of choose-your-own-adventure.”

Tickets to Transfix are $59m and after 10 p.m.m the venue goes 21+. On May 12, it hosts a one-night collaboration with Tulum/Miami music festival Art with Me called Dance with Me. From sunset to sundown, Dance with Me allows party-goers to take in Transfix with exclusive live performances across three music stages and immersive art installations.

“It’s a brand new type of experience. It’s a bit of an experiment. That being said, I think it’s a concept that we believe appeals to a lot of different people,” Stinchfield says. “I think there’s a little something for everyone.”