Laurie Anderson's Puppet Motel

This is an interactive environment containing music, videos, monologues, and art-jokes from performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson with the help of designer Hsin-Chien Huang. It begins with an electrical outlet that glows and howls into the darkness. Then you enter "The Hall of Time", a corridor in the motel where icons cover the walls, and lead to 33 symbol-crowded rooms. A puppet Laurie Anderson sparingly appears as a guide.

The surreal rooms include one full of exotic musical instruments from her performance-art career such as the "tape bow violin". Clocks abound and floating telephone receivers on tree-like stiff cords, televisions showing static, and airplane kaleidoscopes. In one room with a maze of chairs, Anderson steps out waving flashlights like a runway attendant and recites the legend of Plato's Cave - where prisoners are doomed never to see the true images of things but only to glimpse their fleeting shadows. In another room, she gives a long palm-reading session asking many questions of the player, and in yet another there is "The Amazing Ouija Floor Board" where you get to ask the questions. You must figure out what to do in each room, complete interactive art puzzles, and find how to exit.

Throughout the game, your recorded voice and typed responses will be used and information from Anderson's website will be downloaded including new videos and concert information. It's recommended that you play the cd-rom while listening with headphones as small sounds and poetry flows back and forth from one ear to the other to impart a message. There's ethereal music and Anderson whispers in your ear in a dark, soothing voice.