Experiential art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) sit at the edge of reality, specialising in immersive experiences that experiment with augmented, virtual and mixed technologies. Their latest project Sweet Dreams at Manchester’s Aviva Studios is centred around a hypothetical fast-food chain called the Real Good Chicken Company and the adventures of its mascot Chicky Ricky. Across six rooms, we see the fictional brand’s history – from golden era to its eventual collapse – across a multi-sensory exploration of appetite, desire and the food industry.

Immersing audiences in a satirical vision of modern food production, the exhibition’s narrative was penned by award-winning writer and former chef Simon Wroe with art direction from French artist mcbess whose cartoon characters are voiced by Munya Chawawa, Morgana Robinson and Reggie Watts. Questioning our ethics and understanding of how the food we consume shapes us and the world around us, the exhibition encourages conversation through the art of digestible content, comedy and digital art. We sat down with Robin McNicholas, Director of MLF, to discover the story behind Sweet Dreams’ surreal vision.

Ella Joyce: While Sweet Dream systemically sits in the same realm as your past installations, visually it feels quite different from previous Marshmallow Laser Feast projects, where did the idea come from?
Robin McNicholas: It essentially came from observing the cultural spaces that Marshmallow Laser Feast is present in. I’ve always thought, there’s a real opportunity to tell stories within this multi-room space and bring tactility. Lots of the experiential elements such as lighting and spatial sounds lean into this idea of bringing the crafts together. So much of this really helps tell stories on a different level and that’s evident in a lot of our past work too. We realised that the pageantry and processional, recessional nature of an experiential artwork is a big part of it. As a result, I hope people come away having experienced a deeper level of engagement they don’t necessarily get elsewhere. It’s just a lovely opportunity to really deep dive into that storytelling process and bring things together that we’ve been exposed to in the theatre world, the film world, and video games, to assemble it in a way where it’s become an immersive experience.

“One of the most critical stages where human beings meet the natural world is through food.”

EJ: The exhibition doesn’t feel preachy, it creates space for a very open conversation and it also feels like there’s a wider conversation to be had. “Rebrand or die,” is a tagline used throughout and in this instance, it references the food industry but it translates to wider society in the age of social media. How did you go about building that story with Simon Wroe? The characters are amazing.
RM: I’ve really grown to love the characters. You’re so right, I think that Chicky Ricky’s existential crisis of having to rebrand does relate to everyone in this world where there’s media saturation and a barrage of information around who you should be. I’m especially pleased that you picked up on the fact that we didn’t want to take a moral stance, we wanted to create a cartoon mirror of society, to say, “Wait a minute, look at how complicated things have become.” One of the most critical stages where human beings meet the natural world is through food.

EJ: Food is an interesting topic because everyone is aware of it, but at the same time, it’s quite hard to talk about and this feels really accessible. 
RM: Accessibility is a big part of it. The normalisation of the food mascot is bizarre; we associate a smiling cartoon character with what we eat, we don’t see an apple, we see the branding. It’s emphasised more on the high street and it’s compounded with things that are even more bizarre, such as a tragic comedic cannibalistic mascot. The normalisation of that is fascinating.

“The normalisation of the food mascot is bizarre…”

EJ: You mentioned earlier how a lot of the time MLF pieces respond to the spaces that you’re in. What’s it been like building something at Aviva Studios? 
RM: It was always on our agenda to create a processional experience that allowed different senses to play with the pageantry. The ‘Heyday Room’, for instance, with all of the early memorabilia, there’s so much detail in that and from a theatrical perspective it allows people to get this sense of tactility to the story world. There’s this balance between the virtual and the physical that we like to play with. It’s a really playful piece designed to bring conversations to a broad audience. I’ve learned that comedy is a fascinating form of communication, it allows us to present audiences with quite hard-hitting subjects, but with a universal sense, of “Wow, how can we deliver these messages and provoke thought?”

EJ: How does it feel now to see the end product? 
RM: This has been the most testing thing we’ve ever been involved in. It’s been so challenging and at this point, there’s a clarity to it. So I don’t know what I’m going to do after – it’s been an obsession. I will really miss it when it goes, and I hope it tours. It’s already been interesting to hear some of the conversations, and see some of the reactions from audiences where they’re just like, “Wow.” My daughter went through and took something away that is most definitely different from older generations. I love the fact that we have made something that a ten year-old can engage with as well as a 110 year-old.

Sweet Dreams runs at Aviva Studios Factory International in Manchester until September 1st, more info here.