In late 2009, Lawndale Art Center presented a group show that transformed the place into a dimension-shifting sci-fi world. It was a thrill to explore the building's three floors feeling like an invisible spy or an investigator of strange phenomena. Monica Vidal and Jasmyne Graybill fused the organic and synthetic to Cronenbergian heights of freakiness. Shawn Smith forcefully evolved (or devolved) nature into a two-room horror show in which time-traveling, pixilated vultures feasted on obsolete technology. Linking it all together was Kia Neill's second-floor "Grotto," a dark, tight cave with hanging stalactites and blinking crystals overgrown with Spanish moss — one of the most otherworldly things we've experienced in Houston in a while. It was genuinely disorienting, weird and hilarious, and it transported us out of Lawndale in a really cool way. But perhaps the best part of the journey was stepping out of Neill's "Grotto" onto the elevator, pushing the button to the first floor, turning around and watching the curtain close on that otherworldly realm.