"Willie Nelson" stars in unsettling deepfake commercial for an art installation grocery store

Omega Mart is an interactive art installation/grocery store from the New Mexico-based Meow Wolf collective set to open soon in Las Vegas. Described on its website as a place where people can “explore an extraordinary supermarket that bursts into surreal worlds and unexpected landscapes,” Omega Mart looks to be a profoundly disorienting space that’s probably a lot of fun to explore, and really difficult to describe.

The question, then, is how the group can advertise a high concept venture like this in order to demonstrate its appeal to potential visitors. The answer, it turns out is a surreal vintage TV commercial that includes a whole lot of Willie Nelson deepfakes.

The clip channels the weirdo vibe of the project by sticking the face of a country icon (and unintentional presidential candidate) onto some non-Willie Nelson person’s body as they describe some of what Omega Mart has to offer anyone confused by its service. Watch on as the Faux-Nelson strolls down the store’s aisles, explaining what the “totally normal supermarket in Las Vegas” is all about.

“Omega Mart has all the under-refrigerated dairy you need,” he says in one instance, retrieving a carton of milk that shuffles itself out into a trippy trail of other cartons as it moves. The store’s “free-range staff” and “Willy good value” are highlighted and then people’s faces start flickering until a crowd of customers has become a group of Nelsons, all singing a jingle. The video ends with the sound of an out-of-tune guitar being strummed.

The commercial’s a good way to describe the real Omega Mart, but it works perfectly well, too, as a short art project in its own right—one that imagines what a dying mind, its brain neurons popping apart in hallucinatory starbursts, might think a grocery store ad starring Willie Nelson should look like.

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