Puppets give me the willies — a deep, visceral uneasiness that art often fails to evoke. In a world where audience expectations, aesthetic trends and market dynamics define much of what’s produced, puppetry seems like an unsafe bet. I mean, who buys puppets anymore? Really, who checks the event calendar for a hot puppet show?

Well, hopefully you will.

You’ll have a host of unique opportunities during the next year thanks to PLOP!, the Performance Laboratory for Objects and Puppets, which opened this past month in Olympia.

Led by Artistic Director Ariel Goldberger and Curator Dan Luce, PLOP! is an experiment of sorts. PLOP! recently inaugurated its series in September with a standing-room-only festival of experimental works by artists from Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles.  At the heart of their work, says Goldberger, is the desire to challenge convention and work outside the expectations foisted upon artists by the art machine. Puppets aren’t trendy, and the people behind PLOP! know it. This venture is about fostering innovation, manifesting the unexpected, and operating independently of the support structures that fuel most artistic endeavors.

“One of the philosophies that we have is that puppetry is a very marginal art,” says Goldberger. “So we have to swim against the current. My rule is instead of going safe, we take risks and we trust the artists to do good work. Rather than work inside traditional structure, we work sideways. That way, the art is not immediately co-opted by having to fit the mold.”

Translation: PLOP! ain’t no puppet. PLOP! doesn’t depend on the expectations of the audience or the people who fund art based on aesthetic trends. In many cases, whether we realize it or not, the art that emerges on the scene is art that meets the expectations of people who pay to see art, critics who offer approval, the tastes of the audience, the trends that shape those tastes, and the people who buy works produced. This sort of ambient set of expectations often decides which artistic endeavors survive, and which ones fade. PLOP! endeavors to make room for the unexpected.

“Were not following any rules that we know work for institutions,” says Goldberger. “We’re not going to apply for anyone to approve of us. We’re just going to do it.”

Take PLOP!’s upcoming October performance, for example. The double-header show will introduce to the South Sound renowned artists Bonnie Foster and Gustavo Ponce, who will present delightfully strange works. Foster has trained with some of the best puppet masters in the world, including award-winning master puppeteer Dan Hurlin and world renowned master Basil Twist in New York. Her works are a hallucinatory mix of dark surrealism, strangeness and satire. Ponce is an accomplished sculptor who makes fun, eerie and creepy puppets that are beautifully crafted. He animates so-called rod puppets in strange and compelling ways to bring them to life in short and imaginative performances, emphasizing sound and special effects.  The show will open the third weekend in October. For more information, visit www.PLOPolympia.org.

[Northern, Puppet Night at PLOP! Presents Bonnie Foster’s Dead Ladybug Puppets and Gustavo Ponce’s The Creeping Undead, Oct. 16-17, 8 p.m., $10-$15, 321 Fourth Ave., Olympia, www.plopolympia.org]