Vheissu is a fictional location in Thomas Pynchon's novel V., which was published in 1963. Pynchon is one of my favorite authors and this book, his first novel, is still my favorite of his, even more so than Gravity's Rainbow. One of the storylines in the book concerns the explorations of Hugh Godolphin, the leader and sole survivor of a 1884 British survey team that possibly stumbled across Vheissu. It is probably pronounced "VEE-su" but ever since I first read it in 1975, I always pronounced it "VAY-su" the "i" before "e" exceptions "as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'"
Godolphin has been "fury-ridden" since his visit. He seems to have found evidence fifteen years later that Vheissu extended into Antarctica, possibly through a network of underground tunnels, one of which is also under Mt. VESUvius. His trip to the South Pole was attempted during mid-June, the middle of the winter there. His thought was that at the Pole "at one one of only two motionless places on the gyrating earth, I might have peace to solve Vheissu's riddle." [V., 205.25]
He forges on alone to the Pole, plants the flag and begins to dig a cache. "There could have been no more entirely lifeless and empty place anywhere on earth. Two or three feet down I struck clear ice. A strange light, which seemed to move inside it, caught my attention. I cleared a space away. Staring up at me through the ice, perfectly preserved, its fur still rainbow-colored, was one of their spider monkeys. It was quite real; not like the vague hints they had given me before. I say 'they had given.' I think they left it there for me. Why? Perhaps for some alien, not-quite-human reason that I can never comprehend. Perhaps only to see what I would do. A mockery, you see:  a mockery of life, planted where everything but Hugh Godolphin was inanimate." [205.33-206.6]
I heartily recommend the book, for all the uncertainty about everything in the universe that its characters and readers have to experience. I called the studio Vheissu because I wanted it to be a place far enough removed from everything around it that it was a universe unto itself while still connected in some secret ways to the world outside. Only those who were there would know the extent of how far removed or how connected it would be.