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This is an interactive study of the labyrinth – one of the oldest metaphors for thinking. The algorithm creates a layout with a single path and a single exit, revealing the paradox of this structure – organizing space while simultaneously introducing an element of confusion.
The work refers to the tradition of the labyrinth as a symbol of reflection on the world, cognition, and the nature of the human mind, while also exploring its digital identity – the way in which contemporary technologies can reproduce, transform, and reinterpret this figure virtually.
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AAAMaze, despite its striking simplicity, is one of the more “serious” miniatures, a work delving into the nature and meaning of the labyrinth. Labyrinths are primal cultural concepts, perhaps accompanying humanity since its dawn. They have accompanied us throughout history – probably longer than the remains and legends of the Cretan or Havar labyrinths attest – they are a source of logical thinking, but they also evoke our dark interiors and the monsters that inhabit them. Labyrinths are a wonderful intellectual and artistic tool, a model of ourselves and our universe. For someone working in the fields of media art and new technologies, labyrinths are an important phenomenon: they allow us to connect contemporary artistic practice in these domains with the history of art and culture. But they also allow us to tell stories about the present, because we are lost in labyrinths – perhaps without exit.
The maze-generation algorithm used in the miniature is part of my search for the ideal maze design. There are many approaches to the very definition of a maze, and depending on what we’re looking for, the concept of “labyrinthine ideality” can lead us down different paths. AAAMaze is a typical geometric and quantized maze: all passages bend at right angles, the maze has one entrance, one exit, and one path through – making it a maze suitable for optimists (we know it can be traversed if we have enough resources) and rats.
Maze research has a rich literature on the subject (I particularly recommend the publications by Paolo Santarcangeli, Carl Schuster, and Edmund Carter) – which explains much, but also multiplies themes and raises further questions. Labyrinths belong to a rich family of graphic patterns (the most obvious relatives of labyrinths are, of course, meanders, and AAAMaze is also somewhat related to them) that somehow seem to resonate with human (and perhaps non-human) hidden mental mechanisms.
AAAMaze was created as part of the pan-European ArtCast4D project, the aim of which was to create new tools for those experimenting with the aesthetic dimension of new technologies.