The Third Door

In 2011, French publishing house Pomme Perdu will launch a series of releases it is calling Minuit sur le Mur, or, Midnight on the Wall. Each release—we are anticipating a total of 12—will feature a contemporary labyrinthologist discussing a specific architectural or structural feature of labyrinths. These unique discussions, which will assume the form of a collection of short essays, will be accompanied by photography by some of the leading photo-navigators in the field. Argentinian photo-navigator Espinoza Gorjado, whose "Study in Defamiliarization" recently graced the walls of many a contemporary museum, is just one of the contributors whose work (much of which is new) I cannot wait to behold.

Alex and I were privileged to receive this week an advanced copy of the first in the series: La Troisième Porte, or, The Third Door, by one of the founding fathers of Neo-Recursivism, Jacques Oligreff.

For our readers who are less familiar with this structure, a third door is "a common labyrinth structure, though not ubiquitous, characterized by a phenomenon of light in the labyrinth atmosphere that creates the illusion of a boundary or obstruction, but is in fact permissive; the only exit to some Second Centers." (CLP, Labyrinths in Theory and Practice: An Introduction, Boston: Essex UP, 2000.)

With the permission of Pomme Perdu, we are proud post a sneak peek of Oligreff's essay with a photograph of an exemplary third door in Amant Fernald's White Slate Indoor Labyrinth outside Ontario:

The third door beckons us— like ghosts we must believe in, for the burden of disbelief is too much.

The Acentric Pendulum of Wim Cruhs

Cover of Wim Cruhs' magazine, no. 29 of 50, only edition

Alex's last post, an edifying taste of the resonances between Kobrin's extremist labyrinthecture and Gerrit's provocative labyrinthology, gives me occasion to proffer an excerpt from my recent essay, "'Given to Labyrinths': The Acentric Pendulum of Wim Cruhs," which I will present at this year's upcoming NASCLS in Benesov. (Details about the conference are forthcoming, as is my discussion of Dr. Izokawi's PNSD therapy.)

Without further ado, my excerpt:

"Dutch labyrinthologist Wim Cruhs founded his short-lived and oft-forgotten school, Peripatetic Realism, while studying as a frustrated medical student at the University of Salzburg in the late 1960s. With the help of Austrian artist Lukas Brunn and Spanish poet Manuel Cortego, Cruhs released in 1968 the one and only issue of his magazine, Cochlea, as an 'underground forum,' he put it, 'to vent the pent-up energies of young and idealistic navigators.' He derived the title from his fascination with the labyrinthine structure of the inner ear, the ear's centrality to balance and therefore ambulation and navigation, and the term's origination from the Greek word for snail, suggestive to him of a meditative pace. Most important, the title directly pertains to the labyrinthological notions he put forth in his manifesto for Peripatetic Realism, which appeared in Cochlea. Allow me to quote from his salvo:

"'We fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the labyrinth, and therefore the nature of man, when we construe the navigator's condition as a twin state of exile: first exiled from the telic clarity of the purposive, lived structures of house, work, and play, and second, and more important, exiled from the center. I leave it to the labyrinthects to discuss the former, but I propose to consider the latter [...] for from the center there can be no exile. [...] What is it that sets man apart from the rest of creation? It is in part his bipedalism, which equips man with a structurally idiosyncratic means of locomotion. But it is also in part his brain's cortex, enabling the complex, abstract ideations which elaborate yet transcend his material condition. In navigation we can behold the beautiful union of these distinctive hominid capacities, whose consummation I hold to be peripatesis: itinerant meditation, whose antecedent is Aristotelian. [...] We are thus, in our nature, given to labyrinths.'

"Later in his manifesto, Cruhs imagines an Arcadian labyrinth whose corridors brim with walkers not seeking a center but seeking philosophical dialogue. Cruhs soon abandoned this vision when he met Jacques Oligreff in Paris. Oligreff's dissertation on solitary navigation profoundly transformed much of Cruhs' notions of labyrinths, but Cruhs' rejection of the notions of exile not only influenced Oligreff, and later the young Cunha, but also became an essential tenet to Acentrism in its nascency.

"To the heart of our concerns, then: What are we to make of Cruhs' statement, 'from the center there can be no exile.' I argue that Cruhs' notions of exile imply a concept that I am coining the acentric pendulum. The concept proves simple yet elegant, but its ramifications are serious: if one congresses at the center of a labyrinth, then one is, in fact, exiled from the labyrinth as such. Akin to Gerrit's rules of navigational procedure, Cruhs' acentric pendulum capsizes the fundamental quiddity of the labyrinth. The labyrinth does not merely cease to be a labyrinth if one congresses at the center. Rather, the navigator becomes lost upon congression. In other words, the navigator is not lost while navigating. The navigator is lost if—in body or in mind—he believes he has reached the center. Thus, neither corridor nor center, neither navigation nor congression, are exiled from each other. They are inextricably co-defined.

"The co-definition of corridor and center, therefore, leave the labyrinth literally in a dialectical argument with itself—as if the were labyrinth a pendulum swinging infinitely between its poles. But Cruhs distinguishes between, if you will, centric problems and acentric problems. The former, what I am calling centric pendulation, is a labyrinth's conventional dialectic in the presence of a physical center. The latter, or acentric pendulation, is the far more troublesome dialectic in the absence—known, believed, or designed—of a center. The acentric pendulum, I think Cruhs believes, is a requisite condition of all labyrinths. Even without a center, it is necessary for a navigator to believe there is a center, even if the navigator recursively avoids it."

Wim Cruhs is alive and well, but he is a nomadic figure who eschews the academy and the spotlight alike. I have not had the pleasure of correspondence with him, but I hope to see him—and hear his reaction to my analysis and its implications for Acentrism—in Benesov.

The Museum Labyrinth

Aksel Gerrit (date unknown)

As Gramont tells us, the structural components that govern the essential nature of the labyrinth have been rigorously codified since, at least, the Interiorists. The work of Aaldi, and of course that of Magarelli, Oriolo and Ungarn, posits rigorous and well-substantiated schemas, elements of which have proved foundational for our current epoch's understanding of what is meant by labyrinth. Indeed, much of contemporary Western labyrinthology has been, in large part, a quest for extrication from the entanglements Gollesten's synthetic totalism. Our recent discussions of the late Kobrin have brought our attention to the school which John and I, as well as others in the field (most notably Philip Cunha, Jacques Oligreff and Wim Cruhs) have begun refer to as Acentrism. Recent findings offer compelling evidence that we should consider the work of the late Kobrin as emblematic of an aesthetic and ideological shift from neo-recursivism, a mode of which his early labyrinths proved archetypal, into this fascinating, even troubling, mode of construction.

In the last few weeks, I've become particularly curious about the extent to which the late Kobrin appears to be influenced by the controversial writings of Aksel Gerrit, prompting me to begin correspondence with the Dutch labyrinthologist Alvilda Jeppesen, translator of the definitive English volume of Gerrit's labyrinthology.

Jeppesen at the Bern Labyrinthological Circle Summit (2006)

Jeppesen, familiar with CORRIDOR's revamp of Kobrin's Basin labyrinth, had yet to hear of my harrowing navigation of the Manuas Cave Labyrinth. Once aware of my experience, as well as Cruemer's reports of the seemingly unnavigable structure of the Basin labyrinth, she immediately made the connection between the late Kobrin's "quasi-nihilistic" tendencies and Gerrit's call for the introduction of a fourth center as a fundamental structural component of the labyrinth. Alvilda has given consent for me to copy some elucidating thoughts from our exchange below:

Alex,

Indeed. The connections between Kobrin's labyrinthecture in the Amazon Basin and Gerrit's labyrinthology are profound. It appears that Kobrin attempted to enact in labyrinthecture Gerrit's purely theoretical notions about sovereignty and preservation. Gerrit was possessed by the idea that the labyrinth should never be navigated or "solved." Having studied in Malaysia with Ah-Pei, seeing the Monsoon Mud Labyrinths firsthand, his labyrinthology was simply engineered in that direction - towards the purposefully unnavigable, the "museum labyrinth" as some have dubbed it. As you've noted, Kobrin appears to have been attempting to realize a labyrinth with a fourth center - that is, a deceptively authentic telos point in which the navigator, thinking he has reached the center, finds himself with four previously unavailable navigational options, none of which allow for successful eggresion.

As Gerrit succinctly put it, "it is in the fourth center that the autonomy and superiority of the labyrinth, divorced from traditional and interiorist notions of form and structure, assert themselves most fully. The navigator has tread on sacred ground, but not on the most sacred of grounds, he is given false hope, he is made to believe the lie of navigation before making his ultimately final 'choice' as a walker." What is most alarming here, as you pointed out, is that, in the case of the late Kobrin, these ideas are enacted, disseminated into the realm of the navigatory.

Jeppesen will give a panel on "Gerrit and The Curved Juncture" at this year's NASCLS in Benesov. Details on the conference will be posted here once finalized.

The Aporic Paradox of PNSD

Before we return to Post-Navigation Stress Disorder (PNSD), I'd like to alight briefly on the subject of Kobrin's late work, whose nihilistic thrust—nay, telos?—Alex insightfully addressed.

Translation is a delicate endeavor, especially in the field of labyrinthology, where novel notions often run amok. In the Szeged Lectures, we encounter a term first developed by Kobrin. This term is rarely used today because its import may be as unnavigable as Kobrin’s own structures, but etymologically, it appears to be an elusively simple compound formation. Nemegyközpont: “no one center,” reads the literal translation. But its sense? Some translators have interpreted this enigmatic term as “no center” or “all center.” Others have taken the term as a verb phrase navigational in meaning: “one does not reach a center.” Yet others have deciphered it architecturally: “one does not build a center.” I will leave it to Alex to illuminate the work and workings of Kobrin. But, before he sheds more light on Kobrin’s mysterious and maddening ways, I must note that in the margins where this term appears in the Szeged Lectures manuscripts, Kobrin scratched out what seems to a be a koan from early Buddhist labyrinth meditation: “If all is center, then there are infinite centers and no centers. How do you look at the moon?” (Alex, do you know the source of this koan?)

The paradox we observe in this koan, and, of course, in Kobrin’s late efforts, leads us back to the problem of PNSD. To understand the two primary symptoms of PNSD—navigatorial dysbasia and suspended navigation—I should cite, once again, Yves Cruemer in The Encountered Labyrinth: “In the labyrinth, the aporia of the center is not an intellectual conceit. It is a real condition, felt in the labyrinth and long after navigation has subsided.” A passage from Hilda Doolittle’s Trilogy is germane here as well:

O, do not look up

into the air,

You who are preoccupied

in the bewildering

sand-heap maze

of present-day endeavor;

you will be not so much frightened

as paralyzed with inaction,

To look only to the sun, to the transcendent, to a divine and providential without, is to neglect the immanent, the ground, the earth, the divine and providential within wherein we forge meaning. This is the dark heart of navigation: the aporia of the center, in which the walker, lost in labyrinth as form, becomes lost in the labyrinth as endeavor. To look only to the center, the transcendent, to the quintessential form of the labyrinth, is to neglect the way, not in and not out, but simply the lived path of navigation. Navigatorial dysbasia, at its root, originates then in what I call “primary aporia,” being lost in the labyrinth as form. Suspended navigation, at its core, emerges in what I call “secondary aporia,” being lost in the labyrinth as endeavor, the far more dangerous entanglement from which one cannot be extricated by physical egression. But the secondary aporia is truly and thornily paradoxical, as one must wisely navigate the razor-thin boundaries of constructive and destructive secondary aporia.

"Primary Aporia," John K., recovered from Ribbon Reef Navjournal

On the one hand, we at the CLP, especially as Neo-Recursivist Navigators, understand secondary aporia, being lost in the labyrinth as endeavor, to be, in large part, vital to the nature of purposive navigation. In other words, to navigate, one must fundamentally become lost in the process of navigation. (Being physically lost is given to all navigation, of course. Being lost irretrievably causes deficient navigation, which is the onset of primary aporia and thus navigatorial dysbasia.) Yet, if we wander too far—and who is to demarcate definitively the edges of these territories—we enter the metalabyrinth, marking the onset of secondary aporia, where real and unreal blur and fold into each other.

"Secondary Aporia," John K., recovered from Ribbon Reef Navjournal

What, then, is the way out of secondary aporia? It is, precisely, to reject, at least when trapped in the metalabyrinth, all notions of “the way out.” Italian labyrinth phenomenologist Horatio di Gallini calls this “the phenomenological reduction modulated to achieve the radical astonishment carried out through prepredicative acts of navigation.” Dense, language, to be sure, but di Gallini is driving at a practical philosophy. The inherent ambiguity of the labyrinth, its aporia, is not a problem to be solved (the nerve center of PNSD) but an ontological condition to be embraced. In other words, we can counter destructive secondary aporia only by tearing down the scaffolding of all that we predicate the labyrinth to be.

And how do we tear down this scaffolding? How do we fight through this most hazardous species of PNSD? Working thousands of miles away from di Gallini’s Umbrian desk is Dr. Izokawi, whose meditational regimen, while not traditionally phenomenological in origin, provides us the very methods to achieve the radical astonishment to cure PNSD. His methods I turn to next, and these methods will lead us to the very important domain of Asian labyrinthology.

Fatalism and the Late Kobrin

Kobrin, age 24, in Győr, circa 1876

Transcribing my many (and at times incomprehensible/deranged) navnotes from Manaus - notes which, once rendered in text, I will surely post for our readers here - has given me cause reflect anew on the enigma that is Mezin Kobrin. As most of our readers no doubt know, in his lifetime Kobrin traveled extensively and completed eighteen labyrinths, using materials ranging from glass to bamboo to igneous rock. Remarkably, Kobrin's productivity increased as he aged. In fact, twelve of these eighteen labyrinths were constructed in the last decade of his life. As I have just navigated the previously unknown, arguably unnavigable and center-less Amazonian labyrinth which I have dubbed the Manuas Cave Labyrinth, I have been given cause to reflect on Kobrin's late labyrinthectural writings, writings with which I was previously unfamiliar and would have proven invaluable indeed had I been aware of them. For curious readers, these late writings have been anthologized and translated by Ari Ghisk under the title "Contributions to Acentrism" and are available via Junctures Ltd. Printing.

My navjournals will provide context to my sense that in the case of the Manuas labyrinth (as well as the Amazon Basin labyrinth, which as Cruemer noted when beginning work "finishing" its construction seemed "an utter aporia of walking" - a labyrinth which, given my recent navigation, I now believe was left intentionally unnavigable by Kobrin at the time of his death), we have perhaps an unprecedented example of a purposefully center-less, and, ultimately for the walker, fatal labyrinth. Simply put, it is my contention that Kobrin, possessed of the notion of a sovereign, "pure" labyrinth, began, in the waning years of his life, to design labyrinths devoid of traditional structural components (atriums, Great Rooms, and, yes, even centers). It is thus that a certain nihilism enters Kobrin's work, an alarming symptom of a sociopathic labyrinthecture that was arrested only by the designer's own failing health.

Kobrin at age 65 (Szolnok, Summer, 1941)

The late Kobrin is remarkably dense, ponderous and poetic, so I will quote only this brief and profoundly relevant passage, taken from Section XVI of the Szeged Lectures (1928).

The center is a leaping-forward if left remote, an area in which the corridor gathers itself into itself only in the absence of external entities. It is what is nearest and most far away from the subject, a guiding principle that may do only violence. To dissemble it, to upend its unavoidable thrust, this is our task. What of the squandering that occurs if the center is left permeable? The labyrinth thus becomes history, machination, "prone-conquerable" to the walker. To surpass this is the enactment of proper labyrinthecture - the truth of proper recursivism in the wake of Gerrit.

What Kobrin calls for then is nothing other than a labyrinth without a center. But where does this leave us as historians and navigators? What is the place of the labyrinthologist in such a labyrinthology? And where does this leave the walker?

Post-Navigation Stress Disorder

"And, young man, depend upon it, if you do not go back, wherever you go, you will meet with nothing but disasters and disappointments..."

— Robinson Crusoe

We at the CLP are elated to learn that Alex has been released from the Pongo de Mainique Infirmary. In fact, all of our absences from CLP have been fraught with peril. I have returned from the Mauritanian Ribbon Reef Labyrinth intact, though I must admit that I had to abandon my navigation. Egression saved my life and mind, even if it injured my pride. Our returns, the reasons for our absences, and above all, our support for Alex, give me occasion to explore a topic more pressing than ever.

We can now adumbrate the three great paradigms of labyrinthological peril. The Classicists, in their Aristotelian urge to classify, articulated object dangers. The famed Minotaur best typifies this class. The factious advents of Recursivism and Constructivism ushered in the paradigm of cognitive dangers. An eminent example, from Recursivist navigation and scholarship, is "telic liquidation": the dissolution of purpose, these thinkers posit, resulting from congression, or arrival at the center. Now, in our present era's push towards subjective and objective navigational integration, we discuss holistic dangers. I for one, and in deepest commiseration with our fellow labyrinthian, Alex, must speak to these.

Vast improvements in medical technology and psychiatric treatment have demonstrated the very real and grave consequences our psychological states have for our physical well-being. And, of course, the logical converse holds true here as well. To understand, then, my fateful experiences in the Mauritanian Ribbon Reef Labyrinth, and to convey them to you, I must recast holistic dangers in the parlance of the day: Post-Navigation Stress Disorder (PSND).

Much research has focused on the holistic dangers during navigation. Yet, while my colleague likewise is struggling to make sense of his recent navigation, I want to turn our labyrinthological eyes to those lingering, haunting, and, very literally, life-shaking, dangers of the labyrinth upon our egression -- as if the labyrinth navigates us long after we have navigated (yes, especially when in vain) the labyrinth.

PNSD is particularly acute after a navigator, regardless of the theory espoused, must egress the labyrinth prior to any significant navigational accomplishment. In the Ribbon Reef, I attained neither a sense of corridor nor center. As the foundational Yves Cruemer wisely observed in her monograph, The Encountered Labyrinth, "Failure of navigational accomplishment, regardless of theoretical intent, is the essence of deficient navigation."

Deficient navigation, I have come to understand upon personal reflection and research into PNSD studies, has a dual set of chronic symptoms. The first are physiological. I can attest to the real, physical feelings of sickness my failed navigation has incurred. Fatigue, hallucinations, hypoventilation, increased blood pressure, fever, and amyotonia are among some of the major symptoms. Researchers have described the physiological stress as "navigatorial dysbasia," post-navigation difficulty in walking. This general term is used to indicate displays of physiological stresses unique to navigation but not during navigation.

The second set of symptoms are psychological. I can also aver that deficient navigation causes one to feel as if in "suspended navigation." In this state, the post-navigator cannot recognize, much as with agnosia, ordinary objects, events, and, in extreme cases, people, for what they are. Instead, the phenomena of life are filtered only through the processes of navigation. For instance, doctors report high incidence of a fear of doors and hallways; one post-navigator described these architectural features as "dreadful decisions that I must but cannot confront."

We will discuss the symptoms of PNSD in greater depth as we learn more from Alex's first-hand accounts and as I better synthesize my own experiences with my current research.

In the meantime, I am offering two illustrations I sketched as I underwent my post-navigational therapy. (Dr. Izokawi's innovative visualization techniques, which developed in Japan in the 1980s, proved profoundly effective.) Perhaps they can offer us insight into the psycho-physiological experience of PNSD, but, most assuredly, they give us the courage to know we can overcome this powerful disorder.

"Blue Wall, No. 12," John K., late 2009

"A Third Door," John K., late 2009

A World Below Ours

My Dear Friends,

Fitting indeed that Criterion’s Hulu channel has recently made Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams, which documents the notorious production of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, available to stream, as I have just returned from the very same climes that Herzog himself negotiated while creating his infamous opus, returned finally from what has certainly been the most difficult and perilous navigation of my life. Indeed, it was a navigation which I can say without hyperbole almost cost me my life. As I mentioned here, one of the most fascinating labyrinthological findings in the last few years has undoubtedly been the discovery of what was thought to be famous labyrinthect Mezrin Kobrin’s final, unfinished labyrinth located in the Amazon Basin. As noted in the above-mentioned post, CORRIDORmotionDESIGN was tapped to finish Kobrin’s lost labyrinth, a move which excited us here at CLP quite a bit, they being one of the more progressive neo-recursivist firms operating in our present epoch. With my dear collegue John navigating the complexities of the Ribbon Reef Labyrinth (detailed in his navjournals below), I was thrilled to accept an invitation from Yves Cruemer, head labyrinthect at CORRIDOR, to be among the very first walkers of Kobrin’s final (and, now, ostensibly “complete”) masterpiece. When I arrived in Manuas to meet Yves, he had yet to arrive. I asked a tour guide if he knew anything about the construction of the labyrinth, and some 4 hours later I arrived by skif at what I assumed was my destination. For the sake of concision, I will simply say that what I arrived at was indeed a Mezin Kobrin labyrinth, but not the Kobrin labyrinth that CORRIDOR had been hard at work completing – rather, I found myself navigating an as-yet-undiscovered Kobrin labyrinth – a cave labyrinth the construction of which proved so ponderous, so deadly and bizarre that by the time I arrived at the first juncture of the maze I knew in my heart that I would never leave its subterranean perimeter.

Crossing the Rio Negro by skif

As I’ve only been out of the infirmary for two days, my capacity for both narrative writing and typing as such is at this point less than satisfactory. Rather than describe retrospectively my experience in what I’ve termed the Manaus Cave Labyrinth, I shall let my navjournals do the speaking. I plan to begin transcribing them tonight from my room here in Pongo de Mainique, and I shall, of course, post them here in the coming days. I will let my previous navigating self do the telling. He shall speak of my experience as a walker in the final labyrinth built by a titan at the brink of sanity.