Cincinnati Labyrinth Project

Dedal and the "Dans"

2011-04-01T13:28:00.009-04:00

In anticipation of the upcoming Charles Dedal Colloquium that I am organizing—tentatively scheduled for October 2011 at the Bothnia Center for the Arts in the charming lacustrian town of Raahe, Finland—I thought it apropos to share some thoughts on the colloquium's late and celebrated namesake.

Near the end of his life, Dedal's health may have been waning, but his spirited intellect and almost feverish commitment to labyrinthology certainly were not. When he passed away in 2010, we inherited an incomplete (and decidedly, perhaps intentionally, inscrutable) manuscript, known only as A Syntax. In his prime, Dedal dedicated his research to a rigorous elaboration of Gramont's unfinished lifework: a grammar of the labyrinth. Dedal hungered for its structure. Yet, in the years after 9/11, Dedal forfeited much of his endeavor, so disaffected as he was with the resurgence of Oriolo's Aggressivism. As he remarked, "Aggressivism is hungry not only to slaughter the labyrinth, but our very imagination and compassion as well." Seldom of late have we witnessed such a marriage of mind and morality in the field.

Dedal lived his final years in obscurity, haunted by the idée fixe of the dans, or, in lay terms, the condition of being inside the labyrinth. In his drafted foreword to the pending Stand Me Now: The Collected Dedal (Black Thrush Press), Philip Cunha stirringly memoralizes: "The academy may fain laugh at Dedal's intellectual ghost, but such cachinnation only echoes back to those sardonic lips. Dedal knew what many have forgotten: the dans is all."

Expect Dedal's A Syntax to be the subject of much study and controversy in the coming years. Here's an excerpt from a chapter called "Dans: Against Mereological Sums":

"Many logicians and philosophers alike have made attempts to universalize the ontological axioms of mereology, that slippery study of parthood relations. In specific, they have postulated:

1. Everything is part of itself.
2. Any part of any part of a thing is itself a part of that thing.
3. Two distinct things cannot be part of each other.

These axioms, in a word, are founded on relationships of reflexivity, transitivity, and anti- symmetry. But, inside the labyrinth the navigator is necessarily and incontrovertibly thrown into that all-conditional experience of the dans: a labyrinth sans navigator is only architecture and a navigator sans labyrinth is only subject. The best we can describe navigation, then, is through that notion of 'insideness.' And this is prior even to 'lostness.' We see, then, grounds for irreflexivity: nothing is part of itself. And by extension emerge evidence for intransivity and symmetry.

Does a person speak a language if he is the only speaker? No. A labyrinth's grammar fundamentally rests on an intersubjective syntax. As the navigator's relationship to a labyrinth is always unstable, changing, unpredictable, so the syntax of a labyrinth is fluid.

We cannot hope to codify the dans. It is real but indeterminable. Thus navigation is ultimately and infinitely modal. Thus navigation is not a mission of domination but an art of documentation."

New Oligreff text due in June

2011-03-28T13:49:00.006-04:00

Apologies for the lack of blog updates, John and I have both been immensely busy (me with a new Gramont translation and John with organizing the Charles Dedal Colloquium, more on both of these later).

I've just received exciting news from my colleague Tavin Cranston that Essex UP Press will be publishing a new collection of Jacques Oligreff's writing from the 1950's in late June. According to the editor, Stanislav Barta, current chair of the Populist Labyrinth Syndicate and one of Europe's foremost Oligreffians (not to mention one of the only Oligreff scholars who still operates from within the rigid strictures of new-modern recursivism), the collection is to contain "daguerreotypes, acentrist ephemera, Great Room meditations, the full text of the Borges correspondences, and, as is always the case with Oligreff, a labyrinthology that ever casts its eye towards the preponderance of the perimeter."

I think it's well worth our time here to recall what is perhaps Oligreff's most enduring insight, taken from "A Case for New Populism" (1948):

Le culte du centre threatens, at its core, to unhinge both that which the labyrinth constitutes and that which proves constitutive for navigation therein. What is vital is a blurring, the obscurcissant brouillard that Gollesten so presciently put forth in his own labyrinthology. All navigations have existed and are existing.

Some words from Philip Cunha

2010-11-29T20:32:00.001-05:00

Today's recursivism takes as its object that ever-receeding vesper that was the object of Gramont's project- the possibility of truly primordial eggression. If we consider centrism as ground, a tacit assumption perhaps, but one which has become inextricably embedded in the tradition at least since Desmarais, it becomes not only the most urgent question that the Recursivists find themselves tasked with addressing, but one upon which the much-discussed new paradigm of navigation is predicated.

Call for Papers

2010-11-21T20:10:00.003-05:00

The NASCLS in association with the Nicola Fierst Society invites 250-word proposals for papers and panels for the 2011 meeting of the International Gollesten Circle. The conference will be held May 12-15, 2011 in Kuching, Borneo. Specific Topic Panel: Gollesten and Milosovici: Intersections of Structural Obfuscation in the Natural Labyrinth. Deadline: January 21. Contact via NASCLS web ring.

Gramont and the Cut-Up Mode of Labyrinthology

2010-09-08T07:50:00.005-04:00

As many of our readers are no doubt aware, much of Matthieu Gramont's labyrinthology is heavily informed by Dadaism. We know from his letters that Gramont corresponded extensively with Tristan Tzara in the 1930's. Particularly influential upon Gramont's labyrinthology is Tzara's notion of the cut-up method of composition. As Desmarais and Belanger turned their critical efforts increasingly towards the problems of ethical navigation, establishing the mode of labyrinthology that has since become known as Principalist Centralism, Gramont's writings became more polemical and more oblique. He became possessed of the notions that labyrinthology must mirror properly recursive navigation, and that virtually all labyrinthology that preceded Recursivism was, at root, prescriptivist and sought to delimit the scope of both labyrinthecture and navigation. In a 1938 letter to Tzara, Gramont writes,

"Explicative and poetic modes of discourse, though dissimilar in execution, do equal violence to the mystery of the labyrinth and thus to the fundamental aim of Recursivism as such. It is thus that a labyrinthology that is proper to Recursivism must employ aleatory and even misleading prose that is, to a certain degree, fundamentally unparsable to the reader or - at the very least - a discourse which lends itself to such a subjectivism that, for the hypothetical walker, it becomes 'in each case my own." (trans. Schaeffer, 1998)

If we look at Gramont's lectures and scant publications of the 1940's, we find a labyrinthology that is, by all rights, inscrutable. Gramont eschewed punctuation and structure, composing instead through chance-based processes of reorganization. According to Inès Bédard, Gramont would often flick matches at his manuscripts, letting "the documents burn here and there before stomping out the flames...he would piece together the fragments later with no concern as to how they would function as a text." By way of example, I've quoted from an unpublished essay on the atriums of the Alpujjara Mountain Labyrinth given as a lecture in 1941:

"in rant in the atriums the contradiction walker is with the chamber the attention to light allowing structural tasked like notions as components scriptural or design which may most productive offer take a must arriving atrium the ring is remain charge purely passive actively passive this deciphering seems of terms, for the more of example emotive second upon stance exuded by a both base to the location aesthetic paid of either a navigation of center to disclose the receive the vestibule but clue disclosures the room may be temporal structural aesthetic the logic of or purely rooted as or even fourth he mode of then engagement when intuition bullfighter regarding in the navigator reaching the atrium must all of knowing door or how to egress third and in something like secondary…" (trans. Sonnenberg, 2010)

I'm curious indeed to hear what some of our readers thoughts on the late Gramont, the writings of whom we have yet to dissect here at CLP, but which remain relevant and compelling in our current epoch.

The Third Door

2010-08-18T20:58:00.006-04:00

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

2010-08-11T18:23:00.019-04:00

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

2010-08-10T11:51:00.010-04:00

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

2010-08-06T11:09:00.013-04:00

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

2010-08-04T16:23:00.010-04:00

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

2010-08-03T17:01:00.009-04:00

"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

2010-08-02T21:15:00.008-04:00

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.

J. Kelly's Ribbon Reef Navjournal: Selected Entry IV

2009-05-03T12:07:00.010-04:00

Navigation, Day 32: Inverted World (1/29/2009)

Itself, time is neither foil nor foe to the navigator. No, the navigator battles with keeping his sense of time. Or, more accurately, battles against losing it.

Yes, the empiricists have amply analyzed the strange behavior of time in the labyrinth. And, of course, the idealists have vehemently countered their claims. But these are words. Tired, emptied, displaced words. Detached from the corridors they codify in vain. Authentic navigation should neither pursue nature to her hiding-places nor should pursue divinity to its holy grail.

The navigator's task is to know where he is, which is to say his task is to remember his own lostness, to strain to stay ahead of his own lostness. And it is his sense of time, not his location, that aids him most in this project.

This fundamental paradox looms over me like a cloud of urgency when I wake up. But this is precisely the will of the labyrinth. I have to restore my equanimity. Dawn-light crisscrosses in fine bands through the brittle starboard walls. I enter the vestibule. The cerulean seawater laps the rust-brown keel. The portal stares at me like a great, glaucous, cataracted eye. Brooding, foreboding.

* * *

I dive in, feet-first, the passageway just wide enough to permit me. The corridor drops several yards straight down before it bends and opens into a coral grotto: the first chamber.

Anemones in bloom, bursting in bright orange and yellow fingers that feel and grope the waters, lying in wait to snatch motes of prey with their poison digits. Sponges, some like neural clumps, others like swollen funnels, breathe the water. The floor bristles with seagrass and urchins who register the changing directions of the water-wind. Iridescent fish, scrambling the light from the small ring of surface water above, flash in and out of invisible crevices. Eels, rays, sharks drift, menacing shadows made for ambush.

And the coral, the great living, feeding, breathing, multiplying city of coral. Multifarious, multitudinous. Form and function. Part and whole. Strange biologies.

A prodigious colony of star coral forms the main structure of the chamber. Colors, shapes, names. A million white and golden polyps clustered on the dull grey exoskeleton, each a stellate mouth clambering up and out from the convolute frame that surrounds me on all sides. At the base clump boulder-sized brain corals, their surfaces unfolding in impossible labyrinths. At the top blood-red fan corals branch out like an exposed network of nerves. And in brilliant rings burn the flaming tendrils of the sun corals throughout.

The coral immures me. Psychoanalysts have called navigation a masochistic pursuit, the self-willed imposition of incarceration for the thrill of escape. Egotistical at heart, fundamentally narcissistic. At this juncture, it seems more like exile. Theory is useful after all, upon reflection. Not a crutch, not a compass, but rationalization. A means to slow the breath, really, to ward off panic and the waste of oxygen.

I notice the spiny leg of a crustacean jut from a ring of sun coral. I inspect it. It offers passage. Blind, narrow, no sight of the other end. I swim into the darkness, into the dark throat of the labyrinth.

The first decision is as much a choice as a rejection. A new set of pathways, a lost set of pathways. Either way, the multiplication of the unknown.

* * *

The tunnel leads me into new chambers with new tunnels, which lead me into new chambers with new tunnels. Swaths of color, objects and occlusions. Movement has become pure sensation, primal need, sedimented and historical. Choice exposed as illusion, an elaborate grid-work of cortical synapses useful but constructed for an identity intact, for the place known, the time embodied, for the mind aware of itself as other.

But even the electric impulse must jump through the spaceless space. Mind elusive, fragmented, nascent, recursive, groping for the organizing principle, running from

bees in the honeysuckle bush

throwing stones into the creek

father's aftershave, news on the radio through a closed door

mother's hairdryer, light through the crack of a closed door

hand bleeding, breaking the neighbor's glassware

dogs barking, banging up against the chain-link

tripping into the medicine cabinet

cleaning the evidence, hiding the evidence

there is blood in the water

blood in the light

descending into light

cloaked, shrouded, surrounded

by shadows of predators faceless

* * *

Breath is distant. Ears are ringing. Hand clutching my thigh. The cold salt smarts the wound, exposed, unprotected. A dark cloud of blood. There is no separation from the labyrinth, no membrane between the labyrinth and--I, I am lost. I have lost.

J. Kelly's Ribbon Reef Navjournal: Selected Entry III

2009-03-15T11:51:00.003-04:00

Navigation, Day 31: The Vestibule (1/28/2009)

I am surprised that Groverson and Afaaq are still sleeping when I wake in the dark. In the relative darkness, that is. Here, the moon and stars wash the coastline in a silver film. Their luminous spindles stick to the sand, the sand clings to the spindles.

Maybe I am anxious. Maybe I am dreaming. Above, the unbounded sky. The envy and contempt, the hope and reason of bounded earth, of the earth-bound. I am not sure where I am until I begin to hear motion, shapes.

Afaaq and Groverson are busy about a morning fire, behind them a violet swath of sunrise. "We'll be paying for this late start, won't we?" I ask, walking towards them.

"It's only a few kilometers from here," Afaaq responds.

"And this no place to be alone," Groverson adds. "We go with you until you are suited." I can't tell whether he looks at me with respect, admiration, or whether he betrays admonition, bewilderment.

We pack and set off with hushed, methodical deliberation. For the first time I admit I am uneasy.

* * *

You can see them a kilometer off. Rusted hulls, rusted rigs, rotted sails. Scuttled shells, desiccated bodies. Giant gravestones stuck into the sand, burial plots staked out of desperation, not design. We approach, haunted, reverent, reminded. Visible from satellite, Groverson tells us. To no one in particular, really, but something one should say in the presence of those decaying colossi. On the rocky sea shelves, a fort stands sentinel. Abandoned, but it casts a long strip of shadow onto the shoreline. We stand in its shade for protection from the sun, from the ships.

Bret reviews the equipment. I have rehearsed all procedures, but there is something comforting in the routine one last time, something comforting in the final company. "There's no more delaying," I say. I do not remember if I said this out loud or to myself, but I do remember thinking it didn't matter either way. I take out some bills. Both refuse, hands up and out, shaking my offer away. "Really, that's not necessary," Groverson says. Afaaq smiles graciously, but his gaze is out at sea, studying the position of the ships.

Groverson turns to go, Afaaq some moments after. I look up after securing my gear and zipping my wetsuit. Gone, soundlessly, their tracks already erased.

Solo navigation. The most authentic mode, perhaps. The authentic mode, and thus the most unsettling. This, too, I may have said aloud. Labyrinths are not the mere sites for cogitation, they are thought physically manifest. The boundaries of the known and unknown, of the knowable and unknowable.

* * *

I wade into the water, and I am in the labyrinth. The Ribbon Reef wastes no time, however.

In many labyrinths, the vestibule is contiguous with the port of ingress. In others, the vestibule adjoins it. Not so here. Some claim it is no coincidence that the vessels ran aground where they did, especially given the notoriously unpredictable (and treacherous) currents there. Whatever the case, theory, too, runs aground as soon as the navigator crosses the threshold.

Suffice it to say the location of the vestibule changes in the Reef. And suffice it to say that many navigators have not advanced beyond this point.

Fact is, I am paying for the late start this morning. Behind me, past the deserted fort, the sun, vermilion, recedes. I have swam through and climbed up the eviscerated bellies of too many ships, finding nothing. Even tracking the ships has become difficult. The first stars are glowing through, the water releasing its heat.

I think of Afaaq. I think of scribes. And I remember the swirling constellations that night. I have nothing to lose, I think, as a spiral of shipwreck emerges before me. Do I see this, or do I create it? Neither matters, I conclude, coursing the whorl to reach the center vessel.

* * *

I discover the vestibule after sundown in the hold of the center vessel. Luck. Or maybe not. There is neither pure accident nor rigid causality in the logic of the labyrinth. A controlling, uncontrollable logic.

Still, the waters block my entrance. I peer into the passageway, seeing no further than its upper coral ring. Dark, cold, breathing, moving. This labyrinth is alive. Its coral corridors alive, themselves harboring life.

I do utter this aloud. I remember the dead surfaces of the reefership stealing my sound, my breath, my motion, as soon as they could reach the corroded walls of the hold. I have arrived at the boundary of a foreign physics.

The perishable cargo in the hold of the reefership had decomposed long ago. Subsumed by the sea that crawled up from the hole that rotted through the keel in one of the refrigeration chambers. The sea, voracious, inexorable. The sea, substantial, thick, viscous. The sea, an entity. All-moving, unmovable. I discard all I thought I knew about the sea. Expectations, presumptions are dead weight in any labyrinth.

I search for the vessel's name, no longer legible on its half-bleached, half-rusted shell. Something to give the boat a hold over the water, to give me a hold over the boat. But I cannot waste my light. I find a dry refrigeration chamber adjacent to the vestibule and turn off my headlamp. The labyrinth moving, groaning below me.

J. Kelly's Ribbon Reef Navjournal: Selected Entry II

2009-03-04T18:17:00.005-05:00

Prenavigation, Day 30: Reaching Nouadhibou (1/27/2009)

Groverson rouses me before dawn, thrusting a small tin plate of karra, coffee, and a cigarette. I take them in reverse order, stilling lingering at the boundary of sleep.

"Where's Afaaq?" I ask him.

"He left in the middle of the night," Groverson answers. "He is already en route to Nouadhibou. He prefers to travel solo. Says he stops frequently to inspect the ground, the coastline, whatever is on the trail. A naturalist, he says. I don't ask questions. We'll see him when we get there." He pauses to look at the sky. "Pack up. It's about time to head off."

We decamp to the Mauritanian coast, traveling on camelback in the precious cool before sunup. Groverson is a quiet man. I suppose he reserves his speech for business. Or maybe his work is really in the line of listening. But I have little to say myself.

He breaks the silence at last. I am grateful. The desert, the sun seem to feed off of silence. "It's been some time since I've seen anyone going into the Reef. Not since that boat shipwrecked a few years back. It killed all aboard." He turns toward me, looking at my tanks strapped to my camel. "It's hell to get those tanks, by the way. And there's not much customs is strict about in these parts. No one gives tanks for any kind of diving in the area. Contraband. Some did before the shipwreck, I should say, but not after the laws changed. Steep consequences. The zone ends at the tip of the Parc National Banc d'Arguin. And even there permits are scarce. But I don't ask questions." He didn't sound irked, though; stiffly matter-of-fact, maybe even a bit surprised.

I didn't ask any questions either, although I had my share. It's easier to ignore the implications. Prenavigation is the fast before the fast, the gaze over the edge of the building before the jump. Negative capability.

* * *

The sun is almost halfway to its crest when the sand turns to water, where a rigged dhow awaits us. Money exchanges hands (the one universal gesture, I am certain), and in the rusty whir of the motor we sail north into the Gulf of Arguin.

We keep near the coastline. Countless fleet shorebirds fleck the sky. Black terns, grey plovers, white pelicans, scarlet flamingoes. Colors. Names. Innumerable fish mottle the surface of the sea. Grey, white, yellow mullets. Sawfish, guitarfish, hammerheads, leatherbacks, loggerheads. Shapes. Names. Sharp, unambiguous.

Our boat chops across the waters, up the notches of the spine of the world. Sun. Salt. Sleep. No one seems to mind me dozing off. But I remember noting how no one ever seems to sleep over here. Not even Groverson.

* * *

Before nightfall we land in Nouadhibou. Money exchanges hands. The dhow whirs south. Afaaq has been expecting us. He sits before the fire, inking graceful arcs across canvas.

"Arabic?" I chance.

"The flights of birds," he corrects, not looking up.

Heating up karra over the fire, Groverson says, "We leave before dawn again. We'll guide you to the ship graveyard, where we part."

We eat, smoke, and retire. Not even the coiling constellations can take it off my mind.

J. Kelly's Ribbon Reef Navjournal: Selected Entry I

2009-02-26T17:59:00.005-05:00

Prenavigation, Day 29: Arrival in Nouakchott (1/26/2009)

Boundaries. Nouakchott is a land of boundaries.

The Sahara and Atlantic hem in Mauritania's capital city. Mosques rise above the streets, whose names bear their French colonial past. Neither rise above the dust. Urbanites squint in the haze, nomads slip past. Both unnoticed. Taxis clamor over the calls for prayer, the donkeys, the merchants. None the loudest, none unheard. All heeded, all the same under the sun.

I stand between the tide and the shadow of the dunes, no longer sure where water begins and earth ends, no longer sure there is any difference.

My guide to the labyrinth is young, his face already wizened from sand and sun. He goes by Afaaq. He tells me it means the place where earth and sky meet. Himself a boundary. A Moor. Mauri. In antiquity, the land of the Moors. Greek for black. Now we cringe at this appellation, but we have forgotten the simplicity of it, the immediate perception. Places, people have colors. Named for colors. Subject tethered to object, object to subject. We have imposed our disjunctions on the past, have severed the tethers.

His camel is laden with my supplies: jugs of fresh water, dried figs, jerky. In order of amount and importance, though not of weight. He rolls a cigarette. His English is as tight as his roll, even if his accent is heavier than the heat. We pitch our tents near the flooded sebkha north of the capital, where we wait for Groverson. Bret Groverson, British expatriate and self-styled international trader and explorer. He has procured my tanks.

Heat, sun. Cold, moon. Boundaries.

* * *

Before the fire, Afaaq asks me if I am a scribe. My silence is ignorance. He repeats, "Scribe. Katib." I remind him of the Ribbon Reef Labyrinth. He sighs, not impatiently. Maybe out of memory. "My ancestors were holy men. A sect of holy men. They were scribes, kuttab, a revered Islamic duty, fit only for the purest observers and preservers of Allah's word as recited by Mohammed. But they were condemned as heretics. They believed that Allah's truest name was written in the earth, in the sky, in the waters, in the sands, in the trees, in the stars. Allah's name uncorrupted by man's corruption, unspoken and unspeakable by man's broken tongues. They didn't speak themselves, though. Code, credo. For the clerics, that was only a minor objection, however. The sect wrote, but in no ordinary sense. It was shape, it was motion they were interested in. Motion. Pronouncing motion. The labyrinth, not a built environment, they believed, but Allah's name embedded, emerging from the earth. If one followed the right path in the labyrinth--"

Groverson arrives, late, interrupts Afaaq in Hassaniya Arabic. Afaaq rolls cigarettes for each of us.

The camels grunt, the fire hisses and snaps. Afaaq stares into the fire, as if deciphering. Groverson and I greet, review the morning's plans. But this, too, is of the silence that surrounds us. Our exhaustion reverent, grateful. We retire, the stars forming spiraling corridors above.

New from the Mauritanian Front

2009-02-17T21:42:00.003-05:00

Labyrinthians abroad,

A freak storm in the otherwise placid late winter Atlantic has forced me to take longer-than-desired refuge in the Ribbon Reef's exquisite Great Room. While Stephon Crete's technomania oft chagrins me, his solar-celled blackberry has saved me in my current condition. Last week, I exhausted my supplies. At last recourse, I had to phone my emergency contact back on the coast; he shipped out some direly needed rations before the storm struck, allowing me another day in the aqua-lab. (This reminds me to discuss the ethics of the telephone in navigation, over which much ink has been spilled.) Unfortunately, my memory is low on the phone, so I cannot post any images just yet. But wait patiently. In my extended navigation I have encountered no other walkers, which, on top of the dangers I have already surmounted, has greatly amplified the challenge of this labyrinth.

Upon my return, which will be soon (I cross my fingers), I will post my navijournal. Given my solitude, and given my delays, I think you have much to anticipate. Au revoir.

[Message sent via Blackberry.//3:07 am]

NASCLS 2009 Updates

2009-01-26T20:36:00.006-05:00

I thought some of our readers would be interested to hear the latest news pertaining to this year's annual North American Society for Contemporary Labyrinthology conference, which is being held on the weekend of April 17 in Manitoba. Midway through December, John K. posted descriptions of the panels here. Since that update, some interesting developments have occurred. As some of you may have heard, John and I have been invited to serve on keynote labyrinthian Philip Cunha's panel. I spoke with Philip just this past week, and he informed me that his paper, which is nearing completion, investigates the ways in which Mathieu Gramont's notion of cyclico-ambulatory intuition anticipates and, in many ways, invalidates subversive navigation in the wake of Crete - a particularly interesting move on the part of Cunha as Crete is likely to be in attendance.

Cunha told me that he decided against his previously considered address, which focused upon labyrinthological ethics at large in favor of this "more pointed assessment." As an exteriorist Gramontian, I, for one, couldn't be happier with both Philip's choice of subject and the veritable renaissance which the French Recursivists seem to be experiencing within the realm of contemporary labyrinthology. For those of you not subscribed to the NASCLS newsletter (which you can subscribe to by sending an email with the subject "add to list" to Stephen Holdern at manitobalabconf_09@yahoo.com) a tentative schedule has been posted, to wit:

Friday, April 17

1-2 pm
Meet at Hudson Bay Overlook in downtown Churchill for hors d'œuvres.
3pm
Check in to Manitoba Marriott (or adjourn to other arranged places of lodging)
5-7 pm
Dinner and Awards (featuring the presentation of the Mezin Kobrin Award for Innovation in Labyrinthecture, the Phillip Ambrose Walker Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Field of Labyrinthology, and the Percival Crosley Award for Outstanding Ecolabyrinthological Accomplishment).
7:30 pm(in Marriott Conference Hall)
Introduction of Panels and Panelists by Jacques Oligreff
7:45-9 pm
TBA Philip Cunha Keynote Address and Discussion
9 -10 pm
Stanlislav Barta "The Indestructable Ontos" and Discussion

Saturday, April 18

The day is open, so to speak, and those who have never been to Manitoba are encouraged to experience it. That being said, there will be a group navigation of the Lake Winnipegosis Labyrinth (an estimated 3 hour navigation) which begins congression at 2pm sharp. Those who wish to sign up should contact Stephen Holdern before the event or sign up in the lobby of the Marriott.

5-7 pm
Dinner and Cocktails
7:30 -8:30 pm
Alan Berkhardt "Kafka's Corridors" and Discussion
8:30 - 9:30 pm
Bernhard Smallencroft "Subverting SN: Reclaiming the Sanctity of Navigation" and Discussion
9:30 - 11 pm
Open Discussion and Wine

This is, of course, subject to change between now and April, but I think it looks great so far. Remember, if you have any questions don't hesitate to get in touch with us here at CLP or with Holdern directly.

Notes from the Ribbon Reef

2009-01-24T16:08:00.007-05:00

Dear Labyrinthians,

I'm almost two weeks into my navigation of the Ribbon Reef Labyrinth. I have reached the second center. It is indeed paradisiacal, but this is truly terra incognita. Today marks my third day wandering the second center. A storm threatens, which will delay me for perhaps another week.

I am trying not to lose hope and sanity. All across the coastline, there appears to be no entrance back into the reef corridors. The labyrinthecture is maniacal; no congression points, no regression points in sight.

My oxygen supply is sufficient, but my second center navigation has to be parsimonious and well-planned, else I risk wasting too much of my precious tanks. The Atlantic sun has singed my skin, which feels indelibly brackish despite my wetsuit. My provisions are perilously low, and I have been forced to forage flora and fauna that appear comestible and innocuous. (A word to the wise: Never navigate without Floyd Brendelmen's Field Guide to Labyrinth Foraging). Sharks, I think blacktip reef sharks, are patrolling what seems to be one of the more promising congression points. The dance of the light on the water is beautiful, mesmerizing, but the refraction titanically complicates the detection of third doors.

I've taken a photo for your viewing and for the archives. Enjoy, but keep me in your thoughts. This will be one memorable navigation.

[Message sent via Blackberry_//.>Sent 9:26PM_._]

A Scholar of Ill Repute

2009-01-14T16:27:00.007-05:00

My dear labyrinthians,

You may have noted a bit of a lull here at the Cincinnati Labyrinth Project. Fear not, however, for the reasons behind our relative inactivity are decidedly positive. John K. is focused on a rather difficult navigation of the Ribbon Reef Labyrinth in Mauritania, and I, along with fellow CLP columnists Walt and Mark, have just attended the famous annual Bern Labyrinthological Circle conference in Switzerland. The conference was excellent, with particularly superb, progressive talks from Bernhard Smallencroft and Anders Heitkamp. Perhaps the most fascinating and exciting bit of labyrinthia that we gleaned concerns the construction of the Amazon Basin Labyrinth, a labyrinth which, as some of our readers may know, was begun by Mezin Kobrin but left incomplete at the time of his death. The project, which drew many skeptics based on its sheer scope (the blueprints posit an area of over 35 miles), has been picked up by CORRIDOR motion DESIGN, a forward thinking labyrinthectural firm out of Portland, OR. More on this exciting news later.

Now, onto the subject of this post, a considerably less pleasant matter. As you, my dear reader, have no doubt noticed, we have, here at CLP, always done our best to avoid participating in the factious and polemical modes of criticism which pervade the landscape of contemporary labyrinthology. It is our contention that what is called for in our present epoch is a labyrinthology which, as my good friend and colleague Philip Cunha says, mends the broken corridor. This being said, recent events have come to pass which I, for one, simply cannot abide nor turn a blind eye. During my sojourn in Bern this past weekend, I had the pleasure of spending a good bit of time with CLP Polish correspondent Czeslaw Gorski, a labyrinthologist well known in European intellectual circles for his writings on "blind ambulation." Gorski has been working on a rather fascinating article for some time now, of which I have read several drafts. The piece takes as its subject a rather problematic, yet widespread, exegesis of Book Seventeen of Gollesten's Framework, an interpretation introduced by Dutch New Interiorist labyrinthologist Rutger Roorback.

In essence, Roorback argues that Gollesten's critique of Aaldi's quantalogical reduction hinges on a fallacious interpretation of Aaldi's notion of cognitive constancy navigation (CCN). Roorback's views, as erroneous as they may seem to us, have become popular in labyrinthological syndicates throughout Europe, proving particularly influential on the Viennese Centralists. My issue with Roorback lies, however, not in my disagreements with his scholarship, but in the way in which he handled the prospect of cogent, well argued dissent entering into the realm of mainstream labyrinthology in the form of my dear friend Gorski's exceptionally well crafted article. The article had been approved months ago for publication in Perímetro, the prestigious Portuguese labyrinthology quarterly. This past weekend in Bern, however, Gorski revealed to me that as a result of Roorback's connections and influence in Portuguese labyrinthological circuits, the article has been pulled from publication.

I can say without hyperbole that this is a travesty. It is deceit of the lowest kind and, forgive me if I seem overly crestfallen, it is precisely the sort of underhandedness that threatens the very sanctity of contemporary labyrinthology. Gorski has agreed to let us publish his article in installments, the first of which I will be posting this weekend. In the meantime, dear reader, please consider jotting a note to Perímetro, as I have, to express your disdain for both their publication and sense of intellectual ethics alike.

Previews of 2009

2009-01-11T11:54:00.007-05:00

I have landed in Mauritania, and, as I await my navigational provisions, I thought it fitting to mention what 2009 has in store for labyrinths and labyrinthians.

The crises of navigational ethics may have dominated the critical brain-space of contemporary labyrinthology in 2008, but despair not: 2009 promises to be an enriching, edifying, and exciting year for labyrinths and labyrinthians.

The CLP has compiled a list of developments to debut in our new set of months that have already grabbed the imagination and ignited the eager anticipation of the international labyrinth community.

Here are three developments which I greatly await, and my colleagues will be sharing theirs soon:

1. In March, Californian labyrinthect Skye Morgan will be unveiling The Cube in an office park outside of Los Angeles. One part art, one part social commentary, and one part functional labyrinth, The Cube is a five-story labyrinth constructed entirely from cubicle partitions. The corridors of nondescript, gray cubicle walls underneath numbing fluorescent lights hanging from drop ceilings are purported to make for an extremely claustrophobic and disorienting navigation. No word has yet been leaked about the nature of the center and great room of The Cube, but I, for one, am up for the challenge.

2. On June 16, labyrinthologists will finally be able to get their hands on Stephon Crete's equally acclaimed and maligned Procodic Boundaries: On the Ballast of the Perimeter. Though shrouded in much mystery, Dr. Crete is expected to unveil significant new corollaries to his Vector Theory, furnish complete data tables from his measurements of labyrinthons, and, most astoundingly, incorporate his theory of salvific magnetism into his so-called Unified Labyrinth Theory. Labcritics, get ready to spill some ink!

3. Brazilian experimental composer, who boldly goes only by the name of Thiago, will be premiering Caminhada, an epic symphony written exclusively for Balinese-styled gamelan, Gamelan gong kebyar. In an interview, Thiago revealed that he scored the symphony after navigating the sublime East Amazon Edge Labyrinth. (I am scheduling my first navigation for the fall of this year. Do I have any willing co-navigators?) While not explicating any details about his notation and transcription, Thiago stated that he developed a system by which he assigned pitches and duration based on the length of corridors, juncture composition, and chamber arrangement. He found the gamelan to be best suited to "perform the navigation." Apparently, each performance of the symphony will be different, representative of the alternative congressional and egressional routes the East Amazon Edge Labyrinth permits. The first performance will be at the Sydney Opera House in midsummer. Get your tickets while they are still available.

Oligreff on the State of Navigation in the late 2000's

2009-01-07T19:39:00.003-05:00

Not normally known for doomsaying, Jacques Oligreff offerered some pointed criticisms of navigation in our present epoch at the MLC (Midwest Labyrinthology Consortium) meeting which took place this past weekend at DePaul Univeristy in Chicago. I managed to record most of his talk on microcassette (though my recorder died near the end of the almost 140 minute presentation). I'll try to post some audio excerpts later in the week.

"The call for a particularly stringent, codified system of labyrinth ethics - rules of the game, if you will - proves particularly urgent in the wake of Crete's labtech. Gone are the days in which navigators toiled solemnly and without interruption. Gone are the days in which the navigator, looking up at the firmament above him, summoned something deep within himself in order to find the will to press on, against all odds, to find his way to the center or to ambulate reverently, if he so chooses, free from the duress of centrality.

Last autumn I visited the Canyonlands Cave Labyrinth in Utah, one of my favorite domestic labyrinths, and one of the late Kobrin's most successful and inspired labyrinthectural designs. In the past, Chantal, my dear wife, and I have always enjoyed the rigor involved in successfully navigating the labyrinth. We've navigated to the center some 15 times now, and it never has ceased to be a challenge. This past visit was different. As we reached what I knew to be the notoriously difficult second center (Kobrin employs a system of deceptively angled obelisks to compel the navigator to believe he is congressing when in fact he is egressing at a rapid clip), I noticed, attached to the wall, a schematic for finding the center, replete with fastidiously documented photographs of the twists and turns one would encounter throughout the rest of his navigation.

I ask you my fellow labyrinthians, will we allow this to continue? Who will stand with me against the subversive, techno-labyrinthians who endeavor to do violence to the very essence of the labyrinth as we know and cherish it?"

Spirited words, indeed. While I sympathize with Oligreff on the lamentable abundance of subversive and misanthropic navigation in contemporary labyrinthology, I'm reticent to agree that a "rules of the game" is needed. Such a proposal is, to be sure, nothing if not prescriptive and, in a way, appears to run counter to the very essence of labyrinthology. I'm curious hear what any of you might think.

Rasmus Stowe: Selected Labyrinths 1957-1998

2009-01-05T19:05:00.008-05:00

Stowe in Vienna, May 2000

For anyone familiar with the topography of 20th century labyrinthecture, Rasmus Stowe will be a well-known name. Born in Cape Canaveral, FL in 1923 to Danish-Canadian parents, Stowe designed and oversaw the construction of 19 ISCL accredited labyrinths between the years of 1957 and 1998, including some of the most revered and, in many cases, notoriously difficult labyrinthine works of our contemporary epoch.

Stowe's labyrinthecture falls very definitely within the realm of Gollestenian labyrinthology. His is a poetic labyrinth, with an emphasis on ambulation and a reverence for naturalism. Perhaps the most unifying trait in his body of work is his insistence on working with the materials most readily available to him in the region of construction. Tales abound in labyrinthectural circles about his refusal to import any raw materials when constructing his labyrinths. Moreover, whereas many labyrinthects in the wake of Molrey viewed labyrinth construction as a physical and abiding embodiment of the sublime/otherworldly/fantastical, Stowe's works remained resolutely in keeping with the embedded landscapes, both cultural and geographic, of his construction sites. For those unfamiliar with Stowe's body of work, here I present a few particularly inspired examples and a few interesting footnotes:

Laurel Grove Kudzu Labyrinth (1957-1960, USA)
Stowe's first labyrinth, built entirely from kudzu harvested from Savannah, Georgia and surrounding counties. Stowe received a grant from the Laurel Grove Citizens Board for proposing a project which would boost tourism in the region and provide a welcome reprieve from the rampantly growing kudzu that was otherwise being uprooted and burned. He reportedly used 215,000 tons of kudzu in the construction of the labyrinth.

Blue Nile Gorge Labyrinth (1968-1973, Ethiopia)
The Blue Nile Gorge labyrinth is the first aquatic labyrinth which Stowe designed. He received the ISCL Honneur du Labyrinthect award for the labyrinth in 1973, the result of scientific findings which show that the aquatic corridors provided safe haven to the critically endangered Spotted Necked Otter (Lutra maculicollis), a species which has since flourished and avoided what seemed to be certain extinction.

Guajira Penninsula Labyrinth (1982-1991, Columbia/Venezuela)
Perhaps Stowe's best known labyrinth. It is a hybrid aquatic/terrestrial labyrinth and, as a personal aside, it is without question the most difficult navigatory experience I've ever had. The labyrinth begins in the xeric shrubland of Columbia and covers an area of approx. 95.000 km2. The corridors become aquatic around the northeastern coast of Venezuela, near the foothills of the Macuira mountain range. The labyrinth's Great Room is above water and noted for its dense population of Caribbean flamingos which apparently favor its misty climes.

Schwarzwald Labyrinth (1993-1998, Germany)
Stowe's final completed labyrinth, designed largely in tribute to German philosopher Martin Heidegger who lived in the Black Forest where the labyrinth was constructed. Stowe found continued inspiration in Heidegger's writing, particularly his post-Sein und Zeit texts. The Schwarzwald Labyrinth is, without question, Stowe's most ruminative and convoluted labyrinth, mimicking the Heideggerian notion that thinking is akin to traveling along a darkened woodpath in which getting lost is as important as finding one's way.

Futher reading:

Brinkley, Joseph. Stowe's Contributions to Labyrinthecture. New York: Paragone Press, 1989.
Gallimard, Maurice. Couloirs Aquatiques. Paris: Editions Arceneaux, 2003.
Smallencroft, Bernhard. Rasmus Stowe. Chicago: Black Thicket, 2011.

An Alarming Appropriation

2009-01-03T14:12:00.007-05:00

Dear Readers,

Please forgive the typography of this post. I am writing to you via Blackberry on my way to the Ribbon Reef Labyrinth in the atoll lagoons off the Western coast of Mauritania. And wish me luck: aquatic labyrinths are among the most challenging and perilous. I will share with you my navijournal when I return.

We labyrinthians at the CLP hold ourselves to the highest journalistic standards, and thus we always strive to eschew any editorialization in our threads. However, we must also uphold the integrity of the labyrinth, and therefore we believe it is our sacred duty to report any disquieting and undignified labyrinthine phenomena.

As many of you know, the best of this nation's college football squads have squared off in the various matches of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). Advertisers and corporate sponsors lacked no creativity this year in their commercial promotions of the BCS. Yet, one advertisement employed an outrageous conceit: linemen, in caricatured lust for victory, careering the corridors of labyrinths to tackle their ways to the center.

Watch the video, if you can stomach this egregious appropriation:

We at the CLP avoid prescriptivism, but this promotion displays two sinister misrepresentations which we cannot condone. First, navigation is not a competitive activity. Certainly, navigation has its athletic demands, but congression is not a gladiatorial sport in which one "wins" or "defeats" an opponent. Second, centers do not present the navigator with any kind of trophy. Arrival is its own reward, and there is no prize or treasure awaiting the navigator.

Labyrinths can indeed serve as rich metaphors, but, fellow labyrinthians, we cannot tolerate such co-option.

Gramont and "La ligne propre"

2009-01-01T13:42:00.003-05:00

As I mentioned in my comment to John's thread below, naturalism and observational navigation are issues which are given sustained consideration in the thought of a wide range of modern and contemporary labyrinthians. In Aaldi's text, nature as such is subjected to the quantalogical reduction. Reede's interiorist skepticism, manifested most notably in the writings and lectures from the Tiranė period, often takes as its subject the sensible and corporeal experience of the natural labyrinth. As John intimated, it is in the labyrinthological project of Gollesten that naturalism is reclaimed from the critique of the Medialists.

I find Mathieu Gramont's naturalism to be particularly interesting due in part to the fact that much of his labyrinthology functions as what is essentially a deconstruction of modern labyrinthological theory at large. As our readers know, the recursivist movement, which Gramont initiated, denies both exteriorism and interiorism as appropriate methodologies for navigating and investigating labyrinths as such, advocating instead a labyrinthology in which navigation and ambulation are paramount. In a lecture from the spring of 1940, entitled "La ligne propre" ("The Clean Line"), Gramont articulates an aesthetics of observational navigation. The piece is contained in the French language collection of Gramont's letters and lectures published by Editions Arceneaux, unavailable in translation at present. This excerpt finds Gramont sympathizing with Gollesten, and calling for a new vocabulary with which to assess the aesthetics of the labyrinth. The translation is my own.

"By decisively avoiding the center and the perimeter alike, we bring about a state of affairs in which the structure of the corridors within the sensible labyrinth effectively becomes our horizon. Our eyes focused solely upon the expanse of the corridor, undeniable as Gollesten has shown, and irreducible to constancy as posited by Aaldi. The aesthetics of the post-Industrial labyrinth force us to approach naturalism within the labyrinth in the same manner posited by the exteriorists, though we dispute their fundamental teleologico-labyrinthology. As Gollesten points out, the structure of the labyrinth may only be assessed in the context of properly authentic navigation. But how may we consider the aesthetics of the corridor?

Labyrinthectural theory, bound and blocked from primordiality by its dependence on quantalogical notation, does not provide us with a suitable vocabulary for assessing the beauty of the labyrinth's form. Moreover, the teleological fallacies of post-Aaldian labyrinthology continue to exercise their insidious influence on the topography of contemporary labyrinthecture. Utility should never be the locus. A corridor should beckon us in manifold ways, entreating us always to ambulate. It is the task of the labyrinthian to assess the corridor, but not to explain it away. This is, as Gollesten points out, the crisis of observational navigation in modernity."

Rare Bird Sightings: Observational Navigation from Lake Erie

2008-12-30T12:21:00.011-05:00

Labyrinth navigation does not always serve as its own end. In his Framework, Gollesten indeed describes congression as the most authentic mode of navigation, but he also acknowledges a host of other meaningful navigational modes. In an oft overlooked passage in his more meditative, pastoral, and colloquial Book 12, "Earth, Sky, Creature, Weather: Restructuring Natural Boundaries in the Built World," Gollesten, in a moment of uncanny prescience, muses:

The authentic [author's emphasis] labyrinth is not inimical to the natural landscapes and organisms in which the boundaries and corridors are structured. In fact, we see in the Classical epoch of labyrinths, which, we may firmly assert, is a veritable Golden Age, that the architects commissioned were those men who dwelled closest to the habitats of labyrinth sites. Urban architects were deemed ill-equipped to establish edifices who could merge man's structures with sky, earth, creature, and weather. Thus, we witness a staunch effort in Classical Labyrinthology to fuse artifice with nature. The authentic labyrinth, then, preserves the natural order while altering Nature's physiognomy.

It is well known, and well mourned, that Modern Labyrinths did not value the fusion of artificial and organical. Rather, incepting in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, we behold the birth of new paradigm, the paradigm that man's structures do not merely rival nature's complexity, but in fact best nature's 'legerdemain.' Indubitably, this paradigm is predicated in the Cartesian project of the domination of Nature, as nefariously delineated by and fallaciously quantified by Aaldi.

Displacement was the modus operandi; some even argue it was the modus vivendi in this Dark Age of labyrinthology. Yet, inevitably, flora and fauna developed ways to thrive within and among the boundaries of the labyrinth, perhaps in that Darwinian fashion which is causing so much contention still in this day. It is reported by a British navigator in the early 1800s that the English Claret-Bellied Pheasant, purported to be hunted to its extirpation, was healthily living and propagating in the Derbyshire Amber Labyrinth. This was the first of a genus of reports documenting the conservative properties of labyrinths.

As man sullies the soil and burdens the beast, perhaps the labyrinth stands as a refuge. I speculate that we will grudgingly testify to man's destruction in the age to come, an age in which technology removes man further from his authentic being, and in which Nature becomes enemy. May a time come when the naturalist must navigate the labyrinth to observe the remaining survivors of a species?

And here we arrive at another mode of being the in the labyrinth: observational navigation [...] (Black Thicket, 501-503).

Gollesten's musings on labyrinth as refuge, as conservation sui generis, prove eerily correct. Today, many scientists have joined forces with labyrinthians to identify rare, endangered, and reputedly extinct species of flora and fauna within the boundaries of labyrinths. Their efforts, moreover, have engendered preservation campaigns that have successfully rendered a number of labyrinths as wildlife reserves.

Gollesten's musing, directly and indirectly, have also created a class of labyrinthians known, fittingly, as "Observational Navigators." Observational Navigators primarily walk labyrinths to study, explore, and wonder at the interface between the natural and the artificial in labyrinths.

While I am mainly a Metaphysical Navigator, I frequently enjoy Observational Navigation. In fact, one of my favorite holiday traditions involves birdwatching and bird counting in labyrinths across the country. As I mentioned in a comment to Alex's last thread, during this season, after visiting family in Cleveland, Ohio, I stole some time for myself to visit the Lake Erie Labyrinth northeast of the city.

My labyrinth birdwatching began casually, but, after descrying a number of rare birds, I chose to join the Audubon Society's annual Christmas Bird Count. This year marked the 109th Christmas Bird Count, in which thousands of citizen scientists count birds from December 14 to January 5.

The Lake Erie Labyrinth is considered a Class 2 labyrinth, or, more vernacularly, "of medium navigational difficulty." On this visit, my first in over 5 years, I came equipped with my binoculars. Natives, in recent years, have reported hearing the distinct mating call of the rare Gray Whooping Crane. However, no natives have yet observed the exquisite bird.

Before dawn, on a lightly pluvial day, which, I believe, is ideal navigation weather, I embarked in my waterproof brogans to trek the 6 miles of marshy grounds to reach the entrance of the Lake Erie Labyrinth. The labyrinth is situated in a lake basin and is built of softer rock compacted from glaciation tens of thousands of years ago. Given that the labyrinth was erected on wetlands, the boundaries have wide, thick bases that gradually taper to their crests. During two hours into my navigation, the sun rising just above the boundary ramparts, I espied a twiggy structure at a juncture, formed at the corner of the bases of two walls. On closer inspection, I beheld two blotchy eggs, at which time I realized I was observing a nest. Then, startled, I craned my neck at the sudden eruption of a stentorian "whoop" overhead.

It was the endangered Gray Whooping Crane.

I fumbled for my camera to capture this majestic creature, over 5 feet long and with a wingspan of nearly 8 feet. I was not quick enough, and, chagrinned, I continued my navigation.

After another two hours of navigation elapsed, I was approaching the center, which opens into a wet, grassy meadow of sorts about a mile from the Lake. Just when I thought my patient vigilance fruitless, I saw two cranes descending from the sky nearly a half-mile away. This time, my camera readied, I zoomed in and captured these tallest of North American birds right as they were alighting:

While the photograph does not make its namesake apparent, the Gray Whooping Crane is thusly christened for a narrow band of dark gray feathers that vertically line the anterior of its neck, which biologists believe is a either a geographical or sexual selection adaptation.

North American Whooping Crane populations number only in the hundreds, and the birds have only recently begun to breed naturally after man reduced them to near vanishing point. I was privileged, or should I say blessed, to have witnessed and photographed this exceedingly elusive bird.

I encourage all of you labyrinth enthusiasts out there to undertake Observational Navigation. What you see may help preserve some of this planet's most threatened beings. And ecolabyrinthians, continue your noble project.

And, we here at the CLP wish all of you a very Happy New Year. Bon chance as you begin to fulfill your Labyrinthian Resolutions in 2009!

Season's Greetings from CLP

2008-12-24T13:46:00.008-05:00

Happy Holidays from all of us at the Cincinnati Labyrinth Project!

I thought some readers might enjoy this festive, rather poetic excerpt from Douglas Myerston's 1978 Nipigon Labyrinth navigation journal.

25/12/1978

The sun rose early, rousing us from our slumber in the Great Room. It was Christmas Day. As I surveyed the corridor around me, there was no doubt in my mind that this was truly one of Mezin Kobrin's finest labyrinthectural designs. For weeks on end now, the convoluted halls had driven several of our men very nearly to the brink - one man, Howells, bore deep bruising on his palms and knuckles, the product of the previous day's heedless search for third doors. The domed rock above us, a radiant combination of heliodor and blue basalt, was illumined as though afire by the myriad moss agate and malachite deposits which adorned the canopy. On all sides of us, geometrically arranged recesses and slits in the boundary walls allowed light, both natural and tourmaline filtered, to fill the room. Our own frozen breath appeared to us as the stuff of ephemeral, drifting vespers. We rose slowly one by one. Michaelson, the adolescent in my charge, was last to rise, him unaware of our proximity at last to the center. The light shifted around the room in kaleidscopic forms, all floating blocks of color and dazzling pulses of refraction. Looking reverently amongst ourselves, we walked forward towards the center - silent, and filled with that wonderful electricity that comes only in the final throes of ethical navigation.

Beautiful, inspiring stuff indeed. I urge all readers to search out Myerston's late 70's navjournals. They're presently out of print, but may be ascertained via certain rare book dealers for relatively modest sums.

We'll be taking the next few days off to spend time with family and friends. Look for more activity at the end of the week, plenty of exciting labyrinthological happenings to discuss.

Constructivism and Recursivism

2008-12-23T08:35:00.006-05:00

It may interest our readers to know that after years without communication, I’ve recently been in dialogue once again with my dear friend Jules Poulsen, labyrinthian in residence at Bursa University. Poulsen is perhaps the preeminent Reede scholar in contemporary labyrinthology, and despite his constructivist leanings, I find the majority of his scholarship to be well considered and quite important within the realm of our current epoch’s labyrintholgical studies. His is a constructivism which eschews Aaldian reductivism in favor of a more disclosive, quasi-ontological labyrinthology that still hinges on interiorist principles. Poulsen has been researching the Valdis Reede archives at Bursa for the last five years, and working on what will surely be the definitive edition of Reede’s labyrinthology. Apropos of the heated exchanges we’ve been having at CLP meetings of late about the dialectic that exists between recursivism and constructivism, I decided to consult Poulsen on the notion of such an interconnectedness, one that, if it exits, synthesizes important labyrinthological positions of two schools of thinking which seem, on the surface, to be diametrically opposed. Poulsen’s response corroborated several of my ideas, and proved to be quite elucidating indeed:

"... I think there are elements of Reede's text which, if properly considered, go a long way towards ‘bridging the gap’ between modern constructivism and recursivism. I am sympathetic to your position re: the dialectic(s) that exist between disparate branches of contemporary labyrinthology. As Bruun said, ‘labyrinthology x, even if it posits conflicting views as labyrinthology y, may still be shown to be a subset of labyrinthology y, and vice versa.’ We find evidence of such an interconnectedness to exist between Reede’s middle period quantalogical interiorism and the circumambulatory recursivism of Desmarais and Duverger.

In Reede’s text, though there is an Aaldian skepticism as to the nature/existence of the corporeal, extra-mental labyrinth as such, we find an ontological, almost Gollestenian reverence for the being structure of labyrinth qua labyrinth. Reede’s text prioritizes neither center nor perimeter, progression nor egression. His is a labyrinthology which at once calls for a radical skepticism on the part of the navigator with respect to his sensible faculties, and identifies the pre-predicative elements (corporeal and psychical) which constitute and sustain the navigatory experience.

Recall that Desmarais, in Il y a Seulement le Couloir, posits a very similar system of labyrinthological perception, but for different reasons. For Desmarais, questions about the corporeal nature of the labyrinth are problems which have been created by the constructivists and, in his view, are best left to the New Interiorists. In short, the ‘problem of body in the labyrinth’ is not a problem for Desmarais. This being said, Desmarais is, like Reede, concerned with the fundamental nature of navigation and its relationship to the being structure of the labyrinth at large. Desmarais charts the pre-predicative navigational experience by way of the navigator’s sensible framework, and comes up with a system of labyrinthology which, if idealogy is bracketed, is almost identical to that of Valdis Reede.”

This is precisely the kind of progressive, non-factious labyrinthology that we here at CLP are excited about. Look for Poulsen, along with Philip Cunha, to be a big name in the field in 2009. Anyone else have thoughts about the 'common ground' that may be said to exist between these two disparate systems of labyrinthology?

In Memoriam: Philip Ambrose Walker (Part Two)

2008-12-21T14:56:00.014-05:00

The Years of the Bull: 1942-1945

The first installment of my remembrance of Philip Ambrose Walker left us at his arrival in Florence, Italy. At his family's grave consternation and against their most lachrymose entreaties, Walker reached Florence in the late fall of 1942, when the nation, under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, was over two years into the hellish fires of the Second World War. With Italian forces waging war in France, North and East Africa, the Balkans, and throughout the Mediterranean, it was a perilous time for a young Briton to study labyrinthology in a country that declared war on his motherland.

Yet, Florence at the time was home to the premiere university for labyrinthological studies in the Western world: L'istituto Classico del Labirinto. But, for Walker, the greatest lure of the institute was the venerable president Francesco Zappatore, whose groundbreaking interdisciplinary scholarship in both labyrinth mythology and archaeology especially magnetized Walker. Zappatore vehemently opposed the war, although he had to guard vigilantly his stance in public. However, in his country's fanatical patriotism and fascistic nationalism, Zappatore beheld the opportunity to undertake rare labyrinthological excavations. The preeminent labyrinth scholar, historian, and archaeologist persuaded Mussolini himself to fund excavations at various ancient labyrinth sites in the name of further fortifying Italy's 'position' as the greatest civilization of past and present. Walker refused to miss out on this venture, and thus, equipped with counterfeit citizenship, impeccable Italian, prodigious knowledge of antiquity, and the recommendations of Britain's finest labyrinthologists, Walker was admitted into the institute--and was given Zappatore's blessing to join the excavation team. (His pseudonym was Philip Camminatore.)

In 1943, during the middle of the second year of excavation, the team, under the protection of the Italian navy, sailed to the Greek island of Kefalonia, whose labyrinths were largely unexplored in that day. Excavations were fruitless, and Zappatore was considering abandoning the endeavor, until Philip Ambrose Walker made a discovery that, many argue, revolutionized the historical understanding of labyrinths. As he was digging in what the team identified as the center of the labyrinth, Walker's pick struck a long, thick, osseous remain. Further digging unearthed a bed of the remains. Walker, who was raised near pastures in his hometown of Exeter, knew exactly what he was beholding: the horns of bulls.

Walker presented his discoveries to Zappatore, who believed the horns were the remains of the ritualistic sacrifices of bulls in pits at the centers of labyrinths. At the time, Zappatore was developing the theory that, before the mysterious extirpation of the ancient Minoan civilization of Crete, a group of seafaring natives emigrated to Kefalonia to form a new society. Zappatore argued that the Cretan emigrants sacrificed the bulls in a reenactment of Theseus' slaying of the Minotaur, an act to propitiate the gods.

But, in a bold challenge to Zappatore, Walker agreed with his Kefalonian theory, but flatly disagreed with Zappatore's figuration of the sacrifices. While the horns spanned over three feet in length, Walker knew that bull horns normally grew to even greater lengths. Both mentor and protege observed markings on the butts of the horns. Zappatore claimed that the markings resulted from the removal of the horns from the skull, while, based on his familiarity with bovine morphology, Walker declared that the markings resulted from deliberate truncation. (The team's resident biologist concurred with Walker's hunch, and, on the team's return to the Italian mainland, laboratory work confirmed the hypothesis.) In a brilliant epiphany, Walker posited that the Cretan transplants affixed the horns to a ceremonial headdress, the truncation necessary to reduce the weight of the onerous horns.

Despite their contention, Zappatore saw enormous promise in Walker's explanation, and thus chose to focus the remaining time and money for the excavation on the Kefalonian labyrinth, thereafter informally christened The Minotaur Abattoir. The team discovered a veritable graveyard of bull horns, all exhibiting the same markings; the team never discovered any other skeletal bovine remains, which further corroborated Walker's theory. However, the excavators did discover tailored hides and the fossilized remains of the tails of bulls. Walker quickly fired off his explanation, fleshing out his nascent theory: ceremonial garbs. Time and money were exhausted, but the team did not return to the Italian mainland empty-handed. With their discoveries, Walker formed the foundation of his Minotaur Cult.

The ceremonial bull horns Walker discovered, on display at the reconstructed Kefalonian excavation site at the Exeter Museum of Labyrinth Myths and History.

Soon after their return, the escalating hostilities of the War was threatening Walker's family back in England. Walker decamped back to his home, where he relocated with his family to Anapolis, Maryland, whose library housed one of the world's most comprehensive collections on Ancient Greek Island Civilizations. Walker immersed himself in research until 1945, where he celebrated not only the end of the War but the publication of his first (and many argue most important) masterwork: Becoming the Monster: The Cult of the Minotaur. Walker explains his thesis in this passage from the first chapter, entitled "The Androtaur":

For the ancient Minoan, the true threat that the Minotaur posed was not his ravenous demand for human flesh, which the civilization fearfully propitiated by their provision of seven youths and seven virgins. Rather, the true threat the Minotaur posed was his dual nature: a monstrosity formed of the body of the man and of the head and tail of the bull. In the ancient Greek paradigm, the body of the man housed his heart, which was the seat of man's wisdom, and thus the Minoans could not reconcile how such an ill-begotten being could possess the capacity for virtue but arrantly and basely reject to actualize the virtuous potential that rendered man as man. Hence, Daedalus and his son Icarus were commissioned to fashion the Labyrinth, which not only immured the Minotaur, but which veiled the very existence of the monster that so challenged the Greek notion of humanness. Theseus may have nobly slain the Minotaur, but the physical death of the monster could not extirpate his existence in Greek consciousness. As long as such a being as the Minotaur could haunt the earth, the Greeks feared that man's perfectibility--and the concomitant telos of perfection--was a mere delusion.

As archaeological and historical evidence now evinces, there dwelled in ancient Crete a group of heretical thinkers who held that man was not only condemned to but also must embrace his imperfectibility. In their paradigm, man's fundamental nature was dual: base and virtuous, bestial and rational, barbarous and civilized. According to this paradigm, man could never aspire to become wholly virtuous, rational, or civilized, but, on the other hand, could never devolve fully into depravity and animality. Some texts liken man's dual constitution to man's inhabitation of earth, lodged between the promise of godliness and the inferno of monstrosity. This cohort, either by volition or by persecution, abandoned Crete for Kefalonia to establish a new society founded on their notion of duality. In reverence and homage to the unjustly slain Cretan Minotaur, they named themselves the Androtaurs: half man, half beast.

The Androtaurs assembled their new civilization near Kefalonia's modern capital of Argostoli, where they erected a colossal basalt labyrinth, whose center they believed was the real Axis Mundi. Further, bulls were sacrosanct in Androtaurean culture; they did not feed of the bull's flesh nor drink of the female's milk. The Androtaurs did offer human sacrifices to bulls in return for their horns, their tails, and their hides. Priests conducted the sacrifices in the center of the labyrinth, during which they donned ceremonial headdresses made of the horns, cloaks fashioned from the hides, and tails painfully pierced into the small of their backs. But these sacrifices were of the most unusual character: the priests themselves were the sacrifice. The priests donned the accouterments rendered from previous ceremonies, and, during the act of sawing off the new horns, skinning the new hides, and excising the new tails, the bulls battled the priests--and the priests only defended themselves until they accomplished the amputations, after which they surrendered their lives to the agonized creatures. Man was transformed into monster, and monster was transformed into man. The Minotaur was birthed anew, and the Androtaurs believed cosmic harmony was restored. And thus we have the ancient Cretan-Kefalonian Cult of the Minotaur (Black Thicket, Fourth Edition, 12-13)

Upon the publication of this masterwork, the labyrinthological community hailed Walker as a rising giant, and thus Walker secured his position at the forefront of labyrinthological work. In the next installment, we will see Walker's transformation from mythicist, historicist, and archaeologist into labyrinth theorist.

2008 ISCL Almanac Findings

2008-12-20T10:25:00.011-05:00

The ISCL (International Society of Contemporary Labyrinthology) has just released its annual compendium of labyrinthological statistics. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the almanac, it is a chronicle published on December 20th of every year containing myriad facts, observations, and findings which endeavor to provide labyrinthians with something of an unbiased (though, in recent years the partisanship of the ISCL has been increasingly scrutinized by various labyrinthological factions) "state of affairs" with regard to all ISCL registered labyrinths and navigators. We here at CLP, as might be expected from a group of primarily New Exteriorist labyrinthians, tend to be most interested in the stats which pertain to navigational tendencies, rather than quantalogical intelligence. Here are a couple particularly interesting findings, broken down by continent, and some interesting observations that I've been pondering. Thoughts/interpretations are, as always, welcomed and encouraged.

Documented Occurrences of Misnav (misanthropic navigation):
Europe: 43
N. America: 36
Australia: 34
Asia: 31
Antarctica: 28
S. America: 17
Africa: 14

Consider this: Australia has only 5 ISCL accredited labyrinths. That misnav number is very high indeed. This is fairly alarming.

Documented Second Center Fatalities:
Asia: 23
Antarctica: 19
Europe: 15
Australia: 12
Africa: 9
S. America: 7
N. America: 3

Consider this: 1) Antarctica has only 2 registered labyrinths, both constructed by the late Belarusian labyrinth architect Mezin Kobrin. 2) Instances of SN in N. America have nearly tripled since last year.

Stephon Crete's 2004 Vector Theory Study

2008-12-19T21:06:00.022-05:00

Allow me to welcome myself back to blog posting after an extended hiatus. For the past month I have been working on the finalization of my upcoming children's fiction novel "Logan Page: Labyrinth Hunter". I would like to take a brief moment to thank my editor, Sue Wells, for all of her incredible work in the past weeks as well as the super crew of associate editors at Oak Press in New York. Also much thanks to Bryan Parsons, an incredible artist, and a genuine pleasure to work with. All contingencies aside, we are looking at an H2 release in 2009 for Logan Page. I will certainly keep everyone apprised on the final publication date. I really believe that this book might inspire an entirely new generation of labyrinth aficionados. Also, no need to worry Mom and Dad, I think you'll find something enjoyable here as well! Many of the themes of contemporary labyrinthology are neatly tucked into Logan's adventure.

With that shameless plug out of the way, let me get into the meat and potatoes of my post this evening -- something I have been wishing to write on for some time. In 2004, Stephon Crete conducted (what became) one of the most controversial studies in modern labyrinthology at the massive Queen Isabella II labyrinth, just outside of Cordoba, Spain. Using a volunteer force of 40 international labyrinth navigators, Crete investigated his theory using the highest technology methods available in modern labyrinth investigation.

In a first for labyrinth studies, Crete employed the high definition Cablecam wire camera system. The camera was suspended over Isabella II, allowing him and his team to monitor (non-obtrusively) the navigators as they progressed and egressed the labyrinth over a 13 hour period. The volunteers, using wireless PDA devices, in fifteen minute intervals, recorded subjective estimations on proximity to center. Each navigator also recorded a contemporaneous measure of confidence in their evaluation. The proximity estimations and confidence measures were recorded in numerical form (0-100, scalar.) Each volunteer also carried an individual GPS tracking monitor, recording and broadcasting its exact position in the labyrinth over the entire study. The positional data was fed real-time into a computer program (designed by Crete, nonetheless.) This program formed the basis for Crete's groundbreaking conclusions.

Crete's objective was to form an empirical foundation for his most recent theory, which he had mentioned briefly in a 2002 roundtable presentation at Emory University: that principles of linear algebra are applicable to labyrinth navigation and that a century old vector formula could form the basis of a mathematical predictor of labnav. Crete's hypothesis is perhaps too complicated to boil down to one sentence. At the most basic, Crete felt that principles of vector and spectral theory, and the attendant formulas for predicting eigenvalues, eigenspace, and eigenvectors, could serve as predictors for the individual navigator's subjective (yes, subjective) sense of center. Crete felt that certain areas of the non-curvular labyrinth, where vectors intersect (think junctures and quadrants), create artificial nonzero vectors, which are subliminally observable to the mind of the navigator. These factors could, in effect, boost the navigator's magnetic determination of proximity to center.

To grasp this concept, imagine a navigator walking a corridor. At this point she is observing two vectors (at the junctures of the labyrinth floor and boundary.) However, as the navigator approaches a juncture, or (even more so) a quadrant, her observable vectors increase. Crete theorized that the observation of multiple vectors could form the basis of an nonzero eigenvector (x). Accordingly, he assigned a value "x" to each juncture or quadrant in Isabella II. This factor x would then be fed into the eigen formula Ax = λx. The result would be to identify an eigenvalue. Crete predicted that the eigenvalue, once identified, effected a linear transformation on both the navigators subjective estimation of proximity to center, as well as confidence. Ostensibly, the transformation would be to increase the linear estimation of distance to center. The eigenvalue could then be compared against the navigators responses.

The results were astounding. Volunteers who recorded subjective estimations of center while in the proximity of increased vectors within the labyrinth showed a marked increase in both estimation of center and confidence. Subsequent independent analysis of Crete's data revealed that the eigen formula corresponded to an increase in subjective proximity estimations and confidence at a staggering rate of 83.2%.

As is usual with much of Crete's work, critical response to the study was also staggering. Many pointed to the sheer lack of data produced. Notably, out of the 1,300 or so recorded responses from navigators, only 5.2% were recorded at points in the labyrinth with pre-set eigenfactors. Other critics noted that at least 43% of increases in confidence and proximity, as compared to the eigenvalue predictor, were small enough to be written off as negligible, or at least within the margin of error. Finally, many felt that the underlying assumption of the study was flawed: that the navigators actually observed these vectors. Crete has thus far responded to little of this criticism, apparently dismissing much of it.

Crete has always felt that the human brain corresponds to mathematical stimuli, and his 2004 study went far to promote this new theory. Additionally, Crete's study was later publicized in an hour long documentary on Televisión Española entitled, quite simply, "Laberinto". Although the show focused generally on the field of labyrinth study, the producers utilized Crete's Cablecam footage to explain basic navigational principles to the Spanish audience. However, nearly eight minutes of the documentary was dedicated to a brief explanation of Crete's vector theory.

It has been nearly four and a half years since Crete published his findings and he has never indicated publicly whether he would conduct a follow up study. Indeed, at this point it may be extraordinarily difficult to locate educated labyrinth navigators who are completely unaware of his theory. Certainly, any subsequent study would be subject to criticism on this very point. Regardless, Crete's vector theory remains one of the most challeging and dynamic labnav studies in the past decade. Stephon Crete remains a force in modern labyrinthology and we eagerly await any news of his future projects.

NASCLS 2009: Panel Announcements

2008-12-19T10:07:00.006-05:00

Yesterday, I spoke with Dr. Stephen Holdern, organizer of the 2009 NASCLS Conference at the University of Manitoba. He has solicited the assistance of some of your very own CLP contributors and labyrinthologists in the formation of a number of panels for this year's conference. Given the groundswell of labyrinthological scholarship over this past year, Stephen and I elected to devise a handful of panels which will allow participants to engage in dialogue on some of 2008's most challenging, provocative, and urgent topics. As Stephen was roundly impressed with the activity and community of the CLP, he gave me his consent to break the news and announce the first panels. If you are thinking of submitting an abstract, you may also want to seriously consider partaking in the following panels:

Kafka's Corridors: The Self as Other in the Symbolic Labyrinth of The Castle

Panelists will discuss recent readings of one of Kafka's most seminal and unyielding works. Within the multifarious valences of the novel's featured structure, a growing body of critics identify an extensive symbolic matrix of a so-called "center-less labyrinth" in which the self undergoes the excruciating self-alienation through the navigational phenomenon of estrangement.

The Indestructible Ontos

In this panel, labyrinthologists will discuss the controversial new theory of the indestructibility of labyrinth qua labyrinth. Recent research in labyrinth ruins, due either to the deliberate dismemberment of labyrinths in the waging of war or to the natural processes of erosion and weathering, argues that a labyrinth, regardless of decay or disarray, always retains its fundamental being as a labyrinth.

The Labyrinthological Imperative: Towards a Systematic Ethics of Internavigation

Philip Cunha is slated to moderate this roundtable, which will explore the persistent and perennial ethical questions that riddle internavigation. Among the issues billed for discussion is the problematic of the labyrinthological imperative, a draconian theory which privileges arrival at the center over the welfare of fellow navigators.

Await the announcement of more panels as soon as Dr. Holdern makes his finalizations.

Call for Papers - NASCLS 2009 Conference

2008-12-17T16:56:00.003-05:00

I just got an email containing a call for papers from my colleague Stephen Holdern, CLA coordinator and 2009 organizer of the annual NASCLS conference which is being held next year in Manitoba (another coup for the burgeoning labyrinthology dept. at UMAN). I thought some of our readers might be interested in submitting an abstract.

CALL FOR PAPERS: NASCLS at the CLA Division Meeting
April 17-18, 2009, at the Manitoba Marriott

The North American Society for Contemporary Labyrinthological Studies (NASCLS) invites papers to be presented at its divisional meeting held in conjunction with the Canadian Labyrinthology Association. Papers may address any topic that involves the connection between post-constructivist loco-labyrinthology and ontology or ethics. Presentations should be 20-25 minutes (10-12 pages in length; 2500-3000 words). Participants must be currently paid members of the NASCLS. Submissions should be made by e-mail by February 1st to CLA conference coordinator Stephen Holdern, who may be reached at manitobalabconf_09@yahoo.com.

The French Recursivists

2008-12-16T22:47:00.012-05:00

The only known photograph of Matthieu Gramont, taken by Inès Bédard in Vitré, Ille-et-Vilaine in 1940, two years before his untimely death.

Inès Bédard, Paris, 1944 (photographer unknown)

From left to right: Hubert Belanger, Rémy Desmarais, Arnaud Duverger. Photo taken in 1939 by Maurice Fournier near the perimeter of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha Labyrinth, Belarus.

The Second Center: An Introduction

2008-12-16T09:34:00.000-05:00

Classical labyrinthology at once shuddered and steeled at the very utterance of one of the most formidable structures of the Labyrinth: the Second Center. Roman historian Livy recorded that the very intonation of the Second Center evokes the wrath of the Minotaur's ghost, while Aristotle averred that within the trial of the Second Center lies the labyrinth's true test of the navigator's ethics.

Medieval labyrinthologists displayed only the most heightened superstition or only the most concentrated sacerdotalism on the subject of the Second Center. Augustin Bayard allegorized the labyrinth structure as a reenactment of Man's Fall. Yet, Padre Fernando García Vargas parabolized the Second Center as God' bestowal of a Second Garden.

Modern labyrinthology either denied the existence of the Second Center or championed it. Aaldi declared the Second Center was illusory, the faulty product of faulty perception. However, Gollsten described immersion in the Second Center as one of the most primordial, authentic experiences in all of navigational phenomena.

Contemporary labyrinthologists reveal the same schizophrenia. Stephon Crete hypothesizes that from the Second Center radiates a bombarding, concentrated stream of labyrinthons that can result in systemic navigational dysfunction, which may be the mother-source of the labyrinth's salvific magnetism. Cunha identifies the Second Center as the Axis Mundi of the labyrinth, in which the navigator can forgo the "ambiguity anxiety" between subject and object.

Historical conflict abounds because of the Second Center, or the Medium Secundum, as its formal appellation goes. But what is this most titillating, tantalizing, torturing, and taboo of labyrinth structures?

The Medium Secundum is a quadrant (or sector, in a unicursal labyrinth) in which the navigator enters a region in which he cannot regress or apparently progress. Thusly, the Second Center has earned the pied names of "The Doldrums," "Limbo," and "The Widow's Walk," all of which convey the ominousness of this ostensible entrapment.

Theorists often forget, in their distance from first-hand navigation, the lethality of the Second Center. In ancient Anglo-Saxon labyrinths, the archaeologist still discovers skeletal remains slunk below cryptic, hysterical inscriptions on slate boundaries. However, historians have documented evidence for navigators who nonetheless congressed at the center of the self-same labyrinth. Many navigators reach the Second Center, believing they have arrived at the true center, and soon perish, while others claimed to intuit the solution, and resume their path through the corridors.

Second Centers exhibit diverse forms. In arboreal labyrinths, Second Centers frequently assume the form of grassy esplanades whose sentinel trees appear to enable no forward permission. In lapidarian labyrinths, Second Centers insult the navigator with steeply sloping embanked boundaries with swathes of open sky above. Aqueous labyrinths feature dense entanglements of coral or seaweed. Earthen labyrinths often direct the navigator into the cavernous bellies where it is easier to plummet than to ascend.

Whatever the substance and style of the labcraft, labyrinthologists once speculated that Second Centers necessarily have "points of progression," as Philip Ambrose Walker urged. However, many current labyrinthologists are rethinking the labyrinth region, conjecturing instead that Media Secunda do not necessarily have "points of progression." Rather, these labyrinthologists argue that a navigator only arrives at Second Centers upon a tour faux ("wrong turn") as Pierre Coulet more colloquially described it. While much evidence corroborates the theory, some labyrinthologists rightly point out that some Second Centers still have hidden points of progression that only the most perspicacious navigator can find. Yet other labyrinthologists are excited by the younger theory, as it implies yet undiscovered routes to the center.

Perhaps the greatest source of the challenge, mystery, and lethality of the Second Center emanates, as the late Walker observed, on the great and unpredictable variety which these points of progression "evince." No comprehensive or exhaustive system of codification of the Second Center exists, despite numerous attempts. But there is one feature of the Second Center on which all labyrinthologists agree: the Second Center allows no way back.

French Recursivism: A Brief Overview

2008-12-15T12:40:00.005-05:00

John’s excellent Pierre Coulet bibliography thread below made me realize that we here at CLP have, heretofore, presented precious too few posts which investigate the fascinating annals of 20th century French labyrinthological thought. The French occupy an important and unique place in the canon of modern labyrinthology. Undoubtedly the most intriguing, not to mention controversial, of French labyrinthological factions were the Recursivists, a group born out of a manifesto written by Matthieu Gramont in 1939.

Gramont was an erstwhile exteriorist who had grown dissatisfied with labyrinthology at large as a result of the widespread influence of New Constructivism in 20th century European intellectual circles. He reacted with ire to the dominance of Aaldian thinking in modern labyrinthology, putting forth theories that rejected both constructivist and exteriorist ideas alike. For Gramont, the walker should fully embrace le chaos de la navigation (“the chaos of navigation”), employing counter-intuitive, willfully anti-logical navigational tendencies in an effort to, at all costs, avoid both the center and the perimeter alike. Gramont’s labyrinthology was, of course, reviled by Aaldians and Gollestenians, though certain of the more idiosyncratic acolytes of the latter contingent did find his ideas invigorating (c.f. Belanger’s Gramont at the Perimeter of Gollesten). For Gramont, what mattered most was existing as “walker qua walker,” and nothing more.

Gramont met with an almost poetic demise at the young age of 27 in the Shiriri Mountain Labyrinth in 1942, apparently resigning himself to wander the awe-inspiring labyrinth for several days until he perished of hunger. The mantle of Recursivism was taken up by Arnaud Duverger, Inès Bédard, and Rémy Desmarais, the former of whom used a highly selective interpretation of Coulet’s First Juncture to provide theoretical underpinnings to Recursivism.

I’ll try to get excerpts from Gramont’s manifesto and Desmarais’ seminal essay Il y a Seulement le Couloir (“There is Only the Corridor”) posted in the next couple days.

Pierre Coulet: Selected Bibliography and Criticism

2008-12-14T23:28:00.007-05:00

In response to Alex's introduction of Klemens Logewnik, I referred to the equally obscure and unconscionably neglected French labyrinthologist Pierre Coulet.

While Coulet lived a notoriously hermetic existence, he wrote prodigiously on a wide spectrum of labyrinthological topics. Renewed interest in his far-reaching body of thought has furnished several recent translations that successfully manage to tackle Coulet's infamously yet rewardingly dense language. These texts are veritable sine qua nons to any complete education in 20th century labyrinthology. I am supplying a selected bibliography (chronologically) that I exhort every labyrinth enthusiast to peruse. Brave and noble scholars, let me know if you fancy the titles in French if you wish to wrestle with the original texts.

Coulet, P. (1927). In the Vestibule: A New Metaphysics of Entry. Paris: Verre de Hibou.

---. (1929). The Metamorphosis from Man to Navigator. Paris: Verre de Hibou.

---. (1932). Exile in the Labyrinth: Recursive Navigation. Paris: Plein Air.

---. (1935). Some Values of Circumambulation. London: Ashgrove.

---. (1941). The First Juncture. New York: Black Thicket.

---. (1945). The Castaway, Theseus Unbound, and Other Short Stories. Paris: Plein Air.

Criticism on Coulet still remains sparse, although I suspect we will soon witness a cornucopia of new works. (The University of Manitoba's emerging advanced labyrinthology program is reputed to be crafting a Coulet concentration. I, for one, am eager to learn who the resident Coulet scholar will be.)

Below, find a few of the more significant titles (also chronologically) in the nascent field of Coulet criticism.

Oligreff, J. (1972). A Coulet Primer. Paris: Ardoise.

Christophe, Z. (1980). Coulet's Stages of Transformation. Paris: Ardoise.

Vrzala, A. (2003). Navigating Late Coulet's Allegory of the Drifter. New York: Black Thicket.

Interview with Thomas Stalle (Part Two)

2008-12-14T16:07:00.008-05:00

If you haven't read the first part of my exclusive interview with noted contemporary labyrinthian and Gollesten scholar Thomas Stalle, you can find it here. In this second segment, Stalle talks more about Gollesten's polarizing tome Science, Poetry, and Labyrinth, and addresses the factious nature of contemporary labyrinthology in the wake of Aaldi. The interview was conducted on 11.29.08 via Skype.

Alex: Why do you think that Gollesten allowed SPL to remain unpublished? Do you feel that it constitutes a finished, fully realized treatise?

Thomas: It's difficult to say for sure. However, Gollesten's letters from the early 1890's do seem to imply that SPL is an unfinished work. Moreover, it seems to have been something of an albatross which he could not complete nor decide to abandon. Take for example, what he says in a letter to Raif Osmanovic from June of 1892. He writes:

"... the ideas explored [in SPL] remain important to me, though I feel that I cannot do justice to them in a hermeneutico-labyrinthological sense. The conflation of poetry, image, science and labyrinthology may strike many as bizarre, even irresponsible. Even still, I feel that such interdisciplinary measures are critical to the exposition of the fundamental being of the labyrinth. Ultimately, perhaps language as such is insufficient, the play of sign and signifier unable to offer us truly primordial access."

I feel that perhaps Gollesten avoided publishing SPL because he did not want the ideas contained therein to be disseminated and codified as "labyrinthology." We note that Gollesten all but stopped publishing treatises in the last thirty years of his life, focusing more and more on lecturing and, later, painting. Ultimately, it is my own contention that the late Gollesten feels that the written word, and thus labyrinthology as such, is unsuitable to the study of labyrinths.

Alex: In this respect, Gollesten reminds me a lot of middle to late period Heidegger, who, as we know, he read extensively towards the end of his life.

Thomas: Absolutely. Gollesten was extremely inspired by Heidegger's tireless search to understand being at its most primordial. In many ways, his labyrinthological project is similarly focused and single-minded in scope.

Alex: Let's change gears a bit and talk about another subject that I know is important to you: the rifts that exist in contemporary labyrinthology in the wake of Kalev Aaldi. Do you feel that Aaldi, Milosovici and the Medial School constructivists are responsible for the almost insidious divergences that exist in labyrinthology?

Thomas: In a word, yes. I feel that the "split" in labyrinthology may be dated back to Aaldi largely because of the type of discourse we find in his writings and lectures. In a sense, Aaldi sought to invalidate the labyrinthologies that he inherited, pre-exteriorism in particular. Accordingly, his writing carries a polemical tone which naturally breeds critical contention. The factions that have emerged in labyrinthology in the last hundred years may all be traced back to Aaldi. We might say, in fact, that contemporary labyrinthology is, in many ways, a footnote to Aaldi, either supporting or rigorously disputing his labyrinthological positions. Gollesten, for example, spent much of his early academic life arguing back the labyrinth from the Medial School (Aaldi, Reede, Milosovici, Ozols, etc.). Subsequent labyrinthians, from circles as diverse as those embodied by the writings of Ambrose Walker and Coulet also have spilled much ink supporting or condemning the Medialists. People talk about various "crises" of contemporary labyrinthology. I think the truest crisis we face is overcoming Aaldi's shadow and mending the fabric of labyrinthological theory.

Be sure to check out part three of the interview, in which Stalle and I discuss contemporary and postmodern labyrinthians whose progressive writings appear to possess what is necessary to mend the "fabric" of which he speaks.

Saturday Open Thread: SN and Internav

2008-12-13T14:18:00.003-05:00

This morning I've been thinking quite a bit about the fundamental interrelatedness of SN (subversive navigation) and internav (intersubjective navigation). Marking, overheading, positioning, and chatter-plotting are all essentially intersubjective activities. With this in mind, I'm given to wonder, does the empathy that we employ to allow us to recognize the labyrinth as mine as well as the Other's ultimately do violence to the fundamental nature of our own subjective experience of the labyrinth as such? Are internav ethics unethical? Does approaching the labyrinth in such a way that it is not "in each case mine" threaten to void or alter the integrity of the being of the labyrinth?

Important questions indeed, and ones about which I would like to hear more discussion. Thoughts?

Klemens Logewnik: A Brief Introduction to an Important Figure

2008-12-12T19:37:00.011-05:00

Upon learning the extent to which the thought of Kraków-based labyrinthologist Klemens Logewnik proved to be formative for Philip Cunha’s post-New Constructivist onto-labyrinthology, I resolved to learn more about the rather obscure 20th century thinker. Much to my consternation however, Logewnik’s publications are precious few, limited to several untranslated articles which were published in Polish and Czechoslovakian labyrinthology journals in the 1940's. I asked Cunha if, time allowing, he might be able to provide to me with something of an “essential Logewnik,” and, to my delight, he responded this morning, sending me an email containing a handful of extremely edifying passages from Logewnik’s lectures, articles, and notebooks, two of which I’ve posted below.

From Cunha’s reverent words about the seminars which he remains grateful to have been able to participate in, and the labyrinthological positions articulated in the passages which I’ve been fortunate enough to read, it is clear that Logewnik should be considered a vital figure in neo-exteriorism and recognized as a major catalyst in Western labyrinthology’s turn away from constructivism.

Logewnik was writing at a time when New Constructivism was in full swing, spurred on by the acerbic, polemical writings of Fiser and Anvar. Labyrinthologies which focused on issues of centrality and exteriorism were very unpopular at this time, but despite this virtually hostile critical climate, Logewnik lectured and published articles on such progressive topics as intersubjective navigation (effectively coining the term "internav"), decentralization, egression and bio/eco-labyrinthology. Take for example the following passage, excerpted from an article entitled “Na Ciałach w Labiryncie” (“On Bodies in the Labyrinth”), published in 1946 in the Polish labyrinthology journal Korytarze:

“We cannot, as Fiser maintains, endeavor to separate our corporeal experience of the terrain of the labyrinth from whatever psychical understanding of its structure that we may possess. Our experience of centrality is not a purely cognitive phenomenon. Our body and senses are bound up in the naturally occurring przyciągać centrum ("draw of the center") to the same extent that our minds are. On the subject of decentralization, a notion which proves particularly problematic for the interiorist project, I argue that only in extreme cases of deficient navigation should such drastic measures be taken. It seems to me that it is far better to experience authentically the center’s magnetism; only in the most dire navigatory circumstances should egression be our principal focus.” (trans. Cunha)

In a lecture from the Spring term of 1973, Logewnik addresses the question of intersubjectivity in labyrinth navigation, an important topic on which much ink has been spilled in the last several years. He writes,

"How may we understand the Other as he exists with us within the passageways of the labyrinth? Is it possible to experience proper empathy within the labyrinth? Does our perception of the Other as subject change or remain consistent? To answer such questions, we must determine whether or not the world of the labyrinth, and our subjective experiences of this world as they occur within its walls, are open to the possibility of being shared. I argue that within the labyrinth, the same basic structure of the intersubjective exists, but that it operates in a distinct way. Moreover, I argue that intersubjective navigation is the foundation of labyrinth ethics as such. To understand the labyrinth as an intersubjective domain alters one's subjective experience of its object-ness. The labyrinth is no longer something which is in each case mine, but something which belongs to myself and to the Other with equal priority." (trans. Cunha)

I anticipate critical interest in Logewnik will surge with Cunha's rising popularity in international labyrinth circles. I asked him if he had any plans to edit or translate Logewnik's lectures and notebooks. He responded that while he has not endeavored into such projects, he would not be opposed. I for one will be waiting with bated breath.

In Memoriam: Philip Ambrose Walker (The Early Years)

2008-12-12T10:27:00.012-05:00

My fellow labyrinthians, today a sun sets behind the great, slate monolith that erstwhile defined the center of modern labyrinthology. It is my solemn and somber task to inform you that Phillip Ambrose Walker passed away around 3:00AM this Friday, December 12th.

His beloved wife Johanna, eldest daughter Rosemarie, eldest son Gerald, and youngest son Alistair survive him, as does his prized basset hound Winder, who was always seen astride and abreast Mr. Walker late in his life. Only Alistair is taking up his father's mantle. He's currently writing his dissertation in labyrinthology at Oxford University in Oxfordshire, England. Alistair has tentatively titled his dissertation Obstruction and Permission: An Exegesis of Enclosure and Disclosure in the Labyrinth.

Philip Ambrose Walker was born on January 17, 1925 in Exeter, the county town of Devon in England. As a young child, Philip became enamored with Thomas Bulfinch's seminal Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable or Stories of Gods and Heroes. His father, Benjamin Walker, a poor, uneducated cobbler, secretly saved a few sixpences every month until he was able to purchase the text, through which Philip learned to read and write, as well as build a foundation in Greco-Roman literature considered essential for a proper education in the times. But one story particularly fascinated the young Walker—the legend of the Minotaur's Labyrinth. As Walker biographer Sheldon Browne explains in Walker as Walker:

"The myth was formative for the young Walker. Not only did it plant the first seed for his lifelong love of labyrinths, but it also laid the philosophical foundation for his labyrinthological framework. While Walker gave much credence to the theories that emerged after World War II, he staunchly believed that the history and mythology were far stronger ports of entry into understanding the labyrinth. Curiously, it was not Daedalus or Theseus with whom he most identified. It was Icarus. The hubris, the overreaching, but also the grand endeavor, was both cautionary and inspiring for Walker throughout his career. The idea of wings—the ultimate boundary circumvention—haunted Walker, but perhaps also represented the notion of liberation from lostness that dominated Walker's investigations" (Paragone Press, 2006, 24).

The next formative moment in the life of Phillip Ambrose Walker occurred on a family vacation—a rare event for the Walker family—to Aberdeen, Scotland. During the holiday, the Walker family visited the Stocket Hedge Labyrinth. To his terror, Walker, a quiet, introverted, and claustrophobic boy of ten years, was separated from his family as they wandered the hedges. Alone, lost, helpless, Walker navigated his way to the center, where he reunited with his distraught mother, father, and siblings. Walker has extensively reflected on this moment, and declares the experience "instilled in me my dual terror of and romance with the center. I think my fixation with man's condition of lostness was cemented in the ordeal. The egress, the return to the perimeter has always represented for me, personally and theoretically, some glimmer of redemption. Even late in my life, I still relive my first confrontation with lostness, and I still relive the great ecstasy on arriving back at the perimeter. It's primordial."

At 17, Walker left his family to begin studies in Florence, Italy, where he would meet some of the great labyrinthologists of mid-century—and where, in his Roman excavations, he would become one of the great labyrinthologists himself.

Philip Ambrose Walker, 17, in Florence, Italy.

It's a sad day for labyrinthians, a passing of an era, but I hope this first installment of Walker's retrospective will inspire all of us to continue navigation and labyrinthology not only as activities and studies, but as ways of life.

Await the next installment, "The Birth of a Monolith."

Thursday Evening Open Thread

2008-12-11T20:29:00.003-05:00

I've been thinking quite a bit about egression (the act of leaving a labyrinth after reaching the center) in the wake of much serious conversation with fellow CLP member John K. I'm curious to know if anyone has any thoughts on the ethics of egression. The principal issue that I've been grappling with concerns whether it is more or less ethical to return to the perimeter via the same route that one initially navigated on his way to the center. After hours of reflection, I'm still unsure about which method (taking a decidedly new route or tracing one's steps back to the perimeter) is the more ethical and the better suited to a properly primordial navigatory experience.

I'd love to hear any thoughts people might have on this issue.

Interview with Philip Cunha

2008-12-10T23:40:00.004-05:00

As John K. noted in his post below, according to many conference goers, a young labyrinthian named Philip Cunha made quite a first impression at this year’s Contemporary Labyrinth Association (CLA) summit in the city of Głogów in his native Poland this past weekend. I caught up with Cunha via Google video chat on Monday. We discussed what he views as the most urgent crisis in post-constructivist labyrinth criticism: technology and subversive navigation (SN), and discussed briefly his upcoming Black Thicket publication: On the Question of Techné and Subversive Navigation.

Alex: Hey there Philip, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Thanks so much for talking with me. How are you?

Philip: Greetings Alex, thanks for getting in touch. I'm doing well. I’m back in Vila Real now, just getting settled in after a great weekend in Głogów.

Alex: It certainly does sound like it was a productive conference, I know all of us at CLP really regret not being able to make it out this year. You’re something of a newcomer to the international labyrinthology community. I wonder, could we perhaps start by having you tell our readers a bit about yourself, your critical interests, and how you came to study labyrinths?

Philip: Surely. I suppose my “introduction” to labyrinths occurred when I was five years old. I went to visit my aunt in Warsaw and my cousin took me to a hedge maze on the outskirts of the city. I wandered for hours in between the boundaries, mesmerized by the draw of the center, but even at that young age I was rigorously committed to the sanctity of what I would later understand is true ethical navigation. I see from your smile that you know something of what I’m speaking about.

Alex: Indeed I do, Philip. I had a similar experience myself as a child in Vermont. Wonderful, enchanting, seminal.

Philip: Very much so. Anyway, as I grew older my focus never waned from labyrinths. I'm still to this day grateful that my parents recognized my aptitude and passion for labyrinthology and permitted me to travel to Kraków to study with the estimable Klemens Logewnik.

Alex: Now tell me, how did you come to be interested in the rather new field of subversive navigation?

Philip: Interestingly enough, I suppose I can attribute my rather specialized interest in SN to the fact that from early adolescence on, I was always very intrigued by and conflicted about ARDF (editors note: Amateur Radio Direction Finding). As you may or may not know, ARDF is something of a popular sport in Poland, akin I think to your lacrosse in terms of its appeal. Anyway, in ARDF competition, competitors make use of magnets, compasses, and radios, Morse code and different types of attenuators. In short, many of the same gadgets that have come to serve as tools to subversive labyrinth navigators in recent times. Competitors make their way through dense wooded areas with the aid of this equipment. I was always awed by the competitors’ trek through the convoluted forests, but I could never quite condone their use of technology to facilitate their successes. I suppose I’m galvanized by this same Heideggerian attitude toward technology as it applies to labyrinth navigation. Just as Aaldi and the Medial School sought to explain away the mysteries of the labyrinth, I view SN devices and, to an extent, the labyrinthological project of Stephon Crete, as endeavors which aim to demystify and expose the fundamental absences that are innate to the essential being of labyrinths.

Alex: This puts you in definite agreement with many of the anti-New Constructivist arguments put forth by Bernhard Smallencroft.

Philip: Absolutely. Smallencroft’s work on eco-labyrinthology, contemporary labyrinth ethics, and boundary circumvention have had a formative influence on me, to be sure.

Alex: Could you tell me a bit about your treatise On the Question of Techné and Subversive Navigation that has, as I understand it, been picked up for publication by Black Thicket?

Philip: I'd be happy to. The manuscript was finished last fall, during a sabbatical from teaching at Tras-os-Montes. The text is broken into two divisions. In the first, I address my fundamental problems with SN. Many contemporary labyrinthians, as you well know, argue that SN is not necessarily a bad thing. They view the use of technology within the labyrinth progressionistically, as a natural development of properly futural navigation. In opposition to this view, I argue that this use of technology does violence to the essential being of labyrinths as such, and therefore constitutes an urgent crisis which we labyrinthians must address.

In the second half of the text, I voice my call for a re-enchantment of labyrinths and labyrinthology. I posit decentralization as a potential vehicle for such a quantum gestalt shift. By decentralization I do not mean engaging in what Smallencroft refers to as an inauthentic navigation of the labyrinth, in which we willfully disregard the beck and call of the center. Rather, my project endeavors to reverse the fundamental, longstanding binarism that plagues labyrinth navigation: the privileging of the arrival and the disregarding of the departure. I argue that by assigning equal priority to our experience of departing the labyrinth/returning to the perimeter, we make significant steps towards the recovery of a suitably authentic (in Smallencroft’s sense of the word) navigational sensibility.

Alex: I must say Philip, that is a very interesting and bold thesis indeed. Thank you very much for elucidating it for us. I know all of us here at CLP look forward to hearing more from you in the future. Thanks again for your time, it’s been a true pleasure.

Philip: Thank you so much, Alex. Keep up the good, inspired work at CLP. I hope to hear from you all soon.

Keep it up!

2008-12-10T21:58:00.005-05:00

As many readers may have noticed earlier today, it turns out that there is a labyrinth in the works for the Cincinnati Riverfront Park. This is wonderful news for the CLP, right? Wrong, dreadfully wrong. When Alex and I got together this morning to discuss the matter we were initially left with a sense of listlessness. "Where do we go from here?" we asked ourselves. For all intents and purposes we should view this as a victory, he claimed. I must respectfully disagree. We have only made it halfway across the bridge, dear labyrinth enthusiasts. We began this organization to do these two things:

1. Sell the Bengals

2. Build a labyrinth in Paul Brown Stadium

Checking one of those off the list is not a victory. We must soldier forth, never allowing ourselves to be distracted from our TWO main objectives. There is enough room in this city for two labyrinths, and the one we are proposing will be one built on a much greater scale and with greater meaning contained in its twisting stone caverns. If you think that this is some sort of win for the CLP, I urge you to refer back to our original mission statement. I, and the rest of the CLP, stand by those words unwaveringly. The CRP can have their labyrinth. In fact, it will be a welcome little sister to the one contained within Paul Brown Stadium. Never let up Cincinnati labyrinth enthusiasts! If anything, this proves that there is a market for our cause!

Subversive Navigation: Open Thread

2008-12-10T17:37:00.004-05:00

After the 2008 CLC in Poland, Alex and I have been communicating with Philip Cunha, whose superb lectures on the crisis of subversive navigation (SN) are galvanizing all schools of contemporary labyrinthology--and are positioning him as one of the next major voices in the field.

Before discussing Cunha's groundbreaking work in subversive navigation, we wanted to afford our valued CLP readers, visitors, and commentators the chance to share their opinions on the crisis of SN.

For those of you unfamiliar with the topic, SN (as opposed to BC, or boundary circumvention) comprises a family of navigational practices including, but not limited to:

Marking; also known as "dropping bread crumbs," this practice involves leaving signs, posts, or objects to guide walkers on the navigation back to the perimeter and for future navigations
Overheading; this practice involves flying over labyrinths in order to identify the center and thereafter mapping out routes
Positioning; a recent phenomenon, this practice determines positional coordinates, and employs GPS technologies to "clue" a walker to the center
Chatter-plotting; a practice utilized by teams, this form of subversive navigation involves walkers pursuing different routes ("flanking") and communicating via cell phones or two-way radios to work towards the center

What are your thoughts on SN? Are these practices ethical? Or do they fundamentally question labyrinth integrity?

Bengals Tender Funds for Labyrinth

2008-12-09T21:51:00.011-05:00

Irony is a dish best served by the Bengals. The Business Courier reports that the troubled franchise recently presented the Cincinnati Park Board with a corporate check for $250,000 in support of an upcoming project on the riverfront. Here's the rub, the Courier reports that the project, among other things, will include a labyrinth.

The CLP was never contacted about a proposed labyrinth, nor have we heard from our colleagues in the industry regarding a labyrinth project on the riverfront. Having said that, we are somewhat dubious that the Park Board intends to build a real labyrinth. Nonetheless, the CLP will withhold official judgment on this development while we do some digging on the proposed project. Certainly readers, more to come.

Read link

More Highlights from CLC, Poland 2008

2008-12-09T12:13:00.006-05:00

As Alex's post illuminated, Bernhard Smallencroft's keynote address, "Navigational Discipline: The Ethics of 2D Labyrinths," voiced many of the dominant notes from this year's annual Contemporary Labyrinthology Conference in Poland. But our colleague Czeslaw Gorski shared a number of other fascinating—nay, alarming—presentations and panels that attending labyrinthologists are still buzzing about. A new addition to the CLC, Labyrinth Conservation, trumpeted a poignant call to arms.

Paddock Lawley (England), Bao Rong (China), and Christa Ayodele (Mauritania): "Endangered Labyrinths"

In this presentation, rising biolabyrinthologist Lawley teamed up with ecolabyrinthologist Bao and cultural labyrinth historian Ayodele to report on the distressing ramifications of deforestation: the endangerment of tropical labyrinths. Lawley and Bao explained that these rarest of labyrinths, which emerged over thousands of years of co-evolution, serve a critical symbiosis among flora, fauna, and the remote tribes that dwell within the jungles. Deforestation is threatening the future of these labyrinth ecosystems, and Ayodele passionately warned that the destruction of these labyrinths will result in the loss not only of tropical plants and animals, but also the tribes that depend on the labyrinth ecosystem.

The images below tell the disturbing tale:

A passageway way in a Bolivian tropical labyrinth in 1999.

The same passageway, from the reverse port of entry, today.

We at the CLP can help to end this dreadful loss of labyrinth ecosystems: the construction of the Paul Brown Labyrinth can raise the direly needed awareness for this disturbing trend.

Smallencroft Keynote Speech, Głogów Contemporary Labyrinthology Conference 12/6/08

2008-12-09T10:21:00.007-05:00

This year's annual Contemporary Labyrinthology Association (CLA) summit took place in Głogów, Poland this past weekend. Unfortunately, no CLP members were able to make the trip. Lucky for us though, my collegue Czeslaw Gorski was able to record Bernhard Smallencroft's excellent keynote speech, an excerpt of which I've posted below. As usual, Smallencroft is clear and too the point, largely eschewing the jargon-laden discourse of his peers. His accessible style is most welcome in the world of labcrit. This year's conference focused on Dimensionality and Labyrinth Ethics. Smallencroft's address tackles the issue of the ethical demands of the two-dimensional labyrinth.

“The importance of dimensionality in both labyrinth construction and navigation cannot be overstated. Aside from obvious visual and aesthetic distinctions that exist between the two dimensional labyrinth and its more elaborate and interactive three dimensional counterpart, the essential nature of the 2D labyrinth provides us with a important opportunity to once again place labyrinth ethics under the microscope.

Let us examine first the being of the classical, 3D labyrinth. Its foreboding, monolithic structure and mathematical purity call out to us, entreating us to explore its manifold corridors. As I’ve argued elsewhere, the labyrinthian’s focused predilection to centrality is part and participle of human nature, and not the result of any discursive binarism. Simply put, while it is true that the navigation of the labyrinth is an essential part of its structure and must be treated as such, the allure of the center is not a phenomenon that need be avoided nor decried. From the perimeter of the 3D labyrinth, our experience of the center is, of course, mediated by boundaries innumerable. In short, it is a relationship marked by a rather extreme degree of occlusion.

What then is the essential nature of centrality and navigation in the case of the 2D labyrinth? You might be given to wonder - is our experience of centrality in these labyrinths so different? While it is true that our attitude towards the center is consistent in the case of both types of labyrinths, the 2D labyrinth brings with it a unique test of the labyrinthian’s ethics. Here, we are able, at all times, to see the center and our path to reach it without obstruction. Moreover, we are always able to immediately access the center. Boundary circumvention is as simple as walking easily over top of a painted border or small pile of gravel. As such, our proximity to the center is altered in manifold ways.

How different it is to stoically walk between the painted or stone laid boundaries of a 2D labyrinth, seeing both the labyrinth in its totality and, with complete transparency, our path to the center. The 2D labyrinth forces us to reevaluate our morality by way of the personal decision we must make which determines whether we will navigate said labyrinth in the same manner as we would a more complex, 3D labyrinth, or succumb to the alluring temptation of taking the quickest, easiest course to the center.”

The Medial School

2008-12-08T23:00:00.005-05:00

This rare daguerreotype photograph captures the principal five labyrinthians of the Medial School - Aaldi, of course, on the far right.

Left to right: Bohumir Šťastný, Pēteris Ozols, Valdis Reede, Achrif Laarbi, Kalev Aaldi

Crete Sneak Peak

2008-12-08T19:07:00.004-05:00

John K. and I have both been in talks with a book rep at Paragone Press, and it looks like the publication of Stephon Crete's highly anticipated new text Procodic Boundaries: On the Ballast of the Perimeter is closer than we initially thought. Apparently Crete finished the manuscript this past autumn and there is now a tentative publication date of June 16, 2009. Good news for labyrinthians! Scott, the rep at Paragone, was good enough to send over a .tiff of the jacket for our perusal.

We hope to be able to post an exclusive excerpt from the text in the near future.

Open Thread

2008-12-08T15:56:00.003-05:00

What kind of stone(s) should the CLP recommend for the Paul Brown Labyrinth?

As a locolabyrinthian, I suggest we look to Cincinnati's endemic geology. Also, we need to keep in mind Cincinnati's seasonality, i.e. weathering and erosion. Please share your personal recommendations.

Labyrinths and Theism

2008-12-08T12:02:00.014-05:00

Recently, the CLP office has been abuzz with a host of concerned e-mails and phone calls regarding the incorporation of the labyrinth in "occult" rituals. I have personally contacted many of you who have written in with questions such as "Are labyrinths Satanic?" or "Why do wiccans love labyrinths?" or "Is a massive stone labyrinth in Paul Brown Staidum offensive to my Christian/Moslem belief structure?"

This is a subject on which much has been written, but for purposes of brevity, I will attempt to answer these questions as succinctly as possible.

The labyrinth as an archetype has been accepted and celebrated by nearly every major theology, including those that have since ceased to exist. This is only logical. Labyrinths largely predate every major religion. In the modern era, early labyrinths have been discovered in all the popular "cradles" of civilization, whether Mesopotamia (labyrinth GS918 located near the Iraq/Iran border), North Africa (labyrinth HU292, popularly referred to as the King's Eye labyrinth, located in Morocco), and the Asiatic regions (labyrinth GT221, in Bhutan). Accordingly, labyrinths, in both a physical and psychical sense, have firmly established roots in all major and minor human theisms.

In terms of Christianity, the labyrinth is an accepted and celebrated archetype. Early cathedrals often employed some form of labyrinthine structure. The labyrinth motif was brilliantly espoused in Bunyan's allegory The Pilgrim's Progress. More recently, the prayer journey, where the individual paces the pathways of the labyrinth in a meditative prayer state, has enjoyed a resurgence in Christian use.

It is true that neopagans, at least in modern times, have most visibly embraced the labyrinth as a psychical doorway to exploration of their belief structure. However, to say that the labyrinth is unique to Wicca, or any other religion, would be a gross mis-step.

Ultimately, the labyrinth is offensive to no religion, and inclusive of all. You may rest assured that a massive stone labyrinth in Paul Brown Stadium would pose no threat to an individual's religious identity. The labyrinth, by its nature, represents the human struggle, the unaswered questions. It encourages and envigorates theistic exploration.

Further reading: Dedal, Charles, Labyrintheism: Pathways to God, Oak Press, 8th ed. 2002, NY.

Crete's Labtech

2008-12-08T10:37:00.010-05:00

As Alex has noted, Dr. Crete is notoriously secretive on the subject of his equipment. While Crete occasionally modifies existing equipment (see "Crete in the Field,") he primarily invents his own labyrinthological technologies, or labtech, as Crete styles it. However, due to the controversy his latest monograph is generating, Crete is demonstrating greater transparency in his fieldwork, perhaps in an effort to legitimize what Stalle has cast as "Crete's labyrinth heresy."

(Await more on this conflict in Parts Two and Three of Alex's interviews with Stalle. Also, expect a sneak-peak of Crete's monograph soon.)

Dr. Crete has made available images of a number of labtech prototypes and "obsolescent models" to a coterie of labyrinthologists. In keeping with our mission at the Cincinnati Labyrinth Project, I will share the images and descriptions with all of our fellow fervent labyrinthians. Moreover, while my knowledge of Crete's labtech is really only inchoate, I will try to explain the applications of the labtech to our project: the Paul Brown Labyrinth.

Crete developed one of his earliest models, The Lodestone P2A [above], in the late 1980s, when a Geiger counter he was employing in a Mesoamerican labyrinth near Hidalgo, Mexico was registering a titanic reading of Becquerels (Bq). Crete's detection of high levels of radioactivity in the labyrinth not only spawned his theory of salvific magnetism, but also inspired him to tweak the Geiger counter into The Lodestone P2A. According to Crete, The Lodestone P2A measures the electromotive force between parallel walls in labyrinths, much in the way that the electromotive force courses between two terminals of a battery.

The MagneTrapper Q12 [second incarnation, above], more commonly referred to by Crete's team and Cretinists as The Gullet, emerged after Crete speculated the existence of a new particle, called the "labyrinthon." Crete believes that, in the electromagnetic field between parallels walls of labyrinths, labyrinthons collide at high velocities and energy levels. The Gullet was an early attempt at "trapping" these particles. Crete eagerly awaits the reopening of the Large Hadron Collider to release trapped particles and collide them at yet higher velocities and higher levels.

Crete's innovative and modular Flux Displacer [above], charmingly inspired after reading Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass, allowed Crete to measure electric displacement, capacitance, and magnetic susceptibility in labyrinths. Crete has only revealed what this marvel of labtech measures, but not what he is hunting for in the measurements. My suspicion is that Crete studies the effect the labyrinth navigator has on the magnetic field of the labyrinth, and, more interestingly, the effect the labyrinth's magnetic field has on the navigator.

If we at the Cincinnati Labyrinth Project should solicit Stephon Crete in our project, then we would be blessed to have some of his labtech, even the prototypes and early models, at our disposal.

One disclaimer: the utility of Crete's labtech is not ultimately certain. Some labyrinthologists dispute the functionality of Crete's instruments. But, if Crete's salvific magnetism theory holds true, then his labtech could assist our project in the following ways:

The Lodestone could help us determine whether we should build a rectilinear or curved labyrinth, as well as the distance between labyrinth walls.

The Gullet could help us determine the length of the labyrinth, based on the intensity of the magnetic field in Paul Brown Stadium.

The Flux Displacer could help us determine the number of turns, as Crete claims to have demonstrated that the number of turns in a labyrinth contributes to wild, and even dangerous, magnetic flux.

Crete in the Field

2008-12-08T07:18:00.003-05:00

I thought some folks might be interested to see this photo of Dr. Stephon Crete in the field doing research for his upcoming publication, Procodic Boundaries: On the Ballast of the Perimeter, to be published by Paragone Press in 2013. Here, Crete takes a stereographic reading of the sine/square wave activity generated by the salvific magnetism of the Chitwanese Feldspar Labyrinth in Nepal. Note the proximity of the notoriously territorial Indian Elephant behind him. It's images like this that make me feel that despite his recent turn towards post-constructivism, Crete remains an exteriorist at heart.

Aaldi's Quanta

2008-12-07T23:08:00.005-05:00

A rare sketch of labyrinth quantification by Aaldi, which shows one of the earliest depictions of what Aaldi called "quanta." Aaldi believed that each labyrinth consisted of a fundamental repeating unit, or quantum, that corresponded to multiples of the golden ratio and shares deep affinities with transcendental numbers.

Edgar Milosovici and the Constructed Labyrinth

2008-12-07T20:55:00.008-05:00

Although I, like most other contemporary labyrinthians in the continental school, revile many of Edgar Milosovici's labyrinthological positions, his writings have proved extraordinarily influential in our field. Certainly anyone with a sustained interest in Gollesten or eco/loco labyrinthianism must be well-versed in his thought.The following excerpt comes from Milosovici's Basic Questions of Psychical Labyrinthianism (trans. Patel), perhaps his most famous text. In this passage, Milosovici addresses the question of the labyrinth after Aaldi, reiterating his mentor's dismissal of the possibility of a non-psychical, extra-mental labyrinth.

"How can we, in the wake of Aaldi’s thinking, assess the question of the labyrinth? We might ask ourselves at this juncture, what is left for labyrinthianism? As Aaldi points out, the inner function of the labyrinth is now understood to be quantifiable. With skepticism cast over the possibility of an extra-mental labyrinth, we observe persuasive evidence of Reede’s position vis-à-vis the cognitive component of the labyrinth as ontological proof. Moreover, cognitive centrality has proved the locus of theory once more. Our engagement with the constructed labyrinth is a dualism.

The notion of the perimeter, posited initially by Scaruffi and since refuted in the labyrinthological project of Aaldi and the Medial School, has been destroyed. As Hume tells us in his Enquiry, “To form monsters, and join incongruous shapes and appearances, costs the imagination no more trouble than to conceive the most natural and familiar objects.” Such phantasy is the case with the notion of the perimeter, and the same may be said of the argument for the existence of any extra-mental labyrinth as such."

What does all this mean to us?

2008-12-07T15:34:00.009-05:00

As may be obvious to you, dear reader, we've heard a great deal about labyrinth scholarship in the past few days. While this is all useful information in terms of understanding the labyrinth and its place in history, it also seems to be distracting us from what this whole project is about: the proposed Cincinnati labyrinth. While the words of Stalle, Dedal, Smallencroft, etc. tell us a great deal about the Labyrinth as an entity, they also leave behind the true purpose of our work. I'd like to take this post to examine what a “state of the art” labyrinth is, and what it would mean to the city.

Now, before we start, I feel the need to clarify my definition of "labyrinth." For the purposes of this project, and I'm sure my colleagues would agree, we are subscribing to the classical definition of labyrinth, meaning it is not easily distinguishable from a maze. In more recent years the labyrinth has taken on a different meaning, used more as a means of spiritual meditation. In the modern labyrinth, the participant walks along one path until the end. There are no decisions to be made and it is impossible to become lost within in it. The Cincinnati Labyrinth would not follow the modern, 2D prescription for labyrinths, rather we would like to see a return to the intricate structures, dead ends and tricks that were originally intended to solve King Minos's Minotaur problem.

Initially mentioned in our mission statement, this labyrinth would be "state of the art." If it is truly to become a tourist destination we can't have families becoming forever lost within its cavernous walls. We hope that people would truly attempt to finish their journey, but just in case highly skilled labyrinth technicians would monitor the structure constantly. These are people who have intimate knowledge of the structure and who will be able to direct hopelessly lost maze-walkers in the correct direction should the need arise via ear pieces worn by each attendee and CCTV cameras stationed liberally throughout the labyrinth. In addition to these "Watchers," highly visible panic buttons would be strategically placed at recognized trouble points in the labyrinth.

With these security measures in place, the Cincinnati Labyrinth is poised to become a feather in the cap of the Queen City. No longer will we carry the shame of a sub-par football squad. We need something contained within the walls of Paul Brown Stadium that we can be proud of. Nobody likes taking visitors to see a losing football team. With a labyrinth taking the Bengals place, this problem will become a thing of the past. A labyrinth never loses, never embarrasses a city and certainly cannot be arrested. The only "building years" will be during its construction. After that Paul Brown Stadium will be a house of victory for all of its existence.

In this modern age of constant consumption and fleeting trends there are very few things that are built to last forever. No structure we build in this age will have the ability to stand as long as something like the Coliseum or the Parthenon. This is why building something like this would set us apart from every other city in the United States. The labyrinth says to the world that Cincinnati is not just concerned with its present but also with its lasting legacy. Cincinnati is not just "now," but also for the ages.

As we asked before, please sign the petition. Do it for Cincinnati, for our future, for our reputation and, as always, do it for labyrinths.

Toward a Textual Understanding of the Labyrinth: Some Literary Precedents

2008-12-07T12:50:00.001-05:00

First appearing in the 22 May 1920 issue of “The Saturday Evening Post,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous short story titled “The Ice Palace” features perhaps the first direct reference to an actual, physical labyrinth in American literary history. The story’s female protagonist – a Southern belle by the name of Sally Carrol Happer – finds herself ensconced in the social milieu of the Minnesota upper class upon her engagement to a Northern gentleman of St. Paul birth. Reflecting the recurrent trope of post-Reconstruction North-South irreconcilability (see also “The Jelly Bean” and “The Last of the Belles”), the story climaxes inside of a bizarre and immense palace constructed entirely of ice. Once inside, Sally finds herself completely lost within the tortuous chambers of the palace’s basement:

“She started to run straight forward, and then turned like lightning and sped back the way she had come, enveloped in a sudden icy terror.

She had reached a turn – was it here? – took the left and came to what should have been the outlet into the long, low room, but it was only another glittering passage with darkness at the end.” (67)

While the narrative description of Sally’s “terror” continues beyond the above passage, the significance here is obviously metaphorical. Ill-equipped to assimilate herself into the shockingly “hard” world of the Northern gentry, Sally loses consciousness within the labyrinth and (perhaps more significantly) is finally rescued by a professor of literature (not her fiancé). What I would like to point out is the problematic commentary on endings that Fitzgerald provides in this story. The labyrinth functions as the telos of Sally’s Northern journey. It marks the endgame of her failed engagement (to say nothing of the telos implicit in the labyrinth itself [see Gollensten’s culte du centre]).

Literary grapplings with the labyrinth are not always as successfully nuanced as what we see in Fitzgerald, however. I would argue that Stephen King’s incorporation of the hedge-labyrinth at the end of *The Shining* is something of a red herring, a confusing and overly symbolic prop that leaves the reader/viewer wondering why he doesn’t just tear through the shrubs with his axe.

To be sure, literary appropriations of the labyrinth are not merely relegated to the phenomenon of modernity. Critics often utilize descriptors such as “labyrinthine” to describe the fundamentally meandering prose of postmodernists like Pynchon, Gaddis, and (more recently) Wallace. Though studies on the influence of the labyrinth in textual discourse are in their infancy, I think we can all agree that labyrinths allow us a unique access to the “roots/routes” dichotomy of our cultural inheritance.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “The Ice Palace.” The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Scribner’s, 2003.

Interview with Thomas Stalle (Part One)

2008-12-07T11:33:00.003-05:00

I conducted the following interview with Thomas Stalle on 11.29.08 via Skype. Look for parts two and three of our conversation to be posted here in the next couple days. Here we discuss Stalle's experience translating Gollesten's cryptic Science, Poetry and Labyrinth (to be published by Black Thicket Press in 2010). If anyone has any detailed questions/comments for Dr. Stalle, contact him in person at stalle_t@yahoo.com. Thanks again to Dr. Stalle for taking the time to talk to me.

Alex: Thomas, how are you? Can you hear me okay?

Thomas: Greetings Alex, I'm quite well and yes I hear you loud and clear. I’m just looking at your webpage right now, a very interesting project it seems to me.

Alex: Oh, thank you, I’m glad to hear you say that. Okay, let’s start by addressing a topic that I know all labyrinthians are chomping at the bit to know more about: the impending publication of your translation of HM Gollesten’s famous “lost” text, Wissenschaft, Dichtung und Labyrinth (Science, Poetry and Labyrinth), a text which was written in 1885, but left unpublished until 1946, eight years after Gollesten’s death. Could you tell me a bit about the difficulties involved in translating this elusive text?

Thomas: Thanks for your question, Alex. Even though the Framework is nearly twice as long, Science Poetry and Labyrinth proved much more time consuming to translate. I completed my translation of the Framework in just three years, I’ve been working on SPL now for almost a decade. At the level of language, the text is difficult, but perhaps no more demanding than Gollesten’s other works. Formally, however, the text is very tough to work with. Gollesten’s writing from the 1880's, SPL, Mind and Labyrinth, Perimeter as Center and What is the Labyrinth?, all incorporate sketches, photography, poetry and, in the case of SPL, a novella in the form of a parable detailing a young boy’s decision to remain on the floor of a labyrinth despite his parents’ decision to circumvent the boundaries. Maintaining the cohesiveness of Gollesten’s writing over this wide range of forms proved to be immensely difficult indeed.

Alex: Many labyrinthians argue that SPL represents a quantum shift in Gollesten’s thinking, do you agree?

Thomas: This is a difficult question. I agree, in a sense, but at the same time I also disagree - if that makes sense. I agree that in SPL and the texts which Gollesten published in the early 1900's there are some important distinctions to be made. For example, in his pre-1870 texts Gollesten is concerned always with arguing the labyrinth back from the constructivists who dominated the field in the early 1800's (Aaldi, Milosovici, Reede, and others). Gollesten’s writings from this period function largely as refutations of the constructivist position. With the publication of the Framework and the 1880's texts, Gollesten would abandon these critiques and focus on the pragmatic, psychical, and poetic faculties of the labyrinth as such. That being said, I feel that Gollesten’s labyrinthological project as a whole is remarkably consistent and focused; the ideas that are fleshed out in SPL are present in his text from the beginning.

Stay tuned for parts two and three.

The Best of Labyrinths 2008?

2008-12-07T10:44:00.002-05:00

2008 has been a tantalizing year for all things labyrinths. We are devoted labyrinth enthusiasts and scholars, the very first to proclaim labyrinthi gratia labyrintho. But we are also devoted to discovering the best of labyrinths as to make the Paul Brown Labyrinth one of the greatest in the land. So, let's take some time to share our reflections on the some of the most profound work in labyrinths and labyrinthology over the past year.

I, for one, was colossally impressed by eminent labyrinth architect Klein Connor's The Glass Labyrinth, which was commissioned by the Argentinian government and built near the country's capital. This labyrinth is a feat of engineering, consisting of over 1,000,000 glass panes and covering nearly a square mile of land. When I walked this labyrinth after it debuted in July, I was most impressed by Connor's ecolabyrinthism. Rather than extirpating the flora, Connor chose glass as his medium to enmesh his labyrinth in the natural landscape. There is a sense of nature as labyrinth, which moves one to wonder at and ponder nature's marvels. But there is a masterful sense of illusion, especially when the sun reaches its meridian. The glass causes the light to refract and bend, resulting in the appearance of even more sinuous passageways. Connor's Glass Labyrinth is at the cutting edge not only of contemporary labyrinths, but also of contemporary art and green architecture.

A New Academy

2008-12-06T19:22:00.003-05:00

The University of Western Manitoba has announced the creation of a doctoral program in labyrinthology. The program, expected to accept candidates in the fall of 2010, is anticipated to rival that of the renowned Alsdorf University in Germany, where Gollesten rose to labyrinthological fame while developing his Framework. Speculators are alleging Bernhard Smallencroft is in the running to chair the program.

Discovery of New 'Labyrinthine' Writing System

2008-12-06T16:53:00.007-05:00

Reuters has broken some fascinating news:

"Discovery of New 'Labyrinthine' Language Shakes Up Understanding of Writing"

By KIRK BILLINGHOUSE
Published: December 6, 2008

KNOSSOS, CRETE — In an excavation outside the palace at Knossos, the center of the ancient Minoan civilization on the island of Crete, Danish archaeolinguist Jorgen Rosencrans has identified proto-Cretan symbols that are revolutionizing current theories on the development of writing. Rosencrans discovered the symbols on massive basalt stone ruins which many historians and archaeologists purport to be the remains of the Minotaur's Labyrinth of lore. According to Rosencrans, the symbols manifest a typographical structure never before observed in the variegated history of writing systems.

"What we are looking at is an entirely non-linear graphemic structure," Rosencrans said. "I have never seen anything like this before. The entire field of archaeolinguistics is equally riveted and puzzled."

Puzzled indeed, for Rosencrans describes the symbols as "labyrinthine" — and he means this quite literally. "The symbols consist of no orthogonal lines, only various concentric and unicursal lines," Rosencrans explained. "A lot of the symbols also include nodes at different points on the curves. Each symbol, moreover, has an aperture on the circumference, which you can trace to a center chamber, if you will. What you have, in effect, is a labyrinth."

Rosencrans and his crew were the not the first to find these symbols. Previous excavators and researchers concluded the engravings were ornamental in nature, but Rosencrans studied them from a different point of a view.

"What struck me was the arrangement of the symbols," Rosencrans said. "The symbols, themselves small self-contained circles, are arrayed such that they form one larger circle. Some of the symbols are repeated, some have the same unicursal construction but with distinct node patterns. Others are entirely unique."

Rosencrans parses the circular arrangement as an alternative to left-to-right ordering conventions common in Western writing systems, right-to-left ordering conventions seen in various Middle Eastern typographies, and to the vertical conventions utilized in traditional Asian writing.

"I believe we are beholding a whole new kind of syntax, actually, not just a whole new, though antediluvian, writing system." Rosencrans added. "With these proto-Cretan symbols, you have directional optionality. You can begin at any point on the larger circle and read to the left or the right. The syntactical permutations really multiply when you consider the extensive possibilities of movement inward and outward within the greater circle. This is a phenomenally complex system."

The nodes may also have functioned as a primitive form of diacritics, the team speculates.

The team is still searching for explanations for the historical and typographical distinctness of the language. The isolation resulting from island geography may illuminate some of the mystery, but historians have well-substantiated evidence for Cretan navigation — including trade with Phoenicians, whose early alphabet archaeolinguists conclude birthed the Greek alphabet, which then fathered Western writing systems. But historians note that much about the Minoan civilization, which flourished between 2700 to 1450 BC to its sudden catastrophic collapse, is still shrouded in uncertainty.

Rosencrans does assert that the symbols, due, in part, to their labyrinthine complexity, were likely the exclusive domain of Minoan royalty, and perhaps even of a priestly labyrinth cult.

"We still have a lot more to learn. But this is a very exciting time," said Rosencrans.

Rosencrans' findings will be published in the spring edition of the archaeolinguistics quarterly Language & Time, as well as in the monthly La Société Internationale des Disciples de Labyrinthe.

A Poem

2008-12-06T16:52:00.003-05:00

Winter river bank
Massive labyrinth rises --
Mike Brown dead and gone

Labyrinth vs. Maze

2008-12-06T11:52:00.002-05:00

Commentator Marshall77 has resurfaced a contentious and ongoing crisis in labyrinth theory.

What is the essential identity of the labyrinth? How is this identity ontologically distinct from the maze?

We need a new lexicon through which to penetrate the labyrinth's identity crisis, and I post these questions in hopes for a continuing discussion about this most urgent topic in contemporary labyrinth theory.

Gollesten's Shadow

2008-12-06T10:16:00.011-05:00

The following excerpt reveals well the extent to which Gollesten's views continue to exert influence over contemporary labyrinth studies. This passage sheds light on Gollesten's complicated interpretation of the ethical ramifications of boundary circumvention.

I urge anyone with even a passing interest in modern or postmodern labcrit to seek out Stalle's recent translations of Gollesten's Framework, and its companion text The Horizon of the Passage, at all costs.

"...we find in boundary circumvention a most glaring example of the unethical labyrinthian. So possessed is he by the need to reach the labyrinth’s telos, or perhaps to facilitate a state of affairs in which he might perceive the labyrinth as a whole, in its grand totality, that he violates the oldest principle of the labyrinth: he attempts to scale the massive stone columns that surround him, he thrashes through the tangles of hedging which encapsulate him and form the straits through which he has long wandered in toil and torment. Why, you may ask, is this such a transgression? Is not the man who transcends the strictures of the labyrinth merely just startlingly enterprising, perhaps even ingenious? Has not such a man found what amounts to a “shortcut” (Abkürzung) to avoid the perils which have befallen those sainted labyrinthians who alighted upon the darkened corridors for time immemorial before him?

I urge any man who would take this view to reevaluate not merely this perspective, but his whole moral constitution as such. I ask you, by the same logic, is not the man who steals his daily bread simply a wizened intellect who has found a way to sate his appetite with no recompense? Has the man who convinces the cordwainer that his boots are made not of wood but of pure Moroccan jute not committed an injustice to Saint Crispin? Let us allow the writing of Kant to guide our thinking: an ethic of the labyrinth hinges upon a categorical understanding of ethics as a whole. To endeavor to transcend the walls of the labyrinth violates the principle law of the labyrinth and thus is tantamount to blasphemy. In a more abstract sense, such an action effectively transforms the labyrinth’s structure at large. The center becomes not the telos but a mere grain of visual datum - a destination, but not a goal. The perimeter too becomes re-accessible, so much so that we might witness from the top of an obelisk our well-wishing colleagues in the wold surrounding us, saluting and carrying on, puzzled but amused to see us transcending the formal edicts of the labyrinth."

"On the Aporia of the Center"

2008-12-05T20:38:00.003-05:00

Excerpted from the 2007 Annual Lisbon Labyrinth Conference.
Recorded and transcribed by Thomas Stalle, 6/17/2007.

Four preeminent labyrinthians assess in brief the phenomenon of le culte du centre ("the cult of the center"), a subject on which much ink has been spilled in contemporary/postmodern labyrinth theory.

Bernhard Smallencroft PhD (author of Lostness as Such: Towards an Ethics of the Labyrinth)
"As you all know, much consideration has recently been given to a notion which argues that the center of the labyrinth must be the focal point of labyrinth studies as a whole. I watch with consternation as many of my colleagues, many, in fact, who are seated in this room alongside me, focus doggedly upon the problematic of the center. In fact, in our present epoch, we labyrinthians have become increasingly dogmatic. We no longer allow ourselves to experience the labyrinth in primordial ways. It ceases to be an experience which discloses itself to us in manifold. Rather, we view it only as filtered through the lenses of history, politics, philosophy or, most problematic, by way of the cult of the center.”

Charles Dedal (author of The Minotaur’s Ghost: An Anthology of Labyrinth Scholarship after H.M. Gollesten)
"Thank you, Bernhard. You raise good points. You’ll forgive me if I once again evoke Gollesten, but as is often the case, he has articulated and foreseen the aporia with which you now grapple. As many of you may know, Gollesten was very definitely a perimeterist. For him, the labyrinth is something that is not only extra-mental, but extra-corporeal to the nth degree. Gollesten maintained that we are always already outside of the labyrinth, even as we find ourselves navigating its convoluted passageways. To prioritize the center is perhaps unavoidable. The center is the other, the center is telos. To take this argument one step further, I argue that our insistence on privileging the center over the perimeter is natural, and to deny its preeminence is to assume an artificial and, in the Heideggerian sense of the word, inauthentic mode of being."

Stephon Crete (author of Magnetism and Flux)
“My views on the cult of the center are consistent with my opinions about the bulk of much contemporary labyrinth scholarship: it doesn’t hold water. What’s important now, in the wake of Gollesten, is to understand the salvific and procodic magnetic ramifications of labyrinths as such.”

Jacques Oligreff (founder of the Populist Labyrinth Syndicate)
"I will say precious little about le culte du centre. Much to my surprise, I actually agree in part with M. Crete. Our focus has shifted too far into the celestial realms of pure theory and abstraction. We need to reclaim the labyrinth for the everyman as a manifestation of and monument to the Sisyphean nature of the human condition. The labyrinth will once again rise to prominence."

A Way Out

2008-12-05T16:51:00.001-05:00

The labyrinth has long stood as a powerful symbol for the tortuous duality of the human predicament. On the one hand, the labyrinth represents the delusion and entrapment that man is condemned to wander. Preeminent labyrinthologist Phillip Ambrose Walker, in his seminal work Finding the Center: The Legends and Legacies of Labyrinths, has described the structure as "embodying man's fundamental state of being lost." On the other hand, the labyrinth expresses man's ongoing pilgrimage towards meaning, discovery, and order. Contemporary labyrinth theorist Stephon Crete has described the labyrinth as "charged with a salvific magnetism on the order of man's most alluring archetypes of redemption."

In keeping with the rich, storied, and conflicting meanings of the labyrinth, we here at the Cincinnati Labyrinth Project believe that the labyrinth can serve as powerful symbol for our own more recent and more regional predicament: the delusion and entrapment we face in the Cincinnati Bengals.

Paul Brown Stadium cost Cincinnati taxpayers $455 million. What does the team have to show for this titanic sum? Chris Henry, Odell Thurman, a losing record, and ESPN's punchlines.

Cincinnati: bewildered, lost in the maze of humiliation and embarrassment.

That's why the Cincinnati Labyrinth Project is not content with leaving the labyrinth in the metaphorical ether. What better way to find our way out than by constructing a massive stone labyrinth in the very locus of our lostness?

My fellow Cincinnatians: meander the anfranctuous passages of shame no more! Meaning, discovery, and order we can yet find at the end of the tunnels.

Join our efforts to convert lost to found, entrapped to free, sinuous to straight.

Cincinnati Labyrinth Project Petition

2008-12-05T14:46:00.002-05:00

Hey folks, please sign our petition! Let Cincinnati (and the rest of the world) know how much you want to see the Labyrinth Project succeed!

Petition statement:

Cincinnati is in need of a cultural and economic renaissance. By signing this petition, you express your commitment to the notion that by selling the perennially unsuccessful, infuriatingly mediocre Cincinnati Bengals football franchise and erecting a complex, state-of-the-art stone labyrinth in Paul Brown Stadium, all Cincinnatians would experience both fiscal and cultural growth. We at the Cincinnati Labyrinth Project are a deeply committed bunch, so you may rest assured that we will work tirelessly to bring this wonderful proposal to fruition. Do it for Cincinnati! Do it for labyrinths!

The Project

2008-12-05T14:04:00.001-05:00

Greetings!

Thanks for your interest in the Cincinnati Labyrinth Project! For those of you who are unfamiliar with our organization, please allow me to bring you up to speed. The CLP is a group of enterprising Cincinnati locals who are endeavoring to bring about one of the biggest, most fascinating, and, most importantly, one of the most lucrative changes to Cincinnati culture in decades.

Our goal is to facilitate the sale of the Cincinnati Bengals and the creation of a massive stone labyrinth in Paul Brown Stadium.

Stay tuned for more updates and details to come henceforth.