NASCLS 2009 Updates

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.

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

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

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.

Constructivism and Recursivism

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?

Call for Papers - NASCLS 2009 Conference

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.

French Recursivism: A Brief Overview

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.

Interview with Thomas Stalle (Part Two)

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.

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

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

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

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.

Edgar Milosovici and the Constructed Labyrinth

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."

Interview with Thomas Stalle (Part One)

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.

Gollesten's Shadow

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."