Some words from Philip Cunha

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.

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.

NASCLS 2009: Panel Announcements

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.

Klemens Logewnik: A Brief Introduction to an Important Figure

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.

Interview with Philip Cunha

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.

Subversive Navigation: Open Thread

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?