Mazes
From Maze
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At the same time, the programmer is Daedalus. Along with its account of Theseus and Ariadne, the legend of this early maze celebrates the one who devised it. Daedalus was the artful architect of confusion and master designer of the labyrinth at Knossos, and has consequently one a place of honor as puzzle-maker supreme: Genre fiction and Joyce both nod to him, for instance. Daedalus was the first in a long and living history of maze designers and programmers to understand that planning, intentionality, and construction are integral characteristics of the mystique of the maze. 10 PRINT is culturally resonant because it is a blueprint for a maze and a system for constructing a maze, not just a structure or image that appears without any history or trace of its making. And yet it presents a maze without an architect, or rather in 10 PRINT, the process itself becomes the producer. Such a transformation will have larger ramifications for the study of programming culture where the cult of the author, though arguably persisting in the study of algorithms, is eclipsed by the potential for any programmer to become a Daedalus on his or her own. | At the same time, the programmer is Daedalus. Along with its account of Theseus and Ariadne, the legend of this early maze celebrates the one who devised it. Daedalus was the artful architect of confusion and master designer of the labyrinth at Knossos, and has consequently one a place of honor as puzzle-maker supreme: Genre fiction and Joyce both nod to him, for instance. Daedalus was the first in a long and living history of maze designers and programmers to understand that planning, intentionality, and construction are integral characteristics of the mystique of the maze. 10 PRINT is culturally resonant because it is a blueprint for a maze and a system for constructing a maze, not just a structure or image that appears without any history or trace of its making. And yet it presents a maze without an architect, or rather in 10 PRINT, the process itself becomes the producer. Such a transformation will have larger ramifications for the study of programming culture where the cult of the author, though arguably persisting in the study of algorithms, is eclipsed by the potential for any programmer to become a Daedalus on his or her own. | ||
| − | This equation of the maze with danger and horror would continue to haunt the form even in contemporary film. A snowed-over hedge maze, for example, adds to the horror hiding within "The Shining" (1980). Also in the '80s as adolescent boys and girls busied themselves with 24-sided dice playing ''Dungeons and Dragons'', a made-for-TV movie, ''Mazes and Monsters'' (1982), presented Tom Hanks as a young man who had gone over the edge into a psychosis where he could no longer separate his role-playing game from reality. The movie spoke to both the moral panic around ''Dungeons & Dragons'' and underscored the popular conceptual relationship between mazes and dungeons. More importantly, it suggested that an (evidently) harmless maze within a game could become the threatening and potentially fatal maze that, in legend, Theseus faced. | + | This equation of the maze with danger and horror would continue to haunt the form even in contemporary film. A snowed-over hedge maze, for example, adds to the horror hiding within ''The Shining'' (1980). Also in the '80s as adolescent boys and girls busied themselves with 24-sided dice playing ''Dungeons and Dragons'', a made-for-TV movie, ''Mazes and Monsters'' (1982), presented Tom Hanks as a young man who had gone over the edge into a psychosis where he could no longer separate his role-playing game from reality. The movie spoke to both the moral panic around ''Dungeons & Dragons'' and underscored the popular conceptual relationship between mazes and dungeons. More importantly, it suggested that an (evidently) harmless maze within a game could become the threatening and potentially fatal maze that, in legend, Theseus faced. |
In this way, 10 PRINT does not put the user in the role of clever Ariadne, heroic Theseus, or the hunted maze inhabitant, the Minotaur. Rather, the programmer becomes an apprentice to Daedalus. Initially, as the user types the program in and runs it without much of an idea of what it will do or why, the user is simply shoveling characters from page to screen like an enslaved Cretan brought on to build a maze. But as the user traces the path of the program and resolves its many twists into an understanding, a solution of sorts, 10 PRINT offers the person at the Commodore 64 the opportunity to collaborate with Daedalus and to fashion new mazes. | In this way, 10 PRINT does not put the user in the role of clever Ariadne, heroic Theseus, or the hunted maze inhabitant, the Minotaur. Rather, the programmer becomes an apprentice to Daedalus. Initially, as the user types the program in and runs it without much of an idea of what it will do or why, the user is simply shoveling characters from page to screen like an enslaved Cretan brought on to build a maze. But as the user traces the path of the program and resolves its many twists into an understanding, a solution of sorts, 10 PRINT offers the person at the Commodore 64 the opportunity to collaborate with Daedalus and to fashion new mazes. | ||
