Review of Mazes by Noah

From Maze

review of Mazes in Culture: From Greeks to Geeks (Working title) 11/8/2010 - 11/15/2010 - N. Vawter part (1/3) and part (2/3)

SUMMARY

The chapter uses the myth of the Minotaur to good use to bring in and explain much about mazes. The pruning of each of those ideas would lead to a fascinating and enlightening chapter. It might be worthy of splitting the chapters at around section 9, as the final few sections introduce material focus on ideas just a bit further out of the main sphere.

It also needs a few line diagrams as illustrations of several maze-traversal concepts.

[ Section 01 - Mazes in culture ]

When talking about the pictures of the N and M key, we should really show a picture of them at this point, showing their dual use as letters and as graphics. (unless that's overdone everywhere else in the book!)

when it says "The continuous scrolling of the pattern, with each new line an addition to maze, makes it impossible to try to solve without pressing the STOP key, which is the Commodore 64’s equivalent of the modern ESC key, which will “break” the program.": I think of those kids playing Starcraft, counting their motion in ATM units (actions per minute), and I think that maybe some brilliant teen somewhere will be able to solve the maze in realtime. Perhaps we should leave it at "the pattern scrolls up the screen almost too fast to take in, but pausing the program (with the RUN/STOP key), allows us to attempt to follow one of the PATHS.

the picture there is marvelous, btw. I like the way it mixes the blcok pattern withthe hand scribble.

When it says "One does not look at this design and call it a “randomly alternating pattern of diagonal lines.” To do so would quickly drain the design of its mystique. One calls it a maze."

I don't think the problem is one of 'drained mystique', but rather more serious. It is very difficult to see the pattern as its constituent elements. Some people believe creativity and intelligence may be linked with being able to perceive patterns as constellations of various building-block sets, yet the maze's form and it's ideal elements rapidly seduce the viewer into the maze.

when speaking about the cultural significance of mazes, can we start to bring in some ideas about paperwork/bureacracy/law as well?

Also, at this point, we mention the "emotions," but don't mention them specifically throughout the document...

"most famously at Chartres in France. ?" Can you bring this example alive more? it's intriguing, but I need just a little bit more. mayeb a picture, but a murder to adulterous marriage might be juicier ;) Was it simply a pretty pattern at Chartres? Or did it have some history to it...?

How about mazes of paperwork (movie Brazil?)

how about mazes vs. maps? e.g. in video games, ah okay, we touch on video games, that's good, but maybe a bit earlier? Also, we should mention how computer software made heavier use of the third dimension in mazes. e.g. the transition from Castle Wolfenstein (PC Version) to Wolfenstein 3-D, at which point, 3-D mazes become dominant. But at the time of 10Print, on the C64, 3-D mazes were not yet 'mainstream'. Pac-Man, the great cultural force, and others used 2-D mazes, changing mazes periodically.

I love the last paragraph of first half of Chapter 1. Perfect 'bumping.'

The Sidebar information is great, but perhaps we could illustrate it graphically, in 'info format'. A graphic example would go a long way there. perhaps someone could start with a sketch and someone else could render it graphically? Also, since it's a sidebar, it's got more slack, and must not adhere directly to the usual rules of relating directly back to 10 Print. It might be interesting and useful if you like mazes, but not computers.

2nd half of chapter 2.

The dictionary definition opening is not as strong as some of the other writing I've seen. It might work better if the next few paragraphs really ran with it, but it really picks up with the fresher idea of "10 PRINT is, indeed, a complex work of artifice..." The Brinkelow quote is gorgeous (I love Caxtonian french-english), but we need more behind it... perhaps a woodcut of what he thought was so foolish? Maybe something that we could relate to today? Maybe endless software upgrades and computer peripherals? What are the mazes we've created, but not noticed it? What traditions were dirty? Who were the 'fols'?

paragraph starting "All mazes offer at least one path..." is almost purely a rehash of the sidebar, but the last few sentences start to take up a new idea... could be connected back to the part about the "muddled inside/outside." I think that's a strong path. you could say "maze->labyrinth->10print" because 10print is even more dissociative than the other two...

When talking about the ritual and how unlikely it is the programmer/conjurer will correctly anticipate the outcome: this would be a good time to reflect onthe possible emotions. anticipation, patience, completion, surprise, possible disappointment, then pride, and finally frustration as the maze has no start or end point. How does this extend the programmer's relationship to mazes previously experienced?

"whose walls casts the longest shadow on the mythology and the history of maze." out of control metaphor...

"Using that maze as a starting point " it's waaay to late to use that maze as a starting point... we're in the middle of the 2nd half of the chapter now! This should be a high point. Perhaps now that we're prepped from the prior parts of the chapter, we are ready to recontemplate the most famous of mazes? Maybe we're not ready yet!? I really hope that by the time people read this chapter, they WILL perceive the Minotaur differently... Who is the Minotaur in the Basic maze??? Pacman was trapped with his ghosts permanently. Only consumption or grokking freed the monsters from their sisyphean haunting, and only temporarily. Who is trapped inthe 10print maze? Do we trap ourselves?

When retelling the Minotaur myth, tense should be past. Can we say a few more adjective for Pasiphae? Just to articulate the myth and help situate it as a metaphor? Unfortunately, "slays the minotaur" has become cliche. hard to believe, but ...

"dispels the anxiety of creation" - is this a specific psychological pathology? it sounds like it may be jargon, and is badly timed... the metaphor is starting to come full circle here... let's not get sidetracked.

"captures the excitement of programming," destroys the excitement of programming. Can we steer back to an interpretation of the maze myth? Perhaps the lesson of the myth is "always take a string when you enter a maze." maybe this is good advice. I remember my mother "entered the maze" one evening, following the beginner's chapter in the smaller manual that came with the computer. She worked on it after I went to bed, when I left the computer hooked up to the TV in the living room. She said she "made color bars" and "felt like she was Wonder Woman." However, she never tried to program ever again. She never left a string to move back and forth within the maze.

" Let’s look pause for a moment" ... "before returning to our 10 PRINT programmer. " - This '50s slide show' leading (gee davy) is nowhere near as strong as at the end of the 1st half. I'm not sure if Daedalus was a real guy or not. Was he mythical? Or living, like Pythagoreas? I could google that, but I'm reading a book dammit! I dont want to hold a calculator to interpret it or look up facts.

"living history" = cliche

"But 10 PRINT has no Daedalus, not even a credited author." well we mentioend a few credited authors earlier in this chapter! myths don't have credited authors either. maybe the point is realllllly that it's a virtual artifact of a tradition, much like a clay pot, but a digital representation, in which variations reflect positions and time periods within that tradition. (might be a good time to mention 10print in other languages)

"massively productive little architect " no - i think it's a blueprint or spell or somethign to do with that ritual mentioned earlier. it doesn't design. the computer is not even the architect, the myth is the architect, the computer and screen apparatus is bricklayers. massively productive is doubly dangerous here because it has marxist connotations and we don't even want to open that can of worms here. Also "massive" is slang, it can't refer to the virtuality of the bits comprising the program/experience/ritual.

"unsolvable" - I'm sure with time, many solvable paths within it will appear. The point is that the program doesn't concern or make preparations for whether or not the maze will be solvable, nor can it detect same.

"Starting from the exterior, the 'path'" - this paragraph has too many direction words. it's like reading the google map directions and makes for nerve-wracking prose. Perhaps another picture is in order, here, but this paragraph is really an orphan. It doesn't knead out the idea very far.

"Whether myth or reality" ouch, this paragraph. talking for the first time about "wit and riddle" 10print doesn't really offer that kind of return. it offers other things, economy, distraction, metaphor, mystery, but cleverness and elegance haven't been factors at all so far. "no doubt hear the echo of the Minotaur's roar. " I thought there was no Minotaur?! so how are we hearing it roar.

Material Mazes 

"orchestrates a maze" really, it hires a horn section, librarian, rents halls, makes sure the drummer's not too drunk, and gets funded by plutocrats? How about "draws a maze." Or if we go down the "Material" route, "constructs a maze"

"Papal Bulls," wait, what are these? did we talk about them at some point? are they actually Bulls? some people like me have no foggy clue about christianity haha. Also, why are we mentioning Christian mazes in particular? Just curious. Did it come along with the Greek tradition or something? don't muslims employ maze imagery too? Did they get it from the same place as Christians?

"Drop a labyrinth on the floor of a church, and a ritual is born" hahaha it's not that simple... maze is only one component in a huge system of signs.

"Church mazes tend to be labyrinths that were walked or crawled on the path to penance," This is really interesting!

"allegorical pathways " but, this is the Material mazes chapter.

"these walkable pathways stood as paths to Christian salvation" sure they were walkable, but they were also walked. why? salvation? did the pathways stand? stand between something? who erected them? who forced ppl to walk through them?

"These labyrinths do not tell a Minoan mystery but a Paschal one." what is Paschal? It's cruel to bring it up non sequitor. Also, 'Minoan' is so obtuse.

"Their entrances typically face the western wall of the church, o" fucking fascinating! why?

""symptom of the secularization of the labyrinth idea"" -awesome!

"secular" "but of leisure" "invite ritual attitude" "tied to pagan rites"

"ponders the ghostly outlines of abandoned turf mazes: " - fascinating! Bringing shakespeare's perspective is very intriguing. Can we get just a little more on Titania here? Perhaps pulling it back to staring at the C64 screen pondering? Perhaps her emotion to the maze here involves time and the quandry of insolvability...

"As more and more secular mazes emerge alongside church and other labyrinth traditions," This makes me think I'm going to look at my window and see secular mazes spilling out of the sides of churches, overtaking the countryside. In fact, we've only heard of one secular maze so far, Titania's. What might it have been used for? What were mazes used for there? Why have a secular maze? We're curious!!!

As this section winds down, I'm impressed with the green mental imagery you'ved conjured in my mind.

[ part (2/3) - Mazes in Dance]

'Crane Dane,' in which they went through the motions of threading the Labyrinth = this is intriguing.

'spread a field of magical force to exclude all that is not wanted to enter the guarded place' this is really fascinating! If we can show that this is a common feature of mazes, we can apply it to the C64 maze!

IOW, this is the first time we start to consider the program, not as a catalyst (in our user-happy mindset, which was only possible after the production of the USER), but as a GATE. For example, all those who entered the program but made a mistake, and got faulty program. I think we've established a history of people entering programs in that way. I've seen it myself haha more times than I care to remember. Anyway, the Minotaur story does have an obvious GATE component, how about that maze quoted in Shakespeare, perhaps it was used for a game of some kind?

Ok, I'm dumb, but it took me a little bit to realize that the Cretan maze and Minotaur are part of the same story.

"maze of rope reflects the maze of her mind and the maze of the myth, with the V- formed set, perhaps illustrative of a sexual fear as well," this is insteresting, but dislocated. perhaps it could be reordered earlier?

"demarcation of inside and outside. ... as the programmer becomes dancer." this is all so amazing!

"prepares to face the minotaur Commodore PET," earlier I foudn some inconsistencies in the thinking of whether or not there was a minotaur or not in this case. I'm interested to see if the coincidental pairing between a 'pet' and the 'animal to be slain' has some resonance to it. supposedly P.E.T. (Personal Electronic Transactor) wasn't chosen because it sounded cute, but there is some info on this in On The Edge: Epic rise and fall of commodore)

This is especially interesting when we consider the "chickenhead" graphic of Commodore!!! erhaps it did represent a kind of head to be defeated, even if it was not intended, it was percevied that way. how did the prorammer look to a third party?

aporia - cool word

"Possibly cut The maze-as-dance can be seen in contemporary video games" no, pleaes don't cut, this is great supporting material. I would add this: the midpoint of video game history and today's Dance Dance Revolution games with motion-based controller was arcade fighting games

such as Virtua Fighter and more famously, the Mortal Kombat series,  which challenged players to quickly execute practiced sequences of movements, albeit solely with their hands.  It was the success of these games which helped spark interest in video game platforms demanding even more precise movements such as the Nintendo Wii, the iPhone platform, and along with other factors, the rise of the 'music game'.  

Putting these concepts together, the dance of the maze exists not only in the movement required for its exploration and completion, but in its mental representation. the string which theseus uses is not only a story but a lesson, and the string may be any means required to return to back to one's physical or mental position. Possibly these may be used in concert, as the 10Print maze exercises physical entry skills as well as various mental exercises. It's kind of like an invtation to a challenge. Are You Bad Enough?

"disarticulated from space; whereas, the maze dance traces an imaginary space. In any event," disarticulated? hmm good word, but the movements are not only sliced up, but reassembled.

"Diana Slattery has created a work called The Maze Game " this is Awesome! perfect supporting material. I just think it should be moved to earlier, possibly back to where we start talking about mazes as games

However, as I'm winding down this section, I'm not sure what the conclusion was, but the material is great. I'm especially glad at how the question of "ritual" in an earlier section was illustrated here. I think there's a sense in the world that ritual and dance are inscrutable/ineffable, but I don't think it's true. I think one of the conclusion I can draw so far is that the maze is a metaphor for a recurring challenge and that it invites movements through a kind of seduction. The tantalization of memory and invention as challenge to the contest of flesh-for-fresh. use a string, kill a beast, save a girl. Perhaps if Joseph Campbell's mythological model is true, the maze has a distinct function within it. Furthermore, the arc of the chapter seems to have a feeling of such momentum, that I feel generalities are beginning to resolve, and it's beginning to reveal how people reveal themselves individually through their various approaches to the maze, and to 10Print.

[ Mazes in Mathematics ] "Behaving like a modern day Theseus, Dantzig himself has acquired legendary status as the student who, upon arriving late to a class, mistook the historically unsolved problems on the board as his homework."

wait a minute, did I miss something? Did theseus accidentally walk into the maze? I thought he was "called to the challenge" in the Campbell sense, but Dantzig hasn't been called.

"twisty little corridors " soudns like a value judgement?

"proven to be one of the grand challenges of the late 20th " kind of cliche... it what sense was it grand? there are probably still people working on it, so at this point, it's a field or a tradition, although there is a kind of meta-tradition around it.

"first autorouter was tested on a map of the maze at Hampton Court Palace " intresting, can we put out an APB for information on this?

"t time itself, time which can be just as easily be lost in inefficient and unproductive paths. " very fascinating point, but I think it is more at home in the previous section about dancing, since movement introduces the elemtn of time to the static maze ornament.

This was an intriguing little section, but I think needs more re-ordering.

"celebrity of 10 PRINT " "10 PRINT in this light pays tribute" I think proposing it this way would be elevating it to the status of THE INVENTION OF THE MUSICAL ORGAN. It's more like a rhythm, than an instrument. and we can celebrate rhythms and pay tribute to jsut about anything, but mostly rhythms are structures onto which songs and celebrations are structured. The space of music, may be huge, but the spce of rhythm is a special path through it, a reliable, minimal framework about which one can articulate, refigure, recollect, rhyme, repeat, and perhaps even reason. There may be an inifinte number of rhythsm, but we select and perpetuate a limited number of them for re-use between generations.

This could lead into individual expression through mazes, the variations in the program, such as casey has been making.

"Mazes and Monsters (1982)," this sounds like it belongs in the psychology seciton, not the media section, when talking about insdie and outside. Or possibly earlier in this chapter when we talk about the lack of a distinct inside and outside in 10Print.

"those who retreat into their imaginations" "minotaur as a gendered cautionary tale. " this going off the deep end a little bit, unless we are the geniuses who can explain gender gaps in everything. the 80s werent unique for having derpy dreamer geeks, see also Jason and the Sirens.

[ Mazes in Psychology ]

I believe in this section, you are not referring to mazes in psychology, but Mazes in Intelligence testing, and for many paragraphs, narrowly limited to rodent testing. It's all a bit perverse and I like it, except I can't connect it back to 10Print very well. There was once a program to type in that simulated a mouse solving a maze... Plus, Douglas Adams' suggestion that the mice were actually experimenting on us all the time suggests a kind of hierarchy based on who could enter the program into a computer and who couldn't. I'm not sure how to proceed with that.

"In 1959, one " ah,okay, glad we're getting back on track now.

"much as Commodore 64 programmers later would" and most home computers after the 80s

"If some of those who look at this Commodore 64 maze do think of the experimenter's maze, they are sure to make some different further associations. " ok this, is paranoia and leading. Why not introduce the possibility of poisoned cheese?

"any computer program that evokes the researcher's maze at least hints that the computer is a scientific instrument and that the recent history of science has some darker corners. " the recent history of science? I'm sure most of history has had some truly evil corners... but skimming ahead, the text never addresses that again, so I'm not sure where this is leading.

[ Mazes and Computer Culture ]

"that mazes once again become part of daily life." I'm not sure we can make this claim. Are computer file systems mazes? are card catalogs?

"entered a kind of renaissance" cliche and hyperbolic. Let's not deem the maze any super powers, but explain how its use and representation has shifted in meaningful ways as computers have become mainstream media. Is the WWW a maze?

"a cultural production" - "on a screen or, with older computers, printed output;"

Unless we're going to say something extremely specific about screens and printers that we can not say about the printing press, we can not make this claim. It would be too easy to say "mazes have been the stuff of puzzle books for children, menus on pizza places, and the back of cereal boxes for decades. Suddenly, screens and printers come along, we're putting mazes on screens and printers. The maze itself has long been a cultural production, but what we'd like to talk about is how the maze shifts meaning, is represented, valued and approached differently in home computer culture."

"Second-person mazes are textually represented mazes" hmm not sure. interesting idea!

"the autotelic "you" is not a stable pronoun. Its referent shifts seamlessly between an imagined diegetic "you" and an extradiegetic reader. As Richardson " so awesome!

second person maze maps are so beautiful!

"shared across platforms via BBSes than graphical " -> shared across BBS platforms.

"The use of ASCII to make these maps was necessary," the word "necessary" is troubling here. maybe 'expedient'. We should also mention, for example, the use of "walkthroughs." These are lists of directions, which must mean thery're autotelic descriptions of the maze... So, the solutions to the maze may be shared in one of two ways - the autoelic, second person walkthrough, or the third-person, birds-eye, section view, dissociated view. It's important to stress these homonyms for third-person, because the concept in particular is referred to in many different ways in different fields.

It would also be good to mention that at the time, there was no standardization of graphics characters within a font across multiple systems like today's Unicode, so using the English punctuation characters was compatible across the most systems, including the American, British, and European mainstream platforms which ran BASIC such as the IBM PC, Spectrums, Commodore home computers, Apple 2, the Atari and Tandy home computers.

"pretense of mastery undercut by the promise of difficulty" = awesome

"maze craze" ? I think the mazes were an important part of home computer culture, but not on the same level as the culture itself - many other parts of the culture are as pertinent. Perhaps we could mention the influence on popular culture of Pac-Man? E.g. the "Pac-man fever" album? But I think the defining features were the video screen as active entertainment which attracted such a large amount of attention. I'm not sure we've proven the maze to be as iconic, as say, the pentagram. Maybe, the hoop earring?

"Procedural mazes are mazes in which the entire structure of the maze does not coherently exist in physical or visual space." before mentioning this, try stating it in the simplest way possible "procedural mazes are mazes generated by program on-the-fly, instead of all at once."

"It would simply be impossible" not persuasive.

"create some association" I think you mean "recall some association? If the symbols are presented in order to be interpreted, a recognition of an association would not be a creation.

"the largest computer-generated maze will always be chasing" how will the maze be chasing 10Print? It seems as if they confidently ahead of 10Print. Is it unclear that these larger, single-solution mazes are more challenging to produce? That the gulf between the complexity of the two does reflect that concentration that went into them. In what regard is it chasing 10Print?

[ Context of Expectations: Computer Graphics and Games ]