Mazes of Meaning: Studio Project One

Of the number of things that 3D animators get "for free" in the sense of automation and computerized reuse of data and procedures, is a system for creating spatial and lighting cues. Too, the elemental aspect of a virtual 3d space is its propensity for users to navigate through this space. Case in point, early virtual reality (computer generated world given sense through bodily apparatus). Many early VR systems used mazes of planes or simple architectures that did much with little, since navigation was important, more important than complete verisimilitude. One never knows when new technology will, at least temporarily, have a low bandwidth. We then could be thrown into a situation where constraints creep in: then conceptual design must play a part.

Designers and virtual architects may also choose to work within technological constraints for speed or for simplification. If you use low technology, then content, you must emphasize. Could a system of interlocking and spatialized planes (floors and walls just like in VRML on the web) be used to create meaning from the collison of the navigation through space and the encountering of visual artifacts within that space?

Studio Project One will assume that meaning is possible given these constraints. Students will construct mazes of meaning that lead the viewer through visual artifacts, texture-mapped. Now because it is a maze does not mean that the walls or floors need be static, or that they should be all at right angles. A maze can be thought of as a labyrinth. A labyrinth could be interpreted as a nested structure, or something difficult to navigate. A Nested structure could be found in nature, in biology, or in a city plan or urban sprawl. The maze could be Orienterung, a gridded space; or it could be Werbung, an open field.

Furthermore, the concept of maze can be reduced--although the concept is not ultimately reduced--to our notions of disruption and flow, as we have learned with Descartes and his unbroken reality-- as opposed to the Brechtian model of distancing or revealing the ways in which the plastic medium is constructed. Why not ask, is being lost in a maze disruption? Or ask, is finding one's way in a maze continuity or flow? Further, which aligns with surface and which with depth? The labyrinthian structure could be thought of as a deep and vast spatial structure; or the depth of the structure could be what refuses to yield the way out of the maze, placing visual appearance in front of "truth".

In additon to the conceptualization of maze structures or highly differentiated relations, students will need to research their projects at the start of the construction phase. Research is the key to interesting and functional designs. Artists and designers are brought to clarity when confronted with another researcher's systematic account of relations between say, urban sprawl and the actors that move through the sprawl, in difficult patterns of navigation. Research is the key because it allows designers and artists to make a conceptual leap from one level to another. If you are stuck in working out a problem, more information that describes and articulates relations in your problem allows you to see (both visually and conceptually) what step should next be taken.

Take these steps in choosing, conceptualizing, and constructing your projects:

1. Decide on a topic or area of interest.

2. Acquire research materials, images and texts on the topic or interest area.

3. Survey the information, preferably taking notes.

4. Use tools of conceptualization, such as sketching or computerized tools for prototyping to build your idea.

5. Refactor and refine to arrive at a solution space.