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Technologies of Culture: The Labyrinth
"All things would be visibly connected if one could discover at a
single glance and in its totality the tracings of an Ariadne's thread
leading thought into its own labyrinth."- Georges Bataille
"Be wise, Ariadne, you have small ears, you have my ears: let a
wise word slip into them: Must one first not hate oneself, if one is to
love oneself? I am your labyrinth…."- Friedrich Nietzsche
"The interior is not only the universe but also the etui
of the private person. To live means to leave traces. In the interior
these are emphasized. An abundance of covers and protectors, liners and
cases is devised, on which the traces of objects of everyday use are
imprinted. The traces of the occupant also leave their impression on
the interior. The detective story that follows these traces comes into
being."- Walter Benjamin
"I know of one Greek labyrinth which is a single straight line.
Along that line so many philosophers have lost themselves that a mere
detective might well do so, too."- Jorge Luis Borges, Death and the Compass
"He had edified a crypt within him: an artifact, an artificial
unconscious in the Self, an interior enclave, partitions, hidden
passages, zigzags, occult and difficult traffic, two closed doors, an
internal labyrinth endlessly echoing, a singular discourse crossing so
many languages and yet somewhere inside all that noise, a deathly
silence, a blackout. He will die with or through the crypt within
him."- Jacques Derrida
"He is not me but he is more than me: his stomach is the
labyrinth in which he has lost himself, loses me with him, and in which I
discover myself as him, in other words as a monster."- Georges Bataille
"Minos contrived to hide this specimen in a maze,
A labyrinth built by Daedalus, an artist
Famous in building, who could set in stone
Confusion and conflict, and deceive the eye
With devious aisles and passages…"- Ovid, The Metamorphoses
"More than anything else, we are curious to explore the
labyrinth. We strive to make friends with Mr. Minotaur, about whom we
have been told so many horrific stories."- Friedrich Nietzsche
"Beneath English trees I meditated on that lost maze: I imagined
it inviolate and perfect at the secret crest of a mountain; I imagined
it erased by rice fields or beneath the water; I imagined it infinite,
no longer composed of octagonal kiosks and returning paths, but of
rivers and provinces and kingdoms…I thought of a labyrinth of
labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the
past and the future and in some way involve the stars."- Jorge Luis
Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths
"One can participate in and share the fundamentals of the
Labyrinth as it manifests itself. One can never see it in totality, nor
can one express it. One is condemned to it and cannot go outside and
see the whole."- Bernard Tschumi
"One abstract model of conjecturability is the labyrinth. Like
any other conjectural space it can be traversed in many ways. Naturally
you find your way out of classical labyrinths. But at this point we
should specify that there are three kinds of labyrinths. One is the
Greek type, that of Theseus. This labyrinth does not allow anyone to
lose his way: you enter it and arrive at the center, and then from the
center you make your way to the exit. That is why there is the Minotaur
at the center; otherwise there would be no point, you would just be out
for a harmless stroll. The terror comes in because you do not know
where you will come out and what the Minotaur will do. But if you
unravel the classical labyrinth, you will find a thread in your hands,
Ariadne's thread. The classical labyrinth is its own Ariadne's thread.
Then
there is the mannerist labyrinth. If you unravel it, you find in your
hands a kind of tree, a root-like structure with many dead ends. There
is only one exit, but you can get it wrong. You need an Ariadne's
thread to keep from getting lost. This labyrinth is the model of the
trial-and-error process.
Finally,
there is the network, the structure that Deleuze and Guattari call a
rhizome. The rhizome is set up so that each path connects to every
other one. It has no center, no periphery, and no exit, because it is
potentially infinite. Conjectural space is like a rhizome."- Umberto
Eco
"It suffices for a short time to follow the trace, the repeated
course of words, in order to perceive, in a sort of vision, the
labyrinthine constitution of being."- Georges Bataille
"To all appearances, the artist acts like a mediumistic being
who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a
clearing."- Marcel Duchamp
"The language of nature is comparable to a secret password that
each sentry passes to the next in his own language, but the meaning of
the password is the sentry's language itself."- Walter Benjamin
"…into what labyrinth, what multiplicity of heterogeneous
places, one must enter in order to track down the cryptic motivation…"-
Jacques Derrida
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