“The Maze” was a project I did while a student at CCaC from 2003-2005. It was a perfect synthesis of my interests at the time which were focused on purpose built machines and mechanical sculpture, robots, programming, machine vision and AI. Of course the single most motivating interest was my lifelong enthusiasm for navigating complex and unfamiliar environments. Whether wandering the streets of Venice at night or in the thick of a redwood forest, I was always hoping to get lost but rarely did.
This project presented the chance for me to develop real skills and a better understanding of machines, electronics, computers and software. But the real surprise came in the reactions I observed in the audience/participants. The inclination to anthropomorphize the machine was pervasive. It was so universal and compelling that people would generate debate about what the machine’s goals were. My assertions, as the builder and programmer, were often trumped by their own intuition about the reasons for the systems behavior.
