excess Excess in tectonics liquifies boundaries between the inside and outside, taps into the realm of desire, and creates meaningful, sensuous and affective disruptions to conventional expectations or established norms. 2 In the three games of Ludius Loc i, excess is ubiquitous, creating multiple paths with different, unforeseeable outcomes. Just as an avatar in space isn’t a mere scale figure on a 3D render, architecture in video game isn’t a mere digital representation of architecture because it offers unique qualities that go beyond representation. Misunderstanding, risk, confusion, blockage and repetition can all be part of a game experience, which corresponds to everything with which Deleuze argues excess is associated. 3 Excess encourages the sense of growth and vitality in architecture, which a conventional approach deems immutable. The play experience with an aesthetics of excess is as a process of dynamic making, vocabulary, responsivity, affect, confusion and disruption. Producing an excess of paths, many of which lead to an impasse, and by consequence an excess of emergent scenarios, is the nature of multicursal mazes. Excess is defined in two ways: tectonic abundance of forms and geometry, and elements of ambiguous function or usefulness. Rethinking excess in architecture challenges conventional notions and pedagogies in design which dismiss excess, preferring minimalism, efficiency, reduction and utility. 2 myopias and 3 degrees The maze cultivates in its player a spatial and mnemonic myopia. Myopia is defined as a spatial condition that requires nontrivial effort from the occupant to traverse their most immediate surroundings. In a spatial myopia, the player cannot rely on spatial cues – such as the difference between two doors, the uniqueness of a staircase – to navigate or to precisely self-locate in a space. In a mnemonic myopia, on the other hand, the player cannot rely on memory to navigate a space, such as in my 2021 video game Moving Maze . Depending on the type of myopia, mazes can be classified into three tiers. The first-degree maze is one where the player can navigate through spatial cues, including signs, differences in objects and furniture, differences in array and composition, or audio cues (no myopia). In the second-degree maze, spatial cues are ambiguous, so the player can only rely on memory for finding the way out (spatial myopia). In a third- degree maze, there aren’t visual cues or mnemonic devices reliable for navigation. Architecture in mnemonic myopia is
a system of flux, of ongoing transformation, emergence or expansion. When Theseus navigates Daedalus’ maze in pursuit of Minotaur, Ariadne’s thread acts as a materialisation of mnemonic cues, which turns the maze from a third-degree to a second-degree maze. Ludius Loci experiments with second and third-degree mazes. player Ludology and architecture converge at their shared focus on the user of the space, who metamorphoses from an architectural occupant to a player. In architecture, we focus much on the occupant’s social role – age, gender, family structure, vocation, lifestyle etc. – but in games, the social role is downplayed; we are more focused on the POV of the player as they problem-solve and traverse the virtual world. An avatar is a digital representation of the player. Compared to scale figures that are used as a tool secondary to architecture, the player avatar is more active, agential and symbolic as it embodies role play and synthesises a set of qualities of an imagined space-user. The identity and design of the avatar closely relate to the global context of gameplay. By positioning the space-user or occupant as an active, mobile and player- controlled avatar, rather than an objectified, passive scale figure, we emphasise the quality of multi-agential interactions and world-building as a subjective, personal journey. pov ‘I know they accuse me of arrogance, and perhaps misanthropy, and perhaps of madness. Such accusations (for which I shall exact punishment in due time) are derisory. It is true that I never leave my house, but it is also true that its doors (whose numbers are infinite) are open day and night to men and to animals as well. ... Another ridiculous falsehood has it that I, Asterion, am a prisoner. Shall I repeat that there are no locked doors, shall I add that there are no locks?’ 4 The player of Ludius Loci is the estranged antagonist from Greek myth, Minotaur (Asterion). Despite the popular narrative that the Cretan Maze was built to imprison him, the maze is the only known home from his point of view. The hidden peculiarity of Minotaur’s POV is that he is both an inhabitant and an escapist. It may not seem like a confinement, but an assemblage of architectural elements that together liquify their differences or boundaries, creating repetition and circularity in both space and time. 5 In one sense, the maze is his intimate home; in another dimension, it is confrontational. 4 Jorge Luis Borges, ‘The House of Asterion’, from Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings . 1962 5 Grosz, Elisabeth A, and Peter Eisenman. Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space . The MIT Press, 2006
3 Grosz, Elizabeth A. Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth . Columbia University Press, 2020
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