What is a volvelle? It is a diagram that can be applied at the foundation of every medium. Volvelle is an ideal maze, because it is adapted from a temporal model. The wall-stair complex interferes with Minotaur’s navigation by alignment and misalignment, producing occult experiences for Minotaur. There are always two characters in divination practices: the querent who asks questions and the transmission which can be a character or a medium. In cases of the western horoscope, the medium is the volvelle - a circular calculator with infinite variations. 2 VOLVELLE: spatialised fate
Minotaur navigates through a circular maze with walls, stairs, and doorways, acting like a querent, and the maze, a transmission in occult practices. In polar coordinates, linear spatial orientations don’t work: the only directions are centre and periphery. Between the centre and the periphery, there is a porous in-between. A maze. Born at the centre, humans never cease to move outward in a meandering randomised pattern. The concept of navigating in space is analogous to the concept of fate in time. This volvelle maze layers conventional architectural elements such as a doorway, a corridor, and a wall, but it also creates a continuum of scales that the virtual querent always has to size their body to see if they fit, or move in ways such as jumping or crawling. The maze is an active agent exerting influence on the behaviour of the virtual querent. The maze is the medium of transmission. It is the question answerer, as much as it is the riddle itself.
Volvelle: concentric gyroid form, top view
below: sequential metamorphic plans and sections
Yiou Wang
Volvelle game views
Yiou Wang
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on site review 44 : play
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