KNOWLEDGE
A MAZE TOTAL DIGITAL
It would be free to attend, and the key to
the entire affair would be “to actually
bring people into the space,”
Wiedemann says. “People should
communicate, and have fun. A Maze is
a community festival, and people are
coming from places all around the world.
And we try to keep them together. This
is the main goal of A Maze: it’s an
inclusive festival and should be diverse,
and people just should talk to each other
and learn from each other. But not just
because of the talks or the workshops.
You find your people, and maybe
some people then work together in the
future – those are really the kind of
stories I want to hear.”A digital space of some kind, then,
would be critical. Fortunately,
Wiedemann had many friends who were
well acquainted with such things, and
could provide insight on what it would
take to make and run a similar project:
he had calls with StikiPixels, the creators
of virtual art gallery Occupy White
Walls; likewise, the people behind The
Museum Of Other Realities – and Paolo
Pedercini of Molleindustria, who had
recently set up browser-based multi-user
experience LikeLike Online, a virtual
version of Molleindustria’s real-world,
Pittsburgh-based playful arts space.
“I was like, ‘Wow, this is insane,’”
Wiedemann says. “I mean, he was
actually programming everything by
himself. And it was so easy – you can
play all the games, and basically it’s
really working. You gather people and
you can create your style. That was
actually my main inspiration.”
At the same time he was talking to
Gianluca Pandolfo, the developer behind
game showcase app Flipper, about
bringing him on as lead developer and
using the Flipper technology for the
festival. “And then he was saying,
‘Maybe you should talk to Moshe Linke.
He’s a 3D architect, and he’s already
built all these kinds of galleries.’” Linke
was delighted at the thought of one of his
spaces being used for a digital A Maze
show, and came aboard the project to
help Wiedemann and team adaptBrutalism: Prelude On Stone into a more
suitable venue. “The space itself has this
kind of character,” Wiedemann says.
“It’s stone, cold. But the artwork he
places in there is kind of brilliant.”
Brutalism: Prelude On Stone was
originally a very solitary experience,
but the A Maze team wanted to
complement the social aspects and
atmosphere of the festival as much as
possible. Setting an entire flamboyance
of flamingos among it would look
striking, Wiedemann figured: “The grey
stone and the pink flamingos... It’s
a very nice contrast.” They would keep
the narrow corridors so instrumental to
the space, but otherwise “we opened
everything up,” Wiedemann says. “It’s
not so dark anymore: it’s bright, and
pinkish, you know, the A Maze colour.
I was actually not giving so much
direction, I was just saying, ‘Maybe
we have to have this room, we need
to have that room, and maybe we can
use this for this part of the festival’ – like,
this could be a very nice club space,
and this could be a very nice
lobby where we can have
the big screen.”
Indeed, we find both
to be extremely enjoyable.
The lobby is a gorgeous,
high-ceilinged place to
stand – and fly – about in
with other attendees: we
crowd onto the stairs to
hear Kayode Shonibare-
Lewis’ talk on Black
representation in games,
and Lena NW’s breakdown of the music
in (the now A Maze award-winning)
Nightmare Temptation Academy, with
one brave flamingo managing to perch
on the lighting rig above the screen. The
circular club room, meanwhile, ends up
streaming all sorts of live music acts –
from a show by Super Hexagon and
Dicey Dungeons composer Chipzel, to
the customary A Maze closing set from
DJ Storno, Wiedemann’s beat-dropping
alter ego – as we watch others bob and
spin about wildly to the rhythm, or chat
with friends. It’s a game conference in
which the confetti bombs we all haveaccess to do double duty, functioning as
both visible applause for a great talk
and a type of jubilant communication
with our fellow flamingos.
Confetti bombs (and kickable
watermelons) aside, however, it was
important to Weidemann that the focus
remain on the people and the games,
not the space. It was for this reason that
he shelved the idea of swimming pools
that would teleport you to another
space, such as the garden, when you
jumped into it. “We were like, ‘People
are just going to jump into the pool, and
that’s it,’ you know,” he explains. “So
we added a lot of things to also have
this kind of calm experience.”
There’s a little of that restraint in the
audio design of A Maze Total Digital,
too. The screens on game booths only
begin playing trailers once we stand
close enough to them, reducing the
usual showfloor cacophony. Meanwhile,
the audio from the main stream becomes
more muffled the further we move from
the lobby, a detail that really helps to
contribute to the overall feeling of being
at a real convention and
in an actual space. (The
team did, at one point,
consider trying to
implement spatial audio
for voice chat with other
festival-goers, but deemed
the idea too complicated
to be achieved in just a
couple of months.) When
we pop into the cinema
(which is playing Hidden
Conflicts, Jona Kleinlein’s fascinating
‘hybrid documentary’ that uses footage
from Arma 3 to illustrate the military sim
scene) we find a menu option to turn off
the stream audio completely so we can
focus on the film.
It’s not exactly like a real-world
convention, then. It is different – it was
always meant to be. And it has, on
balance, been a roaring success that
has left A Maze in a better position than
ever: there’s already interest in a future
collaboration from the Goethe-Institut,
and the A Maze team now has a virtual
space that can be reused and updatedThe event has, on
balance, been
a roaring success
that has left
A Maze in a better
position than ever