Ian Funke-McKay

Fieldtrip digital project presented by the Confederation Centre of the Arts           





“As you enter the room, a coloured light illuminates familiar patterns and designs. Musical chimes echo through the hallways, and lead you toward a cool breeze. It’s difficult to remember which direction leads you back home, but every symbol and character painted on the wall shares a story that takes you on a new path.”

A circuit that re-orients chromatic texts through mathematical systems and digital animations; Colour Maze is inspired by romanesque frescoes, maze chapbooks from the 90s, and colour phenomenon detailed within Dark Age era texts like ‘The Mabinogion’. This movement based program uses Markov chains and gestural parameters to alter the visible colour-field while developing a path in constant flux.

The environment features an ambient remixed sound-track that echoes Hildegard Von Bingen and Takashi Kokubo entitled ‘A stone of many virtues, so that water is queen’ 2:57.

The more time you spend in the maze, the more animations and color combinations you get. At first, the butterfly moves leaving a colored trail. Each time you cross the boundaries of your current area, the program generates new supporting animations that light up the front display where previous sections are rewritten, and a new path opens up for you. Find the hidden boxes to generate new visions – each of them contains a collection of color vignettes, verses and texts taken from historical manuscripts and recomposed by a Markov chain.

The user is portrayed as animated butterfly.
  • Controls via keyboard (WASD / Arrows) or touch-screen gestures.
  • Please turn your volume ON
  • Web-friendly Javascript compatible with most browsers and devices.
  • Lead Programmer: Jonah McKay
  • Videographer: Malachy Schwartz




                  CLICK HERE OR ON THE COLOUR MAZE ICON TO LOAD IN-BROWSER