Minos
Antoine Schmitt
2021
Online interactive artwork
“Antoine Schmitt has rewritten a computer game he initially created in the 1970s, using the programming language Logo. “Minos” is an interactive game based on the well-known Greek myth in which the player, in the role of Theseus, has to escape an invisible maze before getting caught by a Minotaur. Both characters are represented by circles inside a minimalistic maze that is only made visible as they continue to explore the labyrinth. The artwork offers an engaging gameplay and can also be contemplated as a generative visual composition reminiscent of kinetic and op art, in line with the aesthetics of the artist’s other process-based works.
Conceptually, the game explores the unspoken rules and codes that we encounter in our daily lives, whether on the level of administrative regulations, social behavior, or software. From this perspective, the game’s objective (constant escape from an endless labyrinth inhabited by a threatening character) can have multiple meanings. As one example, in Minos, the walls of the labyrinth aren’t the only hidden component, as the rules of the game are also obscured at first. The player has to discover the rules by playing, and in that sense, it is a game with instructions that follow.”
Pau Waelder, Curator of the exhibition Instructions Follow, Feral File, 2021 (traduction : A. Schmitt)