Over the past 5000 years, many cultures throughout the world, including the Native American, Greek, Celtic and Mayan, have devised their own labyrinth patterns. These patterns represent both the journey to our center and that of emergence and creation. Labyrinths are geometric forms used to define a sacred space. Walking a sacred labyrinth induces a contemplative, intuitive, and/or meditative state. Labyrinths are unicursal paths, which lead to the center and back out again in a spiral manner. In Path of Silence, Path of Image, real-time video images from 11 different labyrinths throughout the world are brought together in a virtual 11-circuit labyrinth to create a collective sacred space, that can be experienced by multiple participants as a single labyrinth. A video camera records the activity within this collective labyrinth and sends it back out to each individual labyrinth location, thus completing the cycle. These images are displayed on video monitors or projection screens at each of the source labyrinth locations. Like the journey of those who walk sacred labyrinths, traveling form the outside to the center and back again, each of the physical external sacred labyrinths travels into the center of the collective inner virtual labyrinth space and returns outward, completing the journey. During the installation, as participants walk the virtual collective labyrinth, their presence is recorded on the video images and transmitted to the source locations. Conversely, the presence of anyone walking the labyrinth in any source location is brought in to the collective virtual space via the video connection. Thus, walking either the virtual or any one of the physical labyrinths, makes one a participant in the collective. The reciprocal telematic nature of this installation reflects the essence of the labyrinth as an archetypal union of contemplation and visualization, both a journey to the center and of emergence.

Participants enter a 25 by 25-foot semi-darkened space, with a 20-foot ceiling, that has an 11-circuit labyrinth projected on the floor in luminescent markings. A circular projection screen surrounds the space. At the center of the labyrinth, there is also a circular projection screen, resembling a pillar, 4 feet high, and 3 feet diameter. Projected on the top of the pillar is a montage of images from all 11 labyrinths, forming the center of the collective labyrinth. Mounted in the ceiling is a computer controlled video camera and projection system.

The 11-circuit labyrinth is 40 feet in diameter and is projected on the floor in luminescent markings. There is one external physical labyrinth assigned to each of the 11 circuits in the virtual labyrinth. The labyrinth path of that level is composed of images of the external labyrinth.

When participants enter the labyrinth path, their image is captured by the video camera. This is also used to track their position and velocity. The video/motion sensors track participants' position and velocity, sending it to the computer which in turn controls the projection system so that it keeps pace with their motion. The system also controls which images are live video combined with stills from the labyrinths in various locations throughout the world to project as the surface of the virtual labyrinth path, and on the surrounding perimeter screen or central pillar.

Walking a labyrinth tends to induce a contemplative of meditative state. Often, participants pause several times along the path on their way in to and out of the center. This natural tendency to combine walking with pauses is used to trigger projections of the external labyrinths into this collective virtual space, in response to the movement of participants. While participants are in motion, images of the external labyrinth assigned to the circuit they are walking are projected onto the perimeter projection screen. These images are projected as thin slices, slightly dimmed and motion blurred in parallel to the motion of the participants. They form an ambient image space that is in flux. When participants pause to deepen their inner reflection, the projection on the outer screen corresponding to their position ceases and an image of the labyrinth corresponding to the circuit they are on is projected onto the pillar in the center. This image is clear and bright. Their pause in motion also triggers a soft, low tone that plays for the duration of the pause.

This alternating pattern continues for participants during their travel in to and out from the center of the labyrinth. When several participants are in motion on either the same or different circuits of the virtual labyrinth, they create multiple projections of the external physical labyrinths into the collective labyrinth space. The tones played at each of the pauses allow a collective experience of the pattern of pauses. Additionally, ambient sounds from each of the external labyrinths are brought in to the virtual space, along with the images projected onto the central pillar. All sounds are kept to a very low level, forming a soft, ambient soundscape, to enhance the meditative state. Thus as several participants travel from the outside to the inside of this virtual labyrinth, the deeper their contemplation and the slower their journey, the more external labyrinths are brought in to this inside space, weaving them into a fabric, uniting them in a collective labyrinth space.

When participants reach the center, they can freely walk around the projection pillar and observe the real-time video from the 11 labyrinths that is projected upon its topmost surface. Their presence in the center combines with any projections from the pauses of participants walking along the labyrinth path, reinforcing the bringing together of this space and the external labyrinths forming the collective. As in a physical labyrinth, participants travel to the center, stay there as long as they wish and return along their path to the same point at which they entered.

Simultaneously, images from this virtual labyrinth are being viewed on monitors or projection screens at the various locations from which the source images are being captured, thus completing the in-to-the-center-and-out-again journey of each of the physical labyrinths forming the collective.

Space required: 25 feet by 25 feet, with 15 to 20 foot ceilings

Enclosed space, circular projection screen with one opening, 42 feet diameter

Projection pillar: 4 feet high and 3 feet diameter

Four small projectors, ceiling mounted.

One central projector for live video images from labyrinths.

2 CPUs, monitors, keyboards setups (one for video processing of sensor data, another for projections and sound)

Video camera

4 Speakers