LABYRINTH

2001-2004

(Permanent site-specific sculptural installation for Yahoo!, Sunnyvale, California)

“LABYRINTH” is a site-specific sculptural installation of five portals, arranged on the Yahoo! Headquarters public park, as a web without path or boundary. The portals are full-sized, seemingly random open doors attached to their door frames, each standing in a different part of the grassy, forested landscape. Each of the doors is cast in bronze from actual antiquated doors chosen from five unique cultures throughout the world. Their individual cultural identity is clearly evident in their shape, composition, ornament and symbolic representation. Each visitor may follow a unique personal labyrinth as they meander along their own chosen path, passing through and metaphorically connecting the virtual cultures represented by each of the ancient doorways.

The placement of the doors uses the surrounding environment as an intrinsic part of the sculpture. The interactions between portals, people and landscape in the context of the Yahoo! campus forms the core of the artwork.
For both the public and Yahoo! employees, this sculptural installation offers many layers of interpretation. It can be seen as open doors between the intuitive and the rational, alluding to the connection between the artistic and the scientific. At another level, it suggests a point of passage or transition to new realms. Walking through the doors might allude to a metaphorical journey, perhaps through the doors of knowledge to hidden truths or into mystical domains. For others working in the Yahoo! headquarters, the path may well represent one of discovery of a new perspective or a process of exploration, looking for an answer to a problem or question. Like the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral, the doors become an environmental mandala for meditation, vision and adventure.

At a larger level, the sculptural environment can be seen as a metaphor for the boundlessly deep and globally diverse World Wide Web itself. The ancient and unique doors might allude to the multitude of web sites offering instantaneous passage to cultures from all corners of the globe. The act of physically walking between doors across the open landscape suggests the movement of a web traveler, seamlessly linking from site to site and culture to culture across the virtual landscape of the Internet.