Watching Paint Dry
The projection, Microsoft Windows 95/98 Maze Screensaver, features a version of the maze screensaver in question. This projection displays a program that mimics the conventions of the original maze screensaver, but some of the original aspects have been customized. This newly created version has stripped back aspects of the original to its essential components: the red brick walls are changed to white, the orange floor and grey tiled ceiling are both replaced with grey, and the fast paced rhythm of navigating through the maze has been decelerated. The projection still depicts a fly-through perspective, weaving between the hallways of a never-ending maze; however, any action that was in the original program (such as approaching smiley faces, rats, or potential ground to ceiling reversals) has been removed. By paring the screensaver back in terms of visual sensibility and action, Microsoft Windows 95/98 Maze Screensaver features the screensaver at its most basic, and ultimately the passage of time and virtual space. This paring back also brings the screensaver in relation to more complex digital or virtual realms, as this basic form can be seen as a foundation for video games and virtual spaces and more generally the basic colours and sense of space can be seen in relation to interfaces and platforms similar to YouTube for example or operating systems. Ultimately in this exhibition, the maze screensaver projection becomes a kind of touchstone of the digital, of digital sites, spaces, and worlds, and also of expectations and experiences, past and present, with the digital.
