Maik 04-01-10

hi berit and jay,
happy new year to london! over here it's getting really cold again and
everything is snow covered since days..

i've attached a first outline of an idea suggesting that the table top
(with the maze) is resting on springs, so that one can push the
corners of the table down in order to play the game. instead of using
4 springs i like the idea to implement some kind of distorsion (what i
think would underline your idea) by keeping the fourth leg in its
original condition. if the 3 modified table legs are slightly longer
than the original one the table appears sloped. the idea is that
people would initally try to align the table and by doing so realize
the balls in the maze and start playing.
in the drawing you can see a chair attached to the table. in the
starting position the chair is beeing suspended over the floor, so
that one can push the table down by sitting on it and so control the
game (this is all subject to tests).

for some reasons i think the table should be square, but looking at
your drawings of the round maze, berit - i'm not sure.

do you already have ideas about what is happening when the balls fall
through the holes of the maze?

just some general questions: do you understand the maze similar to the
setup for a scientific experiment? if so, is the maze's goal
equivalent to the hypothesis and all the other holes that what you
call negative data?
just asking to get an idea on how to deal with the combination of the
maze with the table in a bit more abstract way - rather than having a
maze game standing on four legs. ;-)

re: set-up
there is an exhibition called Natural History coming to my mind about
the work of Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. They mainly had
material studies and process modells on display which they combined
with peaces from natural history collections. everything was simply
laid out on tables and labled with a running number.
here is a link to the catalogue:
http://books.google.de/books?id=1BON3iwjlisC&lpg=PP1&dq=herzog%20de%20meuron%20natural%20history&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

let me know your thoughts,
speak soon-
maik