Labyrinth - Modern Labyrinths

Modern Labyrinths

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the labyrinth symbol, which has inspired a revival in labyrinth building.

Countless video games depict mazes and labyrinths.

On bobsled, luge, and skeleton tracks, a labyrinth is where there are three to four curves in succession without a straight line in between any of the turns.

In modern imagery, the labyrinth of Daedalus is often represented by a multicursal maze, in which one may become lost.

The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges was entranced with the idea of the labyrinth, and used it extensively in his short stories (such as "The House of Asterion" in The Aleph). His use of it has inspired other authors' works (e.g. Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves). Additionally, Roger Zelazny's fantasy series, The Chronicles of Amber, features a labyrinth, called "the Pattern", which grants those who walk it the power to move between parallel worlds. The avant-garde multi-screen film, In the Labyrinth, presents a search for meaning in a symbolic modern labyrinth. In Rick Riordan's series Percy Jackson & the Olympians, the events of the fourth novel The Battle of the Labyrinth predominantly take place within the labyrinth of Daedalus, which has followed the heart of the West to settle beneath the United States. Australian author Sara Douglass incorporated some labyrinthine ideas in her series The Troy Game, in which the Labyrinth on Crete is one of several in the ancient world, created with the cities as a source of magical power. Lawrence Durrell's The Dark Labyrinth depicts travelers trapped underground in Crete.

The labyrinth is also treated in contemporary fine arts. Examples include Piet Mondrian's Dam and Ocean (1915), Joan Miró's Labyrinth (1923), Pablo Picasso's Minotauromachia (1935), M. C. Escher's Relativity (1953), Friedensreich Hundertwasser's Labyrinth (1957), Jean Dubuffet's Logological Cabinet (1970), Richard Long's Connemara sculpture (1971), Joe Tilson's Earth Maze (1975), Richard Fleischner's Chain Link Maze (1978), István Orosz's Atlantis Anamorphosis (2000), Dmitry Rakov's Labyrinth (2003), and Labyrinthine projection by contemporary American artist Mo Morales (2000).

The Italian painter Davide Tonato has dedicated many of his artistic works to the labyrinth theme. The art historian Giordano Berti has defined him as "the Prince of Labyrinths" due to his ability to create using the refined Trompe-l'œil technique, a considerable number of absolutely innovative, almost modelled structures. The art critic Vittorio Sgarbi, however, has compared Tonato's worked to those of Maurits Cornelis Escher.