Alpha Waves is a 1990 3D platformer in which the player attempts to navigate a series of interconnected, multi-tiered levels. It is, in fact, officially recognized as the first ever 3D platforming game. This places it within a significant position in the history of the digital; a discernible touchstone within a moment of transformation. Many creators, empowered by advances in computing, were working along the same vector as Alpha Waves, and the transition into the third dimension was inevitable; but, as the first to fully realize it, Alpha Waves stands out from the rest. This is fitting, as it is also, in its own right, a very strange game.

It included level select options such as ‘Action’ and ‘Emotion.’ Its levels made use of highly intentional colour combinations, designed to bring about particular mental and emotional states in the player. This supposed function was where the name Alpha Waves came from, referring to the range of brain activity associated with reflection, meditation, and a state of rest following higher activity. The game also had no specific endpoint or concrete goal, being designed as an exploration of a then entirely new type of virtual environment. All of these aspects speak to a design ethos rooted not in maximized entertainment / market value, but rather a particular type of engagement between the internal spaces of both the user and the game itself.

It was revolutionary, not only because of its historic position, but also because it legitimately attempted to usher in a new generation of digital gaming in transformative and surprisingly humanistic ways. The fact that it isn’t regarded in a similar way to games like Pong, Myst or Doom ultimately comes down to it being fairly unfun to actually play; far too hampered by the limits of the technology of the time to fully deliver on its promise. Despite being conceptually and ideologically compelling, at the mechanical level it’s a little too Bubsy 3D for its own good (if you know, you know).

Now, what does any of this have to do with Lingxiang Wu’s recent work, The Labyrinth of Digital Bodies? From the Artist’s perspective, probably very little. I have no idea if Wu has ever heard of Alpha Waves, (most people haven’t, including myself up until very recently) nor do I believe their Labyrinth was intended to comment upon it in any direct way. That said, I do see in Wu’s piece a reaction (intended or not) to the outcomes of the history that Alpha Waves attempted to set into motion.

Wu’s piece, which straddles the line between game and interactive artwork, almost feels like one is seeing the formerly bright and meditative spaces of Alpha Waves as they might appear so many decades down the line; compacted and made labyrinthine as the potentials of the digital were co-opted by capitalistic forces. A place now made dark and dense, where the user is assaulted from all angles by screaming text and neon-bright sigils. Like Alpha Waves, it casts the user as a simplified geometric form, forced to navigate at unintuitive and uniquely digital angles, within a 3D space that one’s Avatar neither enters nor leaves. Unlike that earlier game, it does not obviously evoke softness or contemplation, nor anything truly human at all.

If the first ever fully 3D platformer was dedicated to the mental state associated with reflection and thoughtful respite, then The Labyrinth of Digital Bodies seems to be dedicated to Beta Waves, which signal a state of sustained and fixated activity. Productivity, expansion (both outward and inward) and the need for constant motion exemplify our current Neoliberal reality, and as such Beta Waves are very much the mental hallmark of our time. The constant hustle for either advancement or mere survival, (two things which have increasingly lost any distinction) the constant need for more data, more content, at all times and in all contexts, and the increasingly inhuman nature of the systems and infrastructures we interact with are all on display within Wu’s Labyrinth.

It is an unnerving place, which feels designed more as a way to constrain the user than as a site for their explorations. It is dark and over-busy, strobing with text and buzzing with digital whispers; seemingly built for (and possibly by) the inhuman digital forms and modes which overpopulate it. At the same time, some trace of that earlier ethos still feels present there. Its connection to the history of the digital which Alpha Waves attempted to kick-off, a history in which the digital and technology more generally were geared towards humanistic ends, is still evident within its foundations. Not unlike the aforementioned Myst, what the user is presented with is not an inherently alien or malevolent place, but rather a once benevolent and deeply human place which has been co-opted by external and self-serving forces.

Within this subtle disparity, this kernel of an earlier and more revolutionary time, comes an unspoken promise of sorts. That if one could learn to navigate the Labyrinth, to delve deep enough, they might somehow find their way back to that brighter version of our digital world. Or perhaps, even better, to learn to set the Labyrinth as it is now upon a more revolutionary trajectory; one informed by the tradition of works such as Alpha Waves, but with all the density of resources and connections that the contemporary network can offer. If it is a maze, then truly we are lost; but have still the potential to be found, to find ourselves, to find what lies before and beneath.

Both of these aspects are well worth exploring, and together they form a very relevant and necessary dialogue about the current state of the digital. I highly recommend that you all take the chance to get lost within The Labyrinth of Digital Bodies. Just be careful of the minotaur.