by: Norman Klein and Lev Manovich
The Freud-Lissitzky Navigator takes the visitor on a journey through an architectural simulation of Freud's theories. Scenes from Sergei Eisenstein's first attempts at a film exploration of Freud's and Lissitzky's original concept of visualization from the thirties feature alongside subsequent attempts undertaken in the USA. Following the parameters of a conventional computer game, the visitor embarks on an unusual tour. The strange mode of navigation not only changes the course of events, but also the structures of perception in virtual space. The Freud-Lissitzky Navigator grew out of conversations about a problem that Klein had been wrestling with since 1995: how to "imagine" a navigable game for "The Interpretation of Dreams." If our civilization runs by database, then somehow novels constructed purely from data should follow. They should sprawl like Balzac or Tolstoy, but rush along as if the masters from the nineteenth century were reincarnated as game designers.
