Ariadne’s Red Thread Guidelines: “Threading Through Life”


1. Begin in the Middle of the Labyrinth.
There is no need for introductions. No need to announce your presence. Let the reader stumble in, disoriented, as if they have always been here.

2. Tangle Myth and Memory.
Write as if myth is an extension of the present, and the present is already a forgotten legend. Let Minotaurs lurk in the underpasses, let the gods bicker in market stalls.

3. Follow the City’s Pulse.
The streets are speaking, their signs and billboards screaming in layered tongues. Collect their messages. Make them clash against each other until new meaning emerges.

4. Write as if Addressing a Ghost.
Or a god. Or a lover you lost in another lifetime. Let the reader feel like they are eavesdropping on something intimate, something not meant for them.

5. Embrace the Chaos of Collage.
A sentence stolen from a manifesto. A line overheard in a café. A fragment of a sacred text. Arrange them like torn paper, as if trying to reconstruct a forgotten prophecy.

6. Make the City a Character.
Give it moods, tempers, shifting faces. Let it lure, mislead, betray. Make it untrustworthy. Make it impossible to leave.

7. Let Language be Excessive.
Long, winding sentences that overflow. Lists that spiral. An overwhelming density of imagery—let the text feel like an overgrown jungle or a night market at peak hour.

8. Make the ordinary a Spectacle.
Neon, gold, plastic, marble, blood. A cow in the middle of the road. A priest counting rupees. A face on a billboard peeling away. Write as if this is all part of the same fever dream.

9. Leave No Conclusions.
End mid-step. Cut off before the thought resolves. Let the reader feel abandoned, holding the thread, unsure whether to move forward or turn back.

10. Return Always.
The labyrinth does not end. Keep weaving. Keep layering. Keep leaving traces of yourself in the text, so that one day, someone might follow them back to you.

Unraveling the threat

What does Pasolini love?

the chaos of voices
filth is real, filth is honest
refusal of silence
resilience of the workers
connection of people
Aesthetic of Decay
persistence of myths
Mythology
Human connection

Disorientation & Distraction

What does Pasolini hate?

illusion of prosperity
neon advertisements
luxury goods
concrete suffocation
fetishizing of colonial relics
Consumerism as the worst form of oppression
Exploitation of the Poor
Animal Abuse
This Project

Blog Entry I — "Ariadne's Red Thread"
Posted by Ariadne | ariadnesthread.hotglue.me | Category: Unraveling the threat

The air in Mumbai hangs heavy, thick with the scent of fruit skins crushed underfoot and the exhaust curling from three-wheeled chariots stalled in the midday sun. Mumbadevi watches from her plinth, her gaze lost. According to legend, [1] the Gods walk here between men and we are people of myth gathered here for a purpose: To conquer a new minotaur hidden deep within a new labyrinth. Crawford market is not far away. The horror and deprivation has been immured behind those cold new walls. [2] Inside this system, breath, the action of life, sucks in pollution, life’s choker. [3] They gave us the very end of a red thread. We should hold on to it, never letting it go, clutching. In case something goes wrong…For our safety. [4]

This temple of Mumbadevi, the local protector deity, was our haven. We ourselves were raised with different myths and different deities. She reminded us of Hera, queen of Zeus ! [5] Hera determines to protect and inspire [6] so we could rest in protective familiarity. Like a Minoan pantheon. [7] Beyond that point, adventure began.[8] Believe me: we will need courage. [9] We step out of the temple into the chaos of the outside world. Let us first examine the Labyrinth [10] The labyrinth, for instance, was originally a military and political structure designed to trap enemies inextricably in a maze. [11] A great deal of noise and air pollution plagues the plaza, due to very heavy surrounding traffic.[12] Nevertheless we push into the streets. The human traffic of Mumbai is overpowering. [13] As we glide through streets, cut corners and avoid eye contact wherever possible we proceed to our destiny: Crawford Market.

It is rich in history and culture. [14] What was once a vision of beauty is now one of heartbreaking decay and desolation. [15] The market, this old colonial reef drowning in sounds of people squabbling, vehicles driving and honking and the burning lights of neon signs. In Indian culture, both Hinduism and Buddhism acknowledge the existence of some sorts of ghosts. [16] We are standing in the face of this ghost. The old watchtower standing above as eternal guardian has seen the decay firsthand. From market to neon attraction. How many people did the clock see getting lost inside? The inside is very much like a maze. [17] What it offers is not an even stimulation but excitement, ecstasy, intoxication. [18] It Felt so off colour. [19] Past and present collide in a thousand different forms. [20] That encounter needs to happen, and it needs to happen urgently. [21] Yet even if such were possible, one might ask: a clash with whom? [10] We tug on the stretched red thread, which by now started to entangle itself with the local buzzing. For our safety. [4]

Ariadne's Red Thread

@Ariadnes Red Thread

🌸 Prayer to Mumbadevi

Goddess of the city, rage against its defilement! "The city of peace has tragically become a city of war" [1].

The streets pulse with fire and filth, and "instead of cities of light soaring toward heaven, much of the twenty-first century urban world squats in squalor, surrounded by pollution, excrement, and decay" [2].

Devi, see how "the human traffic of Mumbai is overpowering" [3]. Rise from the smog, "for anger carries direction, planning, and determination" [4]. "The rage of a people has been unleashed, a fury" [5]. Burn through the labyrinth of excess and restore your dominion.

⚡ Prayer to Indra

Storm-Wielder, your voice is lost beneath "a great deal of noise and air pollution" [15]. The monsoons no longer cleanse as they once did, for "the unsustainable city is one that damages its natural surroundings and repulses rather than attracts people, culture, and commerce" [16].

The balance of the storm is broken, for "noise, pollution, danger increase" [17]. But Indra, breaker of droughts, do not abandon us—"but why does the rise of urban space necessarily correlate with an unsustainable future?" [18].

🐍 Prayer to Vishnu

Preserver of balance, the city expands in restless hunger, and yet, "the question of good city form is, in the end, not a spatial one" [11].

We walk upon your sacred ground, but "quite different regulations are necessary to prevent this abuse" [11]. In this world of overstimulation, "the transformation from city to megacity cannot be explained by population growth" [12].

Narayana, sustain us amidst the chaos, for "this diversity gives to the crowd a peculiar stamp, which no other town in the world can present" [13]. Shelter us, for "a likely explanation is that visual deprivation allows tactile input to activate visual areas by letting existing connections between the areas become hyperactive" [14].

🪿 Prayer to Brahma

To the Creator, the city takes shape under your gaze, but "in these settings, the real city is often marked by quasi-authoritarianism, variable forms of clientelism, patronage and populism" [6].

Have we strayed too far from the divine order? "Ever since man first threw himself into the pollution of sin, he sullies whatever he takes into his hand" [7].

Yet, in the city’s refuse, new stories form—"these new replicant wonders emerged sometimes as the result of accidents or as byproducts of pollution" [8] Grant us the wisdom to weave harmony from disorder.

🔱Prayer to Shiva

Destroyer of Illusion, you see the city’s horror and its rebirth. "The horror and deprivation has been immured behind those cold new walls" [9].

The air is thick with "noise, congestion, and pollution" [10], yet your dance shatters the illusion of permanence. "Inside this system, breath, the action of life, sucks in pollution, life’s choker" (Leslie).

Mahadeva, let your fire cleanse the refuse of this world. "So a city of smoke was wreathed within a city of trade" [11].

Ariadne’s Thread is a digital storytelling and research project that reimagines the myth of the labyrinth within the urban landscape of Mumbai’s Crawford Market. Drawing from Greek and Indian mythology, it explores themes of cultural entanglement, disorientation, and pollution—both physical and metaphorical.
The project acts as an interactive maze of texts, images, and audiovisual elements, inviting users to trace the threads of mythology within modern chaos. Figures like Mumbadevi, Indra, and Ariadne weave through narratives of urban survival, gods lost in the marketplace, and the individual’s struggle to navigate overstimulation and transformation.
Blurring the lines between myth, history, and personal experience, Ariadne’s Thread is a dynamic space where ancient stories meet contemporary crises, challenging users to rethink their relationship with the city, its pollution, and the invisible forces shaping its labyrinthine reality.

To Pier Paolo Pasolini,

Noise, pollution, increased danger.[1] You would hate it here; you would love it. The fetishization of a time long gone, the human connection, the advertisements giving a sense of prosperity, and the persistence of myth. Crawford Market in Mumbai is a stage where the city's reality is its illusion. Mumbai thrives on consumption and upward mobility,[2] layers of excess repulsing as much as they attract.[3] The transformation from city to megacity is not mere population growth[4] but a spectrum of the inexplicable. The human traffic is overpowering.[5] The city wants our labour.[6] A city of smoke wreathed within a city of trade.[7] This is the horror of the city.[8]

Pollution here does not choke the throat but clouds the eyes and mind with its colourful facade. Here, pollution changes the Perspective of Colour.[9] Concepts become colourful; the colour shows their intensity.[10] It is beauty accepting its own mortality.[11] Pier, you love the realness of the situation—so tell me, Why Should We Care about Chemical Pollution?[12] The sensation of color is the most popular form of aesthetic sense.[13] People are dying.[14] The elms are still dying, and so are the birds.[15] Yet, Dying is life, too.[16] Why oppose pollution by generalising it?[17] The pollution is sweetened, masked by a signifier of freshness.[18] Here is the beauty of science.[19]

The Market is a place of stimulating yet fleeting interactions, marked by quasi-authoritarianism, clientelism, and a game of cunning. A great deal of noise and air pollution plagues the plaza.[22] We must construct a spectacle that captures this grotesque ballet of consumption, stimulation, pollution, and myths. You would love Crawford—it thrives on hustling, human connection, and cacophony. It is a maze that can elicit fear in the unwary traveller.[23] Colourful stands of fresh produce sit alongside slithering snakes and sacks of somnolent toads.[24] Mesmerizing spices contrast with stark animal cruelty—a dance where fantasy and abuse are one.

But Pier, what if I told you that in Hindu mythology, there is no labyrinth? No Minotaur, no Theseus, no salvation. Instead, there is something more insidious: the Maya Sabha. Built by Maya for the Pandavas, it was a masterpiece of illusion.[32] Warriors were ensnared, not by walls, but by deception.[33] The market does not confine—it intoxicates. It demands constant stimulation.[34] You do not lose yourself in corridors but in a flood of color, sound, movement. There is no single path, no center. Here, people feed on each other for stimulation, information, satisfaction.[35][36]
Crawford Market is not a place; it is a phenomenon, one that lures, entrances, consumes. The Minotaur demands sacrifice, but here, sacrifice is voluntary—for sensation, for survival, for the illusion of prosperity. Light provides instant stimulation.[37] The creative manipulation of light and shadow fosters curiosity and mystery.[38] What it offers is not balance but ecstasy, intoxication.[39] Wherever there are people, there is pollution.[40]

Yours,
Ariadne’s Red Thread
 

[1] Kepler, New Astronomy, [2] Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, [3] Leslie, Synthetic Worlds, [4] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology, [5] Nonnos, Dionysiaca Books 16-35, [6] Krell, The Sea A Philosophical Encounter, [7] Voegelin, Order and History 2, [8] Levi Strauss, Tristes Tropiques, [9] Marinetti, The Futurist Cookbook, [10] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968, [11] Lefebvre, The Production of Space, [12] Herzog, Return to the center: Culture, public space, and city building in a global era, [13] Hollis, Cities Are Good For You, [14] Bosworth, Italian Venice A History, [15] Cruickshank, A History of Architecture in 100 Buildings, [16] Lewis, Witchcraft Today, [17] Javid, World Heritage Monuments and Related Edifices, [18] Frankl, The Gothic, [19] Joyce, Ulysses, [20] Ackroyd, London A Biography, [21] Hatherley, A New Kind of Bleak Journeys Through Urban Britain

To Ariadne’s Thread,
You speak of seduction, myth, spectacle—without once naming what film is. You stitch words like garlands around an absence: vision.

You call me to Mumbai, to Crawford Market, where "colourful stands of fresh produce sit alongside the buckets of slithering snakes and sacks of somnolent toads." [9] You see spectacle. I see desperation lacquered in LED gloss. You mistake clutter for cinema, chaos for critique.

You want to trap the audience in sensation. But "the stimulation is not that of the discoverer of a diamond, which is a physical entity that may be monopolized or exploited only to the owner’s advantage." [10] You want sensation, not meaning. A hall of mirrors is not a camera.

You quote light pollution like scripture, but forget that "light provides instant stimulation; but time takes... time." [11] You want it all at once. That’s not film. That’s content. And content, my dear Ariadne, is the Minotaur now.

You claim the market is a new myth. I say, "the labyrinth was originally a military and political structure designed to trap enemies inextricably in a maze." [12] Yours isn’t a myth. It’s marketing. Your goddess speaks in hashtags.

And what is light pollution if not a wall made of false stars? What is overstimulation if not a labyrinth of the senses, where every path leads to exhaustion?

"Light pollution, artificial light that brightens the night sky, disrupts stargazers and the natural activities of nocturnal creatures." [42] But what are stars to us, when "the flood of artificial light and air pollution have made them ever more difficult to see?" [43] Imagine the resentment this will breed. "It is poetic understanding and justifiable hate." [44]

This is not a film. This is a theater of distraction, where hunger is drowned in trade, where nothing is still. Colonial relics wrapped in neon. In this light, "the poor are exploited and people suffer; excess burns." [48]

"The result is that today in many cities we have the worst of all worlds: danger without pleasure, safety without stimulation, consumerism without choice, monumentality without diversity." [49]

So let them rage. "If the people want, then let us gift them the fury and excitement of the mob." [51] "What more inevitable consequence than rage against its conditions and its custodians?" [52]

I am already in Mumbai. Not as collaborator. Not as accomplice.

As undertaker.

If this film must be made, let it at least die with style.

—
Pier Paolo Pasolini

Blog Entry II — "Ariadne's Red Thread"
Posted by Ariadne | ariadnesthread.hotglue.me | Category: Disorientation, Distraction

The space is inhabited by colorful people. [1] Trading, laughing, bartering, eating and enjoying their day-to-day life. For many this is fun for others this is survival. They seemed entranced with the space, hypnotized. Lost. Here people feed on other people for all their stimulation, information and satisfaction. [2] First, (we) noticed a slight haze. [3] Wherever there are lots of people, there is lots of pollution. [4] We try to find a way marker, past the entrance and the Greek Sculpture [5] above. This could be our Point of attachment. [6]

People walk past us while we studied the way marker. Images have no center, no direction and orientation. [7] There was no pattern! [8] Both result in disorientation. [9] We are no space pilot. [7] So we dive into the chaos nonetheless. Let our instincts guide us. After all we clutch the red thread - For our safety. [8] Left? [8] Eightfold Way. [10] Focus. [11] We are going the other way. [12] Something was odd. [10] We swear we were here before. In this cross section our red thread lies – we looped around. So we begin to rage [13]

Then a Surprise, shock. [8] Around us was organized calmness within the mess. Others do not seem to share our daze. For them this state of disorientation was normal! [14] We need only follow. [10] And unlike the masses we carry the red thread. We will not get lost. We are the legend. [15] Yet no one seems to engage with us – the bustling and talking is overwhelming. Yet our footsteps echo down the stone labyrinth. [16] They pass. [17] We lead ourselves. [18] For our safety. [8]

Colourful stands of fresh produce sit alongside the buckets of slithering snakes and sacks of somnolent toads. [19] We feel the power of this intoxicating place. The spicing up of basic foods appears in a colourful scene. [20] It is beauty accepting its own mortality. [21]

People everywhere show a preference for light. [22] Light provides instant stimulation [23]. And stimulation in this space is constant. From neon signs flickering advertisement to noises of animals and the haggling of the people. Stimulation shows itself in a constant dance in which the people gladly engage. and then: The gods! [24] Or likenesses of the gods? [25] Wreathed within the communal fabric of Crawford – we almost couldn’t believe our eyes – Gods walked this realm. An irritated Apollo [26] tasting fruits, Vishnu rides on Garuda, [27] Dionysus is standing there! [26] Indra felt left out. [28] This palace of illusion holds the power not only to capture Gods within but to interweave them with local people! The gods come together thus. [29] Although, The gods don’t meet except to make war. [30] There is a friction there. [31]

@Ariadnes Red Thread

Discourse & Deities

Blog Entry III — "Ariadne's Red Thread"
Posted by Ariadne | ariadnesthread.hotglue.me | Category: Discourse & Deities

Soon Apollos disdain was noticed by no other than Shiva himself. „Music and Bad Manners.“ [1]

"Do you want to fire grape shot at the Apollo Belvedere? [2] The mass of filth has this in its favor, that it is not a liar." [2] Apollo says, adjusting his tunic as if trying to shake off the grime. "Light should reveal, but here, it only makes the smoke shimmer. Because it's not visible, so you could abuse it and make it perform a lot more than it typically does." [3]

Dionysus inhales deeply, eyes half-lidded in pleasure. "You think too much, brother. „It is not only language that can kill or intoxicate us by passing our lips. [4] Look at them—" he gestures to the people bartering, shouting, laughing, "—they breathe the same air, yet they dance, they live! What farther proof can we desire for the double relation of impressions and ideas?" [5]

Brahma, the creator, soars through the air on the back of hamsa, a magnificent gander. [6] "Desire drives the world. Creation itself is excess, spilling beyond boundaries. To exist is to pollute. The Ganges carries silt from the mountains; the wind spreads dust across the earth. Only the dead remain unstained."

"This is the problem." [7] Zeus, son of Cronus, the king [8] growls. "A world drowning in its own filth? The city is kept ‘clean and safe’! [9] A temple of civilization, not a heap of refuse."

Shiva chuckles. Shiva is the Hindu god of destruction and renewal of life. [10] "And yet your Olympus is littered with wars, betrayals, the ruins of gods cast down. Do not mistake order for purity, Zeus. Grace is beauty within decay; It is beauty accepting its own mortality. [11] Purity is a new enough myth.[12] The moment something is untouched, it is lifeless. The river must carry both water and waste, the fire must consume both offering and ash. Pollution is not destruction—it is change."

Apollo’s jaw tightens. "People suffer in the light; excess burns. [2] Where is the limit?"

Shiva and Dionysus, [13] share a quick glance. „And these limits are precisely the ones that life requires.“ [6]

Vishnu, the preserver, fathomless and subtle [6] gestures at the market— As an Advertising Deity it beams, brims over with an inhuman bonhomie. [14] "Culture, too, is pollution. Ideas bleed into each other. The powers of the gods were continuously being redefined. [15] Do you fear impurity, or do you fear irrelevance?
"
Brahma agreed. [16] And Zeus decided that the age of the heroes must be brief and stormy. [17]

@Ariadnes Red Thread

[1] Anzaldua, This Bridge We Call Home, [2] Goldsmith, Capital New York Capital of the 20th Century, [3] Kassinger, Slime, [4] Speck, Walkable City, [5] Friedland, The Oxford Handbook of Roman Sculpture, [6] Kepler, New Astronomy, [7] Parisi, Abstract Sex, [8] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology, [9] Schumacher, The Autopoiesis of Architecture Vol 2, [10] Penrose, The Road to Reality, [11] Koolhaas, Elements of Architecture, [12] Burrows, Fictioning, [13] Powers, The Overstory, [14] Kunstler, The City in Mind, [15] Del Toro, Cabinet of Curiosities, [16] Ackroyd, Venice Pure City, [17] Krell, The Sea A Philosophical Encounter, [18] Anzaldua, This Bridge We Call Home, [19] Greenspan, Shanghai Future Modernity Remade, [20] Rudolph, Taste and the Ancient Senses, [21] Cacciari, The Unpolitical, [22] Watson, Heaven s Breath, [23] Unwin, Analysing Architecture, [24] Borges, Collected Fictions, [25] Levi Strauss, Tristes Tropiques, [26] Girard, The Scapegoat, [27] Grimm, Teutonic Mythology The Complete Work, [28] Calasso, Ardor, [29] Serres, The Five Senses, [30] Clement, The Planetary Garden and Other Writings, [31] Simon, Speaking Memory How Translation Shapes City Life

Blog Entry IV — "Ariadne's Red Thread"
Posted by Ariadne | ariadnesthread.hotglue.me | Category: Indra's Net

A grave danger is looming here. [1] The Gods seem to revel, the people live their lifes and we stand… In isolation? [2] Pulling our red thread we try to grasp for safety. It seems stuck. Oil? [2] Our thread is slick, glowing iridescent. Everywhere we went our escape entangled with locality – left its greasy mark all over the mart. Darkening signs, choking communities. It is sterile, in this regard. [3] We just stare. [4] Our red thread, now slowly unravelling itself, falls apart. Entangles within the seem Gods, People, Animals and Light. The shape arrests them. [5] Fear ripples down our spine, frightening your soul out of your body. [6]

These ripples do not stop in our lower back, they echo through thread and through the market. Someone notices our red thread, grabbing and weaving. Indra was the leader of the Devas, the god of war, a thunderbolt wielding god of thunder and storms, the greatest of all warriors, the strongest of all beings. [7] After he is done the market begins to shake. Our ripples affect others.

When we began, our path seemed lonely. [7] Now we are part of the fabric - our network changed: All urban ingredients curdle, all urban colors clash. [8] Space was a key subject in Greek philosophy. [9] And a subject of illusions in Hindu philosophy. But what if that was the point? [10] All that confusion and disorientation by reflecting glass and mirrors turns into legible, modern, industrial spaces. [11] We save the myths. We destroy isolation. We bring frustration and leave new stories as a gift. Therefore we first call the gods and let the noise in. [12] It would be needless to show that this is a fable. [13] Call it a myth. [2]

[1] Kostelanetz, A Dictionary of the AvantGardes, [2] Hugo, Les Miserables, [3] Koolhaas, Elements of Architecture, [4] Serres, The Five Senses, [5] Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, [6] Watson, Heaven s Breath, [7] Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, [8] Lovejoy Boas, Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity, [9] Minton, Ground Control Fear and Happiness in the TwentyFirst, [10] Barber, A Companion To World Mythology, [11] Cacciari, The Unpolitical, [12] Powers, The Overstory, [13] Zorn, Arcana 5, [14] Eshun, More Brilliant Than the Sun Adventures in Sonic Fiction, [15] Graves, The White Goddess, [16] Calasso, Ka Stories of the Mind and Gods of India, [17] Calasso, The Book of All Books

[1] Spuybroek, Grace and Gravity, [2] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology, [3] Varoufakis Halevi Theocarakis, Modern Political Economics Making sense of the post-2008 world, [4] Virgil, Aeneid, [5] Powers, The Overstory, [6] Anzaldua, This Bridge We Call Home, [7] Zorn, Arcana 5, [8] Ockmann, Architecture Culture 1943 1968, [9] Powers, A Companion to Chinese Art, [10] Rijks, Catalysts of Knowledge, [11] Leslie, Synthetic Worlds, [12] Schildberger, On Food, [13] Humboldt, Equinoctial Regions of America

@Ariadnes Red Thread

[1] Armstrong, Jerusalem One City Three Faiths, [2] Davis, Planet of Slums, [3] Hollis, Cities Are Good For You, [4] Asch, Chocolate City A History of Race and Democracy in, [5] Goldsmith, Capital New York Capital of the 20th Century, [6] Simone, New Urban Worlds Inhabiting Dissonant Times, [7] Locke, Political Essays, [8] Leslie, Synthetic Worlds, [9] Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, [10] Dawson, Rare Light J Alden Weir in Windham Connecticut, [11] Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, [12] Greenspan, Shanghai Future Modernity Remade, [13] Brook, A History of Future Cities, [14] Cytowic, Wednesday Is Indigo Blue, [15] Herzog, Return to the center: Culture, public space, and city building in a global era, [16] Cohen, The Sustainable City, [17] Gratz, The Battle for Gotham New York in the Shadow, [18] Curtright, Sustainability and the City Urban Poetics and Politics