Favorite avant-garde doom wad?

For me, one of them would have to be Going Down by Cyriak. I love how it subverts common design tropes with its crazy levels. The best way I can describe it is like playing one of those 1024 wad projects, but without any constraints. The soundtrack in particular is outstanding, even if it's just MIDI renditions of pre-existing songs he made for his Youtube channel. 

What is your favorite of the more weird wads?

dead.wire and dead.air

yakfak's mapping is tremendous. Among their dispersed offerings, Spidersilk rates as my favorite. 

50 shades of Graytall

Map 14 of Sunder is probably the craziest single map I've ever seen.

and also:

This may be somewhat surprising, but NewDoom Community Project 2 has some of the most experimental mapping styles out there that also stays within the confines of the classic Doom theme as well as keeping it within (somewhat) vanilla limits.

Surreal2.wad

i'm not really sure any doom level should be considered avant-garde

I play TimeOfDeath's maps  when I want a really bad trip.

So , I will nominate Eternal Slumber Party 1 and 2.

smb_v102

I have some sweet memories playing with Doom Barracks Zone. 

 

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/a-c/anadream

Bauhaus

The Alfonzone

The Given

and there's one I can't remember the name of at the moment. It's a mix of puzzles and fights in a surreal cityscape. First level has a lot of weird angular shapes, with very thin "slices" of buildings.

7 minutes ago, Gez said:

and there's one I can't remember the name of at the moment. It's a mix of puzzles and fights in a surreal cityscape. First level has a lot of weird angular shapes, with very thin "slices" of buildings.

This describes a good chunk of Finely Crafted Fetish Film.

Yeah, that's it.

8 hours ago, rdwpa said:

yakfak's mapping is tremendous. Among their dispersed offerings, Spidersilk rates as my favorite. 

thank you :3

ps im not sure im avant-garde so much as a stubborn dungeon-crawling purist lol

Hmm.. if we just mean stuff of an experimental or unusual nature, it would be criminal not to mention The Sky May Be. Although even early, more traditional stuff like Doomsday of UAC could be considered experimental for its time.

I’d also have to mention Run For It, The Revenant Problem, Ghoul’s Forest, Lilith, DOOD... are those unusual or experimental enough to count?

EDIT: ToD’s maps are often unusual and memorable so I gotta mention that as well. Some of my favourite Doom maps come from Drown in Blood.

Is Maskim Xul considered as avantgarde?

There's that one map with the impossible stairs. I can't remember the name, I think it was by the guy who did Holy Hell.

2 hours ago, dmslr said:

Is Maskim Xul considered as avantgarde?

If we break down the word its root is "vanguard" which is to say the advancing line at the front of an army. When it comes to creative endeavors it means the front line or 'cutting edge' so to speak. Maskim Xul is modified and has a strongly focused concept which sets it apart from the "standard Doom map", and that's not even considering the high quality of the actual wad itself. When I think of horror themed levels it's one of the first that comes to mind personally, so I would say yes it qualifies, imo.

None of these wads are avant-garde

People are going to be contrary about this, and yet no one is willing to mansplain to us the definition of avant-garde? Tsk tsk.

Here's what I get from Google:

noun

new and unusual or experimental ideas, especially in the arts, or the people introducing them.

adjective

favoring or introducing experimental or unusual ideas.

Seems pretty straightforward to me. Anyway, my favorite weird artsy wad is A.L.T., a beautifully surreal megawad that's about being trapped inside your own panicking brain as you are dying.

ARCHIE remains one of the most bizarre wads I've played.

Holy shit that made The Sky May Be look like E1M1

the void.

4 hours ago, Not Jabba said:

People are going to be contrary about this, and yet no one is willing to mansplain to us the definition of avant-garde? Tsk tsk

I been out here mansplaining all day homie -

5 hours ago, reflex17 said:

its root is "vanguard" which is to say the advancing line at the front of an army. When it comes to creative endeavors it means the front line or 'cutting edge' so to speak.

It's just a thread on a fan forum about a videogame though, I feel like we don't really need to take it too seriously.

given the meaning listed, i don't think any of these works have offered very much that is that new or experimental. also avant-garde typically means something much stronger than the meaning given here.

but:

for example, the word surreal has been used a few times in this thread. surrealism according to a quick check of wikipedia dates back to... 1917.

granted, surrealism is not entirely the same thing as "the surreal", but you might see what i mean?

a few works in this thread were heavily influenced by mc escher's work, a man who died in 1973 and has his paintings displayed in schools all over the world. that's not new or experimental.

i will point out that one of my own works has been listed in this thread. anything that might be considered experimental about it has already been explored in great detail by various types of artists dating back to the 90s and even before. using glitchy aesthetics is not avant-garde. audio sampling to create art dates back way before i was born. off the top of my head i can consider delia derbyshire's work in the 1960s as a precursor. visual collage is an ancient art form at this point. theres a rihanna song with glitchy shit in it with 2 billion views on youtube.

Maybe OP means experimental in terms of Doom WADs.

1 hour ago, Eris Falling said:

Maybe OP means experimental in terms of Doom WADs.

That would've been a better word, yes, but I still love all the answers I've gotten so far!

Isn't the definition of avant-garde well-known? I learnt it as a kid: "Avant Garde is French for Bullshit." - John Lennon