e-flux Journal #96

<p>The seventy-two dimensions of the universe are represented in a single vertebrate body: a snake coiled in a continuous circle, biting its own tail. This symbol was etched within <em>The Enigmatic Book of the Netherworld</em>, on the second shrine of a young king, Amen-tut-ankh, who, before he ascended, was once called Tutankhaten—the living image of Aten, the sun. The circled snakes (one rings around an etching of the mummified pharaoh’s head, the other around the feet) depict a confluence of the gods Ra and Osiris, light and death eternally returning, swallowed and reborn and always encircling night into day.</p> <p>Some historians say that the ouroboros in Egypt also symbolized the yearly flooding of the Nile, replenishing crops—life and death, rebirth. Maybe our human bodies, in addition to being part of a universe of feedback upon feedback, are also receiving and transmitting signals—sometimes through the use of the unlikeliest information tools. Amidst media, our bodies and cells can lead to endless consuming and potentially self-consuming cycles, but also with the strange possibility of immortal persistence…</p>