Hunters in the Snow (The Tower of Sleep)
"a new architecture is born beyond our attention, without any symptoms of humanism....there is no reason to articulate anything. There is no entrance, there are no users.... robots don't need beige. There is no tradition." From 'TRIC: Post-human Architecture'
20th Century Irish writer James Joyce’s avant-garde dreamscape novel Finnegans Wake, published in 1939, the Tower of Sleep is a metaphorical construct that represents the cyclical nature of history, language, and consciousness. It is a key symbol in the book, although its meaning remains open to interpretation.
The Tower of Sleep is often associated with the fall of the Tower of Babel, a biblical story in which humanity endeavours to build a single language city and tower in pursuit of a Utopia.
The Lord, in realising what was unfolding and humanity's unconstrained pursuit of power (a Will to Power), confuses and jumbles their single language and scatters the people across the face of the earth.
In Finnegans Wake, this Tower is depicted as a metaphorical structure that encapsulates humanity's collective dreams, myths, and histories.
The Tower of Sleep is described as a place where all languages converge and mingle, representing a universal repository of knowledge and cultural memory.
It is a symbolic representation of the human mind. The Tower’s collapse and subsequent rebuilding signify the cyclical nature of history and the perpetual process of creation and destruction. The evolution of Human Consciousness.