The Labyrinth

(Piranesi's painting (could have been Escher's nightmare))

"... It is hardly surprising, therefore, that there may be no way out of the Labyrinth. Dennis Hollier in his book on George Bataille, points out that from Bacon to Leibniz the Labyrinth was linked with the desire to get out, and science was seen as the means to find an exit. Rejecting such an interpretation, Bataille suggested that its only effect was to transform the Labyrinth into a banal prison. The traditional meaning of the metaphor was reversed: one never knows whether one is inside or outside or not, since one cannot grasp it in one look. Just as language gives us words that encircle us but that we use in order to break their surround, the Labyrinth of experience was full of openings that did not tell whether they opened towards its outside or its inside.

(Tschumi)