"The Ouroboros is a symbol that represents a snake biting its own tail. In mythology, the Ouroboros, as an inhabitant of the primordial sea, stands for the motionless mover, for the origin of the gods and of life. In my wooden sculpture “Ouroboros”, I juxtapose scientific and pre-scientific-mythological narratives and attempt to combine them in an overarching, universal formal language. The central motif is the origin of life and the interplay between microcosm and macrocosm. The sculpture is made up of over a thousand individually crafted parabolic wooden elements. These are arranged in curved stacks to form intertwined, loop-shaped ribbons, which in turn are arranged in a fractal superstructure. Again and again, one band splits into another, narrower band. Each band forms a closed curve. Like a horizontal eight, the symbol of infinity, there is no escape, no beginning and no end. The repetitive fractal layered structure is the direct continuation of the material in its form. Wood is made up of microscopically small cells that accumulate layer by layer to form annual rings as the seasons change. Material and shape form an organic unity. The composition, reminiscent of a snake-like primordial creature, is conceived as a kaleidoscope of anthropological archetypes, merging the structural and rational with the unfathomable and existential to form an organic unity." [Koloman Wagner]