(2024) ETYM(YTH)`OLOGY with Darius Ou

Poster by Darius Ou, commemorating his custom font "As Above So Below", which was used in the FAU0X SALON card game and to create the 0xSalon's logo and ident. I wrote this short speculative text on how "0" and "x" came together.

When legacy becomes ligature: the curious indiscretions of ‘0’. Zero shares etym(yth)ological roots with cipher in the Arabic word ṣif’r  صفر. The contemporary cypherpunk movement takes its name from this linguistic heritage, aiming for privacy, concealment, and envoidening digital communication using cryptography. Universal ṣif’rage. Cuneiformalisation.

• Zero began as “no-thing”. 

• An absence, a gap in the record, null and void.

• A placeholder, a placeless space, a scry-ø imaginary. 

• A cloak, that adds nothing, and leaves unchanged. 

• A withholding, a negation, a silence.

• An identity, without politics. 

Never formally contained within Roman script due to its debased nature, zero’s death drive led it to bind to the ultimate symbol of refusal, the ‘x’. The perversion of the curve, and the righteousness of the rectilinear faith. A hex; a hoax; ‘0x’. The ligature of ‘0’ and ‘x’ became a virtual signifier in memoryspace. At once: a talisman, a target, a corruption. Hexadecimalevolence. The ties that bind. Constraint, contort, restrained retort.