  Recent work has revealed intriguing connections between a
Belinsky-Khalatnikov-Lifshitz-type analysis of spacelike singularities in
General Relativity and certain infinite dimensional Lie algebras, and in
particular the `maximally extended' hyperbolic Kac--Moody algebra E10. In this
essay we argue that these results may lead to an entirely new understanding of
the (quantum) nature of space(-time) at the Planck scale, and hence -- via an
effective `de-emergence' of space near a singularity -- to a novel mechanism
for achieving background independence in quantum gravity.
