# 5
Every image in the Alterlibrary collection is intended as a quote, an excerpt of a larger discourse. But every image also stands as a matter that could undergo a series of operations and alterations. Therefore, images are renewable sources.
Operations: Extraction and Collection. First, it was taken out of its original digital context and collections (the magazine and broader web) and placed into this particular archive via the technical operation of screenshot—effectively shifting its belonging from one public space to another.
Image alteration: manipulation in Photoshop:
A partial selection was made, isolating only part of the visible scene and thus altering the substance of the original image.
After “cutting out” this portion, a blank area remained on the canvas. That void was automatically filled using Photoshop’s AI-driven tool, which sampled the remaining visible elements to generate a new patch of imagery following a similar pattern.
Halftone Conversion: Finally, the modified image was transformed into a halftone layer—a print-inspired technique that uses a grid of small, varying dots to simulate continuous tones. Historically, halftone processes were crucial in newspaper and magazine production, enabling photographs to be reproduced using a pattern of ink dots rather than solid blocks of color or grayscale.
Remains and fragments, points of a lecture, pieces of reality, amounts of appearance: whenever we read an image, are we free to investigate its possible meaning and its relationship to a given reality? Things from a distance may appear differently.
This photograph, sourced from an online Italian magazine called Doppiozero, has been easily downloaded from the website and added to the collection Opacity of Images. Its original function was to illustrate an article about the death of migrants navigating the Mediterranean sea, but it remained uncredited and undescribed.
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# 2
Jone Kvie, Here, here VI
Every image in the Alterlibrary collection is intended as a quote, an excerpt of a larger discourse. But every image also stands as a matter that could undergo a series of operations and alterations. Therefore, images are renewable sources.
Operations: Extraction (photograph of a photograph printed on a catalogue) and Collection.
Image alteration: Texturing. The original image came from a printed catalogue, where it was first photographed and converted into a digital file. That digital file was then processed using a program developed by a graphic designer called Texturing, designed to extract textures from an image and generate new “visual material.” In effect, what began as a photographic source is turned into a sort of graphical fabric that can be reused for other creative purposes. This amounts to a recycling of the original visual “matter,” transforming it into a different kind of resource suitable for further design processes.
Jone Kvie's original sculptural piece combines natural materials that bear silent witness to geological and biological processes. Volcanic tuff-rock, lichens, moss, pine needles, and iron converge into a single form, suggesting a dialogue between organic growth and the elemental forces shaping our landscapes. The main structure of the sculpture is a volcanic rock collected by the artist and temporarily displaced in an exhibition space during Documenta Kassel 2022.
Invitations to contemplate
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of our Imagination
