Bacteria, fungus, whale, sequoia - we do not know any life of which we cannot say that it emits information, receives it, stores it and processes it. For universal rules so incontrovertible that, by them, we are tempted to define life but we are unable to do so, because of the following countexamples. Crystal and indeed rock, sea, planet, star, galaxy–we know no inert thing of which we cannot say that it emits, receives, stores and processes information. Four universal rules, so uniform that we are tempted to define anything in the world by them but are unable to do so because of the following counterexamples. Individuals but also families, farms, villages, cities and nations–we do not know any human, alone or in groups, of whom we cannot say that they emit, receive, store and process information.
Michel Serres, Information and Thinking, 2017Rocks, cities and mushrooms - Information flows
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- But who really owns land and nature? Humans have no more self-evident rights than grass, trees, and squirrels, not to speak of fungi and bacteria. Property, the conceit that state-backed human social relations give us absolute rights over things, does not go far in the realms of land and nature, wh …
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.
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