The New Alphabet

The Das Neue Alphabet series is now complete and available as a boxed set. Its twenty-six volumes develop a panoramic view of current theoretical formulations and contemporary artistic practice. The series came out of the last long-term HKW project, which ran for several years under the directorship of Bernd Scherer. Alphabets, binary code, DNA — the current explosion of knowledge relies on the world being dismembered and divided into the tiniest of units, making it amenable to computation and manipulation. Languages, codes, and other representational modes based on symbols are thus put in the service of political control, surveillance technologies, and economic exploitation. Das Neue Alphabet (The New Alphabet) series counters this process of functionalization with poetic discombobulations, sensuous recodings, and creolizations. The project is organized around the formal principle of constellation: a range of different themes, modes of representation, artistic positions, and graphic elements are combined and recombined in multiple variations. The series sets out to formulate new semiotic worlds conducive to alternative knowledge production.