2005 | Alexandria, Egypt

Stone alphabet


“Stone abecedary”, stones, vases, water, installation,

Participation after an official invitation of Biblioteca Alexandrina, Arts Center, Imagining the Book International Biennale, Alexandria, 04/2005. (The installation is exhibited inside the Biblioteca since the end of Biennale).

  1. Stone-abecedary is part of a long term work on “alphabets”, “abecedaries”, and “calligraphy” as an attempt to investigate the imaginary of the letter and the letter of the imaginary.
  2. The alphabets is one of the most (if not the most) important socio-cultural innovations of mankind.  There is no field of human activity –individual or collective – which has note been influenced by this intelligent and efficient invention.  Through its complexe and complicated history, through societies, through generations of people, it has been in the origine of so many initiatives concerning knowledge, art and action.  Today, the technological potential of modern societies lead to ask some questions about the destiny of the alphabets in a world dominated by digital images by the power of information and communication technologies.
  3. The “stone-alphabet” is a tentative to explore a series of binomes which are in osmose or interaction with the letters, the alphabets, the writing systems, the sound, and the images, such us: natural/artificial, functional/playful, constraints/freedom, linear/multidimensional, original/common, universal/local, material/notional, signe/indice , necessity/selection, meaning/no-meaning, speakable/visual.
  4. “Alphabet stone” / “Alphabet image” / “Alphabet song”, as artistic milestones for an insight into transition towards to knowledge societies.

Demosthenes Agrafiotis