A.L.I — Alien Language Interface now exists as a physical book. Opus 1 gathers one stage of the ongoing research initiated by David Guez, artist and author. The current layout contains 543 A4 pages. It does not close the project: it fixes one moment of it, preserving the material trace of a transmission that remains active.
The book brings together the LABO’s investigations around one central question: how might two intelligences separated by biology, perception, culture, distance or time construct the beginnings of mutual understanding? It connects SETI and METI, radio astronomy, exoplanets, cosmology, mathematics, information theory, animal languages, artificial intelligence, cognition, time, additional dimensions, film, literature, sound art and installations.
The articles form less an encyclopedia than a constellation. The Wow! signal, the Arecibo message, Voyager’s Golden Record, the writing system in Arrival, biological networks, multiverses and the hypothesis of an active language all become points of entry into possible experiments. Diagrams, images, scientific and cultural references, protocols and artistic projects accompany this map.
The material form of the book also changes how A.L.I is read. Readers can move backward, bring two distant hypotheses together, follow a word through the index or allow one image to answer another. The printed object itself becomes an archive of contact: an autonomous ensemble that can circulate, be transmitted, annotated and reread away from a screen.
A book by David Guez
David Guez develops work based on connection, public access and forms of otherness made possible by technology. A.L.I extends this research by treating language as a plastic medium: wave, light, image, archive, gesture, calculation, narrative or collective device.
The evolving digital edition remains freely available as a PDF at guez.org/ali. The printed Opus 1 is available in deluxe quality — Uncoated, Hardcover Case Wrap, Matte Cover — for €35 excluding shipping. Requests can be sent from the book page; the author will then contact the reader to confirm availability, shipping and payment.
