Qfwfq

Qfwfq is a protean being that narrates many works by Italo Calvino. Qfwfq exists before the universe, during the conception of time and space, and in one story, A Sign In Space, gives birth to the first sign:

“that sign was mine, the sign of me…it was the only sign I had ever made and I was the only one who had ever made signs. It was like a name, the name of that point, and also my name that I had signed on that spot; in short, it was the only name available for everything that required a name…I carried it with me, it inhabited me, possessed me entirely, came between me and everything with which I might have attempted to establish a relationship.”

Initially, Qfwfq was the author but soon becomes the reader of the sign, complicating the relationship between the sign and the signified.

Qfwfq is about the atomicity of meaning, and is represented here as a single white pixel. As a single pixel, its practically invisible. As an image it has its own identity, but also a new identity is formed in relation to the surrounding pixels. However, this identity is a composite of the many properties and characteristics available for an exterior reading of the surface and those unavailable in its “metadata”.

All images are like Qfwfq, signs in space.