The New Alphabet (DNA 1)

Volume one of Das Neue Alphabet, a series of 25 books from Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, issued by Spector Books in German and English editions in 2021 and 2022.

Starting from the digital, which can look like a universal medium for notation, the volume follows how speech and writing move in different directions, somewhere between an ordering cosmos and the disorder of lived experience. Its examples run from binary code and Leibniz's Monadology to non-Western scripts and the alphabet song. Bernd Scherer, the editor, writes the introduction and an essay on perspectives and digital code. Yuk Hui considers writing as cosmotechnics; Ann Cotten writes on the iroha, logographs and writing systems, and with Kanako Tada on kanji; Ben Lerner contributes an alphabet piece addressed to Alexander Kluge and an extract from The Hatred of Poetry. The pictures are by Wolfgang Tillmans, from his project Neue Welt.

Olaf Nicolai devised the design concept with Malin Gewinner and Hannes Drißner. It follows the logic of an alphabet: title lettering, chosen words, colours and the folding of the cover shift from one volume to the next. The series received the Stiftung Buchkunst prize as one of the most beautiful German books published in 2021.

Spector Books, 2021. 88 pages, perfect-bound softcover with a folded dust cover, 15 x 23 cm. English edition.