#semiotic collapse

(PART II) — WHAT IF LIFE ISN’T LIFE? (Do you really think the universe speaks English?)

---

Let me ask you something.

What the fuck does life even mean? You think we know? You think just because we cracked mitochondria and gave fungus a kingdom that we’ve got it nailed?

We don’t even agree if viruses count. We still argue over consciousness like it’s a dorm room debate. We haven’t figured out if octopuses are aliens or just proof that nature likes LSD.

But we’re out here screaming across the void with our meat-made microphones, saying:

“Hello! Is there intelligent life out there?”

Cool question. But define life. Define intelligent. Define out there.

Because here’s the cold truth: The universe doesn’t speak English. It doesn’t speak biology. It doesn’t give a fuck about your definitions.

Your concept of "alive"? That’s a bumper sticker on a monkey skull. A chemical vanity mirror. A sacred little dream by a species dumb enough to invent insurance before it figured out how to drink water without choking.

Now enter the void. Where things don’t blink. Don’t breathe. Don’t move in time. Where alive and dead are settings on a spectrum our brains can’t even visualize without suffering a data aneurysm.

Now imagine something from that layer of reality makes a beeline for us.

Something that doesn’t fit our boxes. Our words. Our sensors. Our belief that if we just define “life” hard enough we’ll be safe from the things that don’t match it.

“What if it has no face?” “What if it is a face?” “What if it talks by rearranging your emotions until your species-wide trauma unlocks the ability to scream backward?” Yoda voice: “Alive, it is not. Dead, it is not. Face you, it will. Understand, you shall not.”

Our detectors? Built to find ourselves. That’s all they know how to do.

So if “it” is nothing like us— if it doesn’t eat, breathe, orbit, rot, reproduce, decay, remember, or blink— we won’t see it coming.

We’ll call it static. Until the static responds.

And then it’s not science anymore. It’s aftermath.

Georg (Egor) Kraft, Semiotic Collapse, 2012. Site-specific installation; 5 digital printed posters.