This project arises from an attempt to raise awareness of the paradoxical relationship between digitization and knowledge. Today's digital media provides access to an abundance of information and potentially new ways of gaining knowledge. However, by generating, distributing, and making available massive amounts of data, digital media are simultaneously conveyors of instances of knowledge and non-knowledge. According to Martina Leeker, digital media are “characterized by a variety of forms and levels of non-knowledge and incomprehensibility”, which arise from the opacity of algorithms and computational performances unknown to users. As Matthias Koch explains, using the expression ‘non-knowledge’ serves to emphasize "the 'natural' reverse side of knowledge", or the reciprocal relationship between these terms.

These states of non-understanding, of a conscious or unconscious absence of knowledge, are produced both technologically and discursively. Threatened by the generalization of a digitally fueled lack of knowledge, we are subjected to what Justin Clements characterizes as a “contemporary narcosis of the internet and its accompanying technologies”, in which there is no information that does not circulate.

The Natural Reverse of Knowledge is a visual essay based on a collection and selection of quotes that work as maxims or aphorisms on non-knowledge. The visual and dynamic configuration of these quotes seeks to evoke the relevance or irrelevance of information we come across online, or the disruption of our attention span before an overwhelming abundance of information and its, sometimes, underwhelming significance. As an augmented reality experience, each piece of the essay is disseminated in the urban environment using stickers that give access to the website that aggregates and contextualizes them.


The Natural Reverse of Knowledge by João Alexandre, 1st Year of the Communication Design Master, FBAUL, 2020/2021