The Pearl originates its beauty and singularity by reacting to external interferences. Organic materials, parasites and even mantle tissue of the oyster itself are considered a threat, and covered in nacre. Also known as “mother of pearl”, nacre is composed of hexagonal platelets of a substance called aragonite.

Luca Bertini and Marco Antonini’s NACRE is an ongoing project in which data inconsistencies retrieved from the net bloom into an ever-changing sprawling structure. Interferences and anomalies (the multi-faceted constituents of networks that are no longer able to produce a linear, unequivocal reality) are perceived as a hostile external body.

NACRE exists to give shape to this underworld of deceptive, ambiguous data, in a way that is neither creative nor critical. Its chaotic structure is built from huddling hexagonal platelets designed over information collected by a spider (an automatic computer program which crawls the net in search of data).

NACRE has a completely different approach to the economy and ecology of information. Its peculiar treatment of fragments of data sustains a completely useless, anti-iconic entity.

Unwilling to decipher a complexity which is perceived as completely unmanageable, scary and beautiful, NACRE stubbornly tries to protect itself from a overwhelming reality with its frantic, abnormal growth.