The awe

For many people, semantics comes first. I’m sorry to say it plainly: that perspective is wrong. Semiotics comes first.Let me explain why I see it this way.

Along with music—mostly ritual—cave drawings are the very beginning of human printed expression, and if you wish, of what we later called “writing.”

Letters turn into words.Words turn into phrases.Phrases turn into ideas.Ideas solidify into language.

And with language come society, civilization, order, progress, and entire systems of thought. But the smallest departure point—the true origin—is the letter. And what are letters, if not signs? Not symbols; those come later. A sign is a shape, an image bound to a sound, and charged with a specific value.

67.000 years, Indonesia. Photo: Ahdi Agus Oktaviana

I won’t trap myself in theory here. Semiotics was my field of study during my master’s degree, but that detail is irrelevant. What matters is this: the human species owes its evolution—not metaphorically, but materially—to music and to the eye through imagery.

That is why this text is a tribute to those remote, ancient ones and their legacy. And also to Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass, for the overwhelming awe of the Qatsi trilogy.

By the way, the final sequence of the third film is nothing short of proverbial.

If you want to go further back—much further—here is a reliable source on the oldest known cave painting discovered to date: https://elpais.com/ciencia/2026-01-21/hallada-en-indonesia-la-pintura-rupestre-mas-antigua-de-la-humanidad.html

The awe