Askesis

 

Length: 0:43

 

In a voice-over, Jonathan says:

 

Ideally, in our view, techne borders on askesis, the self-conscious mobilization of technological interfaces and experiences to dis- and re-orient the self. The process is necessarily open-ended, as any form of composing is. We only choose to stop at points, sometimes consoling ourselves by figuring endpoints as natural or inevitable. The queerness of our techne is suspension of belief in either the natural or the inevitable. We take fearful delight in the possible. Our production is not reproduction, but the terrible pleasures of possibility.

 

While Jonathan speaks, a series of quickly changing images flashes by, very much like the Jackie and Jonathan selfie videos that introduce “Rhizomes” and “Genealogies” respectively, but this time in color. The images include photos of a urinal, a plastic drinking cup, a hand wearing a ring, a black-and-white graffiti image, Michelangelo’s hand of God reaching out to the hand of Adam, sneakers, wine glasses, an oil portrait of a young man by English painter Stanley Spencer, a camera, a sheet of music manuscript, a Hockney painting of a naked young man coming out of a pool in the backyard of a home, a gold Doc Marten boot, Jackie drinking, Jackie’s head on a buff male torso, a David Wajnarowicz black-and-white remix of the poet Arthur Rimbaud’s head on a street hustler standing against a graffiti-covered wall, a fleeting image of swirling red splotches and black lines against a white background. The images pass so quickly that they barely register, just as if someone read the previous list too quickly for you to grasp what was said.