TECHNO MYSTIC uses YouTube as a spirit medium, bringing together seven artist-made films and videos that explore the incongruous co-existence of mysterious phenomena and modern technologies.

 

Video by Jon Rafman, 2012

Music by Oneohtrix Point Never

 

English translation of the French voice-over:

SPLEEN by Charles Baudelaire

 

I'm like some king in whose corrupted veins

Flows agèd blood; who rules a land of rains;

Who, young in years, is old in all distress;

Who flees good counsel to find weariness

Among his dogs and playthings, who is stirred

Neither by hunting-hound nor hunting-bird;

Whose weary face emotion moves no more

E'en when his people die before his door.

His favourite Jester's most fantastic wile

Upon that sick, cruel face can raise no smile;

The courtly dames, to whom all kings are good,

Can lighten this young skeleton's dull mood

No more with shameless toilets. In his gloom

Even his lilied bed becomes a tomb.

The sage who takes his gold essays in vain

To purge away the old corrupted strain,

His baths of blood, that in the days of old

The Romans used when their hot blood grew cold,

Will never warm this dead man's bloodless pains,

For green Lethean water fills his veins.

 

Video by Jon Rafman          

Music by Oneohtrix Point Never

English translation of the French voice-over: SPLEEN by Charles Baudelaire

 

Jon Rafman (1981) is an artist, filmmaker, and essayist. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Literature from McGill University and a M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His film and new media work have been exhibited internationally including a the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome and the New Museum in New York City. Rafman's 'Nine Eyes of Google Street View' has been featured in Modern Painter, Frieze, Der Spiegel, Libération, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Harper's Magazine.

 

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