dialogue

Written by Sybrand Veeger and Jonas Guigonnat

Sybrand:

There is something romantic about an etymological voyage,
Something utopically revealing –
The feeling is akin to tracing back your genealogical roots:
Familiarizing yourself with familiarity,
Fathoming alternative familiarities:
Unearthing roots
To imagine trees.

Let me share a genealogical log with you:

This time Heidegger was my guide,
That German Virgil of meaning –
We sailed down into the etymological piths of technology,
That timeliest of concepts.

Currently, he said while descending,
Techno means something radically different from its Greek root:
Techne signifies something other than
Instrumental manipulation,
The obsession with means,
The encasing and concealment of nature.

Techne, rather, is not opposed to nature –
The craftsman, artisan, manufacturer,
Akin to the poet and the painter,
Brings forth a creation,
And, like nature’s disclosure of light,
The technecrat reveals,
un-conceals.

From this root, I imagine a tree,
I utopize:
What would a technecracy look like?

Jonas:

What would it be?
A possibility
A rhetoric answer to the didactic –
What would hell look like?
A travel through the world of words,
Might not be worth the bet:

Forgotten corners
Of human abysses.

It is now my turn to share something with you:

This time is not different than any other,
Chaos shall be our only friend –
Time and words are no sea to be sailed on,
For near those places there are no grounds to be found.

Mistakingly, heading toward nowhere,
Techno means the same as any other word:
Techne suggests the dream of
Human’s manipulation,
The creation of means,
The enchaining and impairment of nature.

Techne, then, becoming an arm of nature –
The charlatan, conman, mindreader,
Attached to the same fear that drives the righteous one,
Brings forth an illusion,
And, similar to nature’s inexistent logic,
The technecrat steals,
Mis-reveals

From this abyss, I shall see no tree,
I temporize:
What could a technocracy look like?

Sybrand:

Surely, from the hellish wells of history,
From the depths of human chaos,
At least one meaningful bucket can be drawn,
To pour upon ourselves,
To awaken us from present drowsiness?
To quench our thirst for hope?

Techne – that hellenic understanding of technology,
Reinvigorates our relationship with Gaia:

Re-embedded in the natural,
Technological production
Mutates into technelogical creation:

Re-embedded in the natural,
Productivity re-evolves into an essential craftsmanship,

Re-embedded in the natural,
Power as coercion becomes
Power as potential:
Common statecraft replaces
Distant democratic delegation,

Desperately in need of reinterpretation,
Let’s unearth the roots of our technological foundation,
To give birth to an earthlier sense of future procreation.