Communication is a mystified, mystifying, and highly engaged act…it is always, somewhere, absolutely clear and mysterious at one and the same time. And it is this cold heart I want to touch. —Hassan Khan, “An Aesthetics of Survival” [1] But this is the language we met in convenes six experimental shorts to explore the notion of transcendence as a political act. Drawing from contemporary art and experimental film, the diverse lineup comes together to contemplate how moving-image—as an embodied medium—allows us to transcend the limits of singular perspectives tied to geography, culture, and identity. Borrowing its title from a 2023 work by Shen Xin, But this is the language we met proposes transcendence as a fertile meeting point: a space for being with instead of merely consuming culture, for nurturing relationships to knowledge rather than simply knowing, and for expanding the possibilities of how we communicate between cultures. Here, transcendence can be understood as a journey—blurring the boundaries between here, now, then, and there—and as an opening up, providing a passageway from one positionality to another. Various filmic techniques evoke transcendence: narrative devices of transposing and nonlinear storytelling; editing techniques of splicing, collaging, and superimposing; and structural approaches to framing, editing, and lighting. By attuning to the various forms of personal and cultural transmission embedded within these six films, But this is the language we met in hones in on the powerful—and at times enigmatic—affective pathways within moving-image. Allowing us to see, hear, and even feel the world through the experiences of others, these works offer departure points from prior states of individuation, and ways coming together constellationally, in and through our differences. https://openspace.sfmoma.org/2020/01/an-aesthetics-of-survival/ (Curated by Kate Wong)