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Isabella: Rebellion was always inside of me. I was a troubled child, and I had a problem with authority in school. I wanted to do it my way. That’s always been part of my philosophy and personality, being rebellious at heart. Playing with the cross and [Christian] iconography, it’s fun to have humor with those stereotypes. Many of us know how this dynamic works from the inside. We make our own spectacles online in social media, little spectacles that we hope will grab some attention. In them we implicitly want to be celebrated, heart-ed, liked, shared, retweeted. We are hoping for something in return. So, as we “consume” spectacles, we don’t merely ingest them; we are constantly responding to them. Visual images awaken the motives inside of our hearts. Images tug the strings of our actions. Images want our celebration, our awe, our affection, our time, and our outrage. Images invoke our consensus, our approval, our buy-in, our resharing power, and of course our wallets. From one angle, the age of digital spectacles is all about wealth, advertising, coercion, popularity, and grabbing more and more attention from us. But even more problematic, the digital spectacles do something worse, worse because of what we, sinners, do with those spectacles. At root, sinners feed on diversions to escape God. This is the root problem I mentioned at the start. As an individual, I’ve also tried to find ways to reconnect and communicate desire and empowerment in new ways outside of social media, where the goal is to get you to stay embedded in these platforms. I’ve been thinking of ways to create a more tactile object. How do you give something tangible to people that will give them a lasting impression that isn’t just a photo they like and scroll on from?
And, of course, this all depends on the supernatural work of God in regeneration. In that moment when our inner man, this inner deadness inside of me that only pursued sin, when this is put to death and then raised up with Christ, my affections also get raised up and fixed on something greater than anything this digital world can offer me. As Paul puts it in Colossians 3:1–3, I think the powerful thing about porn is that it is the one industry where women as performers are the dominant figures. But then at the end of the day, who owns those companies? Men.”–Sasha Grey Controversy in any form makes for a captivating spectacle to grab millions of eyes. And as our media gets faster and faster, it becomes more fragmented. Now the most miniscule public slip of the tongue or passive-aggressive celebrity comment or hypocritical political image can become a spectacle. More collectively, spectacles take the form of public protests and riots framed for the camera. So, a spectacle is some moment captured and published to hold a collective gaze for a particular purpose.
about Digital Desires
Especially in the book of Hebrews, fixing our attention and affections on Christ becomes one of the grand callings of the local church. It’s a collective work. I am called to be aware of your affection for Christ. You are called to be aware of that in me. Together we refuse to allow one another to drift. In the midst of an age that will grab your eyes and your attention in a thousand ways, we are brothers and sisters, each helping one another fix our minds and hearts on Christ. Biz: That’s something that’s entering the Gen Z collective mind—this reexamining of traditional values. Biz: Sasha, you were raised Catholic, and Isabella, you’re from Honduras, where there’s a strong Catholic influence. You also incorporate Christian iconography into some of your imagery. Did these early influences shape you? Were they a point of rebellion? Where our eyes go, so goes our heart. Where our heart is, so go our eyes. Attention and affection are linked. So, if you glut yourself on the spectacles of this world, your heart must drift away from Christ. We all must get honest with that reality inside of us. Lead your kids and lead your church from this starting point of personal honesty. No one is exempt. 2. Apply the concept of fasting to the buffet of digital media.
brunettes women models long hair digital desire magazine playmates sabrina maree faces portraits People Long hair HD ArtA spectacle is a moment of time, of varying length, in which a collective gaze is fixed on some specific image, or video, or event. A spectacle is something that captures human attention, an instant when our eyes and brains focus and fixate on something projected at us. In an outrage society like ours, spectacles are often controversies — the latest scandal in sports, entertainment, or politics. Our church meetings are not a theater for passive viewers to come and be entertained by professional ministers and musicians and stage performers for an hour. No, this is a gathering — the people of God together in active communion with one another, ears awake, and captured (together) by unseen glories. Spectacle of Hope Biz: You’ve both been confronted with people being rude about the fact that you’re making music about things they don’t think a woman should make music about. We’re regressing in a way. I think the mainstream media has a lot to do with that—they don’t focus on positive stories. When they decide to focus on [sex], it’s either done in the same way that it’s always been done, in a negative light, or it’s done as a marketing tool to say, ‘Yeah, we support queer people.’ So here we are, celebrating the centrality of the word, celebrating the ear, in the golden age of image — in the age of the eye. It’s been called “the age of spectacles.” Fitting.
Only Christ can be this most brilliant Spectacle for us. And when our ears, our attention, neglect Christ, we drift away from him. That’s the point of Hebrews 2:1–3. To drift is the easiest thing in the world. And this drift is felt most clearly when we find ourselves constantly seeking after a new thrill in our media, meanwhile losing interest in the person of Christ, watching our interest in the Bible decline as we coldly mouth the words to Christ-centered hymns, and yawn through Christ-centered sermons, and spiritually snooze through the Lord’s Table. Sasha: I’ve found myself in situations where somebody was aesthetically presenting themselves as potentially submissive, and I went up to them, politely, and asked something sexual and they scoffed at me. This is the danger of presenting this aesthetic but being unable to just turn it down. If you don’t like it, if you’re not into me and you’re not vibing, turn it down. It’s like we don’t have the experience to say no, or, ‘I’m not comfortable with that.’ But why then why are you representing an aesthetic? How do Christ-centered sermons and songs land on me, and what does this say about the affectional health I bring with me on Sunday?
There are many temptations church leaders face to make the Sunday gatherings of the church as visibly spectacular as possible. The church, having been tempted to appeal to the spectacle industry, starts taking on the vibe of a theater: lasers and neon lights and sermon trailer videos and fog machines. We can over-index on visual production. We want to be excellent in what we do (yes, absolutely) and we want to be creative too (certainly) all while being careful not to leave the impression that we’re simply trying to impress eyes. No! The work of ministry is to persuade hearts — through the ear — to treasure unseen realities. Biz Sherbert: Something you two have in common is that you’re not afraid to work in extremes or beyond norms, particularly when it comes to expressions of desire. How do you see the role of sexuality in your work?
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