The experimental video is based on a self-portrait. Feeling comfortable, beautiful and sexy in one's own body is a human need that is counteracted by personal traumatic experiences of humiliation and social ideals. What could become a satisfying and fulfilling experience often becomes a futile attempt to comply with demands and to catch up with and even surpass ideal images. But these will always be one step ahead. The perfect body is presented to us every day in advertising and on social media. The perfect body is very often a shaved body, a well-trained body, a successful body.
What could be a source of inner strength becomes a nagging feeling of not fitting in, not corresponding, not being enough. Instead of acting self-confidently out of inner strength, one finds oneself in a hamster wheel of efforts to conform and satisfy, which ultimately cost more strength than they ever give back.
This addresses the question to what extent our bodies, my body, today are a kind of common good in the sense that they shall be formed along the lines of beauty standards and body norms put in place by a relentless neoliberal regime where the maximization of profits and gains is everything. The perfect body then is the common good that can be exploited. This raises the question of whether and how one wants to participate in this game. This raises the question of how one wants to present oneself and one’s body.
Experimental video
3‘54‘‘
MP4
1920x1080 HD
H.264
24 frames
