Dec 08 2009
Strength Comes From Torture?
In Brooklyn Museum‘s New Feminist Videos exhibition, feminists test their endurance or even torture themselves to make a point across, I understood most of their points, but they made me shiver a bit inside. The way that these women convey their ideas and express themselves is through a stationary camera. Without any edits, the videos are portrayed more realistically. One of my personal favorites is “Black Out” (2004), a video of the woman, dressed up as a man and has short hair, who was smoking blindfoldedly and “tortured” by her friends pouring alcohol onto her. At times, I could not tell whether she was crying or laughing. The artist and main actress in the video is Cathy Begien and she wanted to express how she felt about one of the nights when she was at a party. I really felt how crazy that night must’ve been for her after watching her torturing herself in her work.
I agree with Zerxis. He and I were really confused watching this one. It’s possible Alina is right, although there could be even deeper meaning that we’re just missing since we aren’t that familiar with feminist art.
Oh.. I thought she let her friends torture her (and she tortured herself as well with the alcohol, blindfold, and the cigarettes) as a way of expression. Idk.
I didn’t like this video at all:
1) I didnt understand what was going on.
2) It doesn’t seem to be a feminist video at all, however, Alina’s reasoning does seem to be the most probable purpose.
i didnt really see it as her being tortured as her friends. i thought of it more of a rebelling against societal standards of a lady-like woman.
I agree with you, that was a very powerful piece of work to watch. It gave me goosebumps.