Stasie Friedrich

My Body is a Metaphor

Stasie Friedrich

This videotape provides electronic, metaphorical images which, in part, illustrate theories of the disappearing body as a result of social controls, social silencing and oppression. The tape is a response to the inability to feel, touch and express in a culture that denies desire as well as non-desire. The struggle to escape the restraints of social regulation is explored through layered images, appropriated from stock biology lab films, and layered narrated sequences. Images of contemporary body decoration practices, such as piercing and tattooing depict the ability of the postmodern body to integrate the power that exists in ones own body.