Twerking, if you think about what is being wagged in your face, can hardly be construed sexy. Half naked is passe. Legs spread wide is kind of vulgar. Bananas, whips, and microphones that suggest the sucking of male anatomy seems infantile to me at this point. And as a woman I am kind of infuriated that the woman's movement has seen twerking as a new kind of feminism. I don't want to train men not to rape me by wagging my genitals in their face and chanting "don't touch". I also don't think mimicking porn culture advances women. Finally, feminism is not, and should not, be something capable of being embraced only by a particular age group. True feminism values the input of women from all generations, not just the nubile. Clarity, directness, negotiation and honouring the self advances women, not the emulation of the worse qualities found in men. While I understand the theory behind exposing genitals and demanding no one touch, I think in the long run it really changes nothing. The gasp that comes from a nipple slip is a gasp expelled from a prude. The gasp I expel when I see a Björk video is the sound I make when I see the gorgeous, the beautiful and the vulnerable laid out before me. I am always left feeling as though I have seen something private, given a gift, made the richer for it.
Being in love, thinking about the joys of a new love and the anticipation of sex is a constant theme in Björk's work. The violence, animalism and exasperation of love is explored as well; that these emotions are a continuation of love and sex rather than the ending of it. In this segment where I place a video I will also give a link to the lyrics and a link to the collaborative process unique to that particular song.
There is a vulnerability that Björk shares with us that we the viewer feels protective of. It is a privilege to watch her videos. One rethinks what they imagined beforehand after viewing her work. I have often thought that her videos, if contemplated fully and understood firmly, that one could replace years spent on the therapists' couch. There are lessons to be learned in each video. Pearls of wisdom. Notice how joyful she is, how playful. It is not lost on viewers that a woman in her 50's can look so childlike. She retains innocence; an innocence that most of have left behind. She is a muse.
BJÖRK THE SENSUAL
I believe the first Björk video I saw was Cocoon. I was mesmerized. I felt like she had captured that moment of first love. That time when we speak in whispers fearful that if we speak too loudly our love will disappear. Her breasts and nipples swirl with life blood, the source of nourishment, of life, the metaphor, the vulnerability of standing naked and making yourself known. That her body harbours the one thing colourful and life affirming. The video comes at the beginning of her relationship with Matthew Barney whom she eventually married and bore a child for; I can only assume that the video is also an illustration of mating, bonding and the body preparing for childbirth. Find the lyrics here. Find the collaborative info here.
Hidden Place is filmed in extreme closeup. You can see the hairs on her face. Liquids leaks from her eyes and creep into her mouth or is inhaled up her nose. She is not bothered by the sequence. Something about the camera movement implies that this liquid is in her head and being contemplated or perhaps the liquid is the 'juice' that keeps a woman thinking. She licks her lips as though the liquid is tasty. The closeup nature of the video coupled with facial orifices slithering with colourful liquid is sensual and suggestive. We don't need to see anything but her face to know she is contemplating the sexual. Find the lyrics here. Find the collaborative info here.
In 1928 Georges Bataille wrote Story of the Eye a pornographic novel about a couple of teenagers who indulge themselves sexually in every conceivable manner and in every conceivable place. Chicken eggs have a prominent place in the novel as do liquids of various textures that seem to flow from eyes, rectums, vagina's, mouths and penises. It has been written that this book has influenced Björk's work considerably and that she considers it a favourite. Seduction, the flush of orgasm, thinking about sex, love are always present in some fashion in her videos. The reason we are here, as one friend puts it, is to procreate, and that activity consumes our waking hours. Björk makes the consumption a beautiful thing to witness.
Venus As a Boy has Björk making and fondling eggs. It is a nod to the Bataille novel and is meant to be overtly sexual. She is thinking about the impending sex she will have; we are allowed to see ourselves thinking of sex. Find the lyrics here. Find the collaborative info here.
The next video, Pagan Poetry, gives me the chills. I almost can't breathe when I watch this video. It gives voice to her impending marriage, at the time, to Barney. What does marriage mean to a woman? We go towards it with open arms and complete fear. It is asking us to trust and it can bring tears to the eyes with what we sacrifice. To have a deep love like this brings with it a type of pain. A pain that is like pearls stabbed into the flesh. Where the wind blows so strongly that perhaps we can not see clearly. Ecstasy is painful. There are those that weep upon orgasm. Find the lyrics here. Find the collaborative info here.
All Is Full Of Love finds two plastic encased female robots exploring each other sexually and lovingly. The tenderness expressed is delicate and purposeful. As in other videos we can see the use of liquid, filmed backwards here, suggesting perhaps that everything is a part of nature. All: the inanimate and the homosexual. Find the lyrics here. Find the collaborative info here.
My final video of the sensual is Alarm Call. In it we see a woman on a raft surrounded by wild animals. We don't know if she is in danger. We then begin to understand that perhaps she is more animal that the nature that surrounds her. She sexually fondles a snake (the phallic) and we wonder if she is in a type of Garden of Eden. Adam is nowhere in sight, as she masturbates in full sight of other animals; she seems content. The videos is shot with a gauze or vaseline smeared lens reminiscent of 70's soft porn. Find the lyrics here. Find the collaborative info here.
I think one aspect of Björk's popularity is that her sensuality is neither exploitive not does it feel as though anyone but Björk is in control of it. For me, as a woman watching, I feel I am watching a woman very much in control of herself and that presentation feels like true feminism to me. She is, creates and presents on her own terms.
In closing I would like to say that indeed Björk takes a bit of work to fully understand, perhaps to appreciate, but if your ears are like mine, -searching for new and different sounds-, sound that makes you rethink what music can be, then I encourage you to put on your listening ears and open your mind to Björk.
Here is that video I promised: The Inner or Deep Part of an Animal or Plant Structure.
All videos in this three part series taken from YouTube.
Being in love, thinking about the joys of a new love and the anticipation of sex is a constant theme in Björk's work. The violence, animalism and exasperation of love is explored as well; that these emotions are a continuation of love and sex rather than the ending of it. In this segment where I place a video I will also give a link to the lyrics and a link to the collaborative process unique to that particular song.
There is a vulnerability that Björk shares with us that we the viewer feels protective of. It is a privilege to watch her videos. One rethinks what they imagined beforehand after viewing her work. I have often thought that her videos, if contemplated fully and understood firmly, that one could replace years spent on the therapists' couch. There are lessons to be learned in each video. Pearls of wisdom. Notice how joyful she is, how playful. It is not lost on viewers that a woman in her 50's can look so childlike. She retains innocence; an innocence that most of have left behind. She is a muse.
BJÖRK THE SENSUAL
In 1928 Georges Bataille wrote Story of the Eye a pornographic novel about a couple of teenagers who indulge themselves sexually in every conceivable manner and in every conceivable place. Chicken eggs have a prominent place in the novel as do liquids of various textures that seem to flow from eyes, rectums, vagina's, mouths and penises. It has been written that this book has influenced Björk's work considerably and that she considers it a favourite. Seduction, the flush of orgasm, thinking about sex, love are always present in some fashion in her videos. The reason we are here, as one friend puts it, is to procreate, and that activity consumes our waking hours. Björk makes the consumption a beautiful thing to witness.
The next video, Pagan Poetry, gives me the chills. I almost can't breathe when I watch this video. It gives voice to her impending marriage, at the time, to Barney. What does marriage mean to a woman? We go towards it with open arms and complete fear. It is asking us to trust and it can bring tears to the eyes with what we sacrifice. To have a deep love like this brings with it a type of pain. A pain that is like pearls stabbed into the flesh. Where the wind blows so strongly that perhaps we can not see clearly. Ecstasy is painful. There are those that weep upon orgasm. Find the lyrics here. Find the collaborative info here.
All Is Full Of Love finds two plastic encased female robots exploring each other sexually and lovingly. The tenderness expressed is delicate and purposeful. As in other videos we can see the use of liquid, filmed backwards here, suggesting perhaps that everything is a part of nature. All: the inanimate and the homosexual. Find the lyrics here. Find the collaborative info here.
My final video of the sensual is Alarm Call. In it we see a woman on a raft surrounded by wild animals. We don't know if she is in danger. We then begin to understand that perhaps she is more animal that the nature that surrounds her. She sexually fondles a snake (the phallic) and we wonder if she is in a type of Garden of Eden. Adam is nowhere in sight, as she masturbates in full sight of other animals; she seems content. The videos is shot with a gauze or vaseline smeared lens reminiscent of 70's soft porn. Find the lyrics here. Find the collaborative info here.
I think one aspect of Björk's popularity is that her sensuality is neither exploitive not does it feel as though anyone but Björk is in control of it. For me, as a woman watching, I feel I am watching a woman very much in control of herself and that presentation feels like true feminism to me. She is, creates and presents on her own terms.
In closing I would like to say that indeed Björk takes a bit of work to fully understand, perhaps to appreciate, but if your ears are like mine, -searching for new and different sounds-, sound that makes you rethink what music can be, then I encourage you to put on your listening ears and open your mind to Björk.
Here is that video I promised: The Inner or Deep Part of an Animal or Plant Structure.
All videos in this three part series taken from YouTube.
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