Xena’s Body: A Menstrual Auto-Investigation Using an iPhone | Occitane Lacurie

Evelyn Kreutzer presents:

Xena’s Body: A Menstrual Auto-Investigation Using an iPhone (2024)

The video essay is no more available on Filmexplorer and is now accessible here

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Evelyn Kreutzer:

Occitane Lacurie’s screen-capture film, or rather iPhone investigation, Xena’s Body (2024) begins with a menstrual joke involving the famous warrior princess but then leads the video maker into a deeper quest regarding her own menstrual cycle, her body, her body’s connection with electronic media and media representation, and the datafication of her body in said media. Touching on acute and ubiquitous media experiences such as “doomscrolling”, texting, and video calls, she replicates the jumpy, fragmented nature of how we are attached to and use our phones and poses questions about scale, proximity, and attachment of our bodies both through and on these screens. How close is the body to the screen? Is one an extension of the other and if so, which is which? Picking up on the choreographed and performative elements of the desktop documentary genre, the video includes many comedic allusions to meme culture and feminist media reappropriation. In a meta-ironic way, the maker presents her intimate bodily data as hyper visible in this piece (regardless of their “authenticity” or “accuracy”), and by doing so, reclaims her power over their privacy.

Occitane Lacurie's vimeo page