Abstract

This thesis theorizes the 1990s music videos by Icelandic performer Björk and French director Michel Gondry as examples of post-cinematic practices contingent on a non-hierarchical distribu-tion of authorial agency and intention. Using the rubrics of minor literature and minor cinema as defined by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, this thesis asks: How can we desubjectify the aesthetic contributions which constitute the music video as a heterogeneous media form to reflect the collaborative creative processes associated with a post-cinematic condition? How can a collabora-tive and networked understanding of authorship in the music video still acknowledge the contribu-tions that minor subjects make to mainstream media forms through their political positioning? Breaking with the narrative and representational habits of classical cinema, HUMAN BEHAVIOUR (1993), ARMY OF ME (1995), ISOBEL (1995), BACHELORETTE (1997), AND JÓGA (1997) appropriate techniques from the avant-garde and reflect the non-linear structuring of data-base aesthetics. From this perspective, rather than focusing on a singular author as the definitive source of creative agency, this study will theorize authorship as a recursive, networked process of assemblage involving various elements of the music video (e.g., songs, audiovisual images, performances). As signifiers for the contribution of singers, filmmakers, producers, and actors, these compositional fragments consequently dictate the autopoetic structuring of the music video as a post-cinematic object. Accounting for the positioning of Björk as a post-colonial subject, this thesis will conclude by showing how Iceland, a nation often perceived as peripheral to Europe, consistently informs the representation of nature and technology in the artist’s audiovisual work. Through strategies of cultural hybridization, Björk reconciles the dichotomies between urban and rural, as well as local and global elements that underscore her oeuvre.