This video released by the musician and visual artist SOPHIE is a music video for her new track “Faceshopping”. The video accompanies the track, discussing the falsity of authenticity gained by artists whose images are prominent in the media. SOPHIE had released music from a point of anonymity for years, and this video is our first glimpse of the artist’s face.

The video features rapid and rhythmic cuts, interchanging the cut to black with a cut to white, giving the video a strobe effect. The artist uses graphic textures in between these cuts, such as images of raw meat, blood, gore. These elements push the video further into the genre of body horror, whilst still utilising the aesthetic use of strobing to fit the genre of music.
The duration of the cuts vary from frequent to long drawn out, especially in the introduction of the song. There is a four second duration peak between cuts in the beginning of the video, and watching this without sound gives no indication of the video continuing. Directed by SOPHIE and Aaron Chan, This video combines compositional and aesthetic shots transitioned by hard cuts and little effect. Text is used to illustrate the lyrics to this video, however what differentiates this clip between your usual lyric video is the inclusion of words that aren’t heard in the original track. Words flash  onscreen to the beat, such as “artificial bloom”, “chemical release”. The inclusion of graphic phrases such as these again adds to the distorted reality of the video.