ABSTRACT
With the advent of handheld technologies, music videos have become instantly available to millions worldwide. Beyoncé’s ‘Video Phone (extended remix featuring Lady Gaga)’, directed by Hype Williams and released in 2010, points to the awe-inspiring accessibility of the music video while presenting the viewer with a complex commentary on the ‘politics of looking’ that emerge as a result of it. 1 The repeated hook from the song, “If you want me you can have me on your video phone”, makes clear reference to the accessibility and commodification of the female body through the established genre of music video and handheld media devices. Set in a posthuman and ‘hyperreal’ landscape where women are sexualised cyborgs and men are life-size cameras, ‘Video Phone’ can be read as a provocative account of how the power relations between those who are looked at and those who look are changing as new media technologies become an increasingly important part of everyday life. 2 Emphasising the instantaneous transmission and pervasive commodification of popular music through recent technological developments, ‘Video Phone’ presents new media gadgetry as a constitutive part of how musicians are received and understood.
