Video

Operculum

Tran T. Kim-Trang

1993, 14:00 minutes, B&W

TAPECODE 054.01

The first category of the eight part series on blindness and its metaphors, Operculum visits with seven cosmetic surgeons specializing in blepharoplasty (eyelid operation), within the West Hollywood and Beverly Hills area, conducting initial consultation sessions for cosmetic surgery of the upper and lower eyelids on an Asian woman. It is the intention of the tape to state a point of view which regards cosmetic surgery of Asian (predominantly women) eyelids as a self-effacing fantasy of attaining the standard of beauty as maintained in this society, a standard which demands conformity to the norm of being average. Text is juxatposed with the consultation footage to declare cosmetic surgery a "desperate cure". Operculum is structured as an initial, thereby preliminary, investigation of cosmetic surgery of the eyelids on Asian Pacific Americans in southern California.

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Critical Writing

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by Laura U. Marks. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2000.
Tapes that think
by Gary Kibbins. Kingston: Agnes Eterington Art Centre, 1996.