Self-Suspension in Frames: Hito Steyerl's Lovely Andrea

This article traces the role of frames in suspending the self in Lovely Andrea (Japan/Austria/Germany), a video essay by Hito Steyerl presented at Documenta 12 in 2007. A seldom-analyzed artwork within Steyerl's otherwise widely circulating and discussed oeuvre, Lovely Andrea has itself been framed as belonging to the genre of the self-portrait, although it certainly isn't straightforwardly autobiographical. In fact, Lovely Andrea calls into question the very notions of “self” and “portrait” by interrogating the conditions of possibility for each, as well as for the combination of the two — the “self-portrait.” This article examines how this tension specifically takes shape in this video essay and argues that Lovely Andrea redefines the filmic genre of the self-portrait by way of detours, undoing frames of identification via a medium that so fundamentally relies on them, and, beyond, undoing a certain idea of self — as a notion and as a practice. Indeed, Lovely Andrea proposes a Hegelian-inspired dialectics of selfhood and medium: suspending, undoing, dissolving these notions in telescopic scenes of framing. Moving across frames to discuss their specific function at various points in the film, this article pairs close analyses with a discussion of Steyerl's own references to philosophy (Hegel) and film theory (Harun Farocki) within and peripherally to Lovely Andrea, demonstrating how the bondage practice of self-suspension so central to this film performs a dialectical coming undone in frames.