Page - 65 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/02

DOI: 10.25364/05.6:2020.2.6 Heavy Metal Bricolage | 65www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/2, 65–85 Lavinia Pflugfelder Heavy Metal Bricolage Religious Imagery and “Religionized” Visual Language in Music Videos Abstract Using the term “bricolage”, this article examines the articulation of religious imagery in the visual language of extreme metal. Transgression and bricolage, which describes a specific mode of reusing elements of cultural repertoire to fashion new expressions, have their own history and tradition in heavy metal. Any implementation of its visual language relies accordingly on shared knowledge of scene traditions and patterns to decode, but disembedded religious images and religious patterns are abundant in pop cultural bricolage by itself. Analysing intermedia, here using music videos as an exam- ple, shows how media characteristics restrict and expand the possibilities in imple- menting bricolage. In extreme metal music videos – already pop-culturally disembed- ded – religious images are placed in allegorical, socially critical or philosophical con- texts, but can also be re-embedded into religious freeform. Any repetition of a variation of religious imagery from the cultural repertoire that relies on the religious context to empower the bricolage solidifies this application in the visual language – even as this sedimentation further removes it from specific religious meanings. Keywords Bricolage, Transgression, Visual Language, Music Video, Heavy Metal, Religious Im- agery Biography Lavinia Pflugfelder is an academic assistant at the University of Basel, where she is working on her PhD project on “religion-productive” image discourses. She completed her master’s degree in the Study of Religion at University of Basel, with a thesis on the reception and production of satanic imagery in heavy metal. Popular music’s use of visual media makes its listeners also its viewers. From concert posters, tickets stubs and stage design to music videos, CD covers and clothes, material visual products are utilized by bands and fans alike to