Ten Love Songs
Karaoke Video, Personal Ads, Microphone,Song List
Variable Dimensions
2008
Ten Love Songs is a Karaoke piece in which ten well-known ballads are presented to the viewer. These specific songs were chosen due to the synergy created by the marriage of their titles and melodies, with new lyrics - appropriated from personal ads. Although the original melodies remain unaltered, the lyrics (unbeknownst to the singer) are replaced with text gleaned from personal ads originally posted on a dating website catering to gay and bisexual Latin men and their admirers. Re-contextualized and now performed by random and unsuspecting viewers, the newly formed songs provide humorous, insightful, and unsettling investigations into notions of performance, masculinity, performed masculinities, public and private space, race, homosexuality, homophobia, love and lust.