What happens when popular American karaoke songs are sung? What does the voice create/omit in the moment? What takes over and expands in the throat? O Jo installation is suspended speakers and strands of my daughter Ripley’s hair, collected over years from the intimate ritual of bathing and combing. These strands weave themselves into the comb as balanced, circular —Os— her hair emerging from chaos into symmetry; echoing the visual logic of DNA.

From the speakers, a sound work of granulated, manipulated, and synthesized samples of viral  karaoke songs sung in the Philippines (Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Dionne Warwick, Tool) fills the room, creating a charged kinetic field where the hair very subtly moves and dances. Sound and hair are in constant relation, tracing voice, culture, repetition.

 O Jo is a work in progress and forms a segment of Ode to Joy, a larger work currently in development.