O Jo, 2025.

speakers, speaker cable, hair. 33 min. sound piece.

What does the voice create & omit when singing karaoke? What takes over and expands in the throat? O Jo installation is suspended speakers and strands of my daughter’s hair, collected over years from our 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.

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.