Listening to the Incarcerated

Wendy Clarke’s dedication to making interactive-video art installations accessible to participants was rare and remains admirable. By giving the participants a significant amount of control, the lines between artist and participant are blurred, increasing the significance of the participant. They are not just the viewer, but they are the viewer and creator. By empowering the participants, The Love Tapes work to present each experience of love as equal, not something to be experienced only by the majority or elite. Additionally, the tapes highlight the complexities of love, as both a fulfilling and horrowsome experience, , making clear the significance of asking “what does love mean to you?” By building in portability, Clarke worked to ensure that as many people who wanted to make a love tape had the opportunity to do so. While there are geographical gaps in the tapes, her continued work to create a booklet to instruct people to create their own love tape is working to correct those inconsistencies.

Starting in 1979, Clarke went into different prisons and correctional facilities to give inmates the opportunity to make their own love tape. These tapes are largely made up of the Black male voices, a clear reflection of the United States justice system that is set up to penalize and criminalize Black men to unfair degrees in comparison to their white counterparts. These tapes are not shot differently than any other love tape: they remain in medium close-up with subjects centered and maintain the three-minute runtime measured by a song selected from the playlist. However, these tapes stand out from the rest as the array of optional backgrounds is replaced with blank cinder block walls. This lack of dynamic background informs us as viewers of the lack of an actual booth– they are exposed as they create their love tapes, viewable by wandering eyes of other inmates as well as by monitoring guards. And while the musical selection remains consistent, there is a noticeable amount of noise pollution in the background of the tapes that are not captured to the same degree in tapes that are shot in actual booths. These are the only signs that inform viewers of the change in location of the tape, as even identifying garments are out of the frame, freeing the participants from the label of criminal. No matter their past, in this space crafted for love, they are equal with those outside of the correctional facilities; the men in the videos still speak of love in the same enthusiastic, awe-struck, and confused manner as the visitors of the World Trade Center or a museum patron.

The tape starts with a black screen, the audio track of ping pong balls bouncing in the background sharply work to craft the setting auditorily as a 5-second fade-in reveals the face of our speaker, an unidentified Black man. Though it is not apparent in the video, the name of the tape informs us that this participant is an inmate at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. As he shares his insights on love, his voice is deep, measured, and ardent. He never pauses, nor does he rush through his thoughts. In a remarkably balanced manner, he states, “Love is a hell of a thing,” a poignant sentence which could largely summarize many of the tapes throughout the project. He focuses primarily on the extreme dichotomy of experiences love can encapsulate: love is good and love is bad, love can build you up and it can tear you down, love can be the ultimate source of comfort and it can be the source of the most excruciating pain. Due to the positioning of the camera and the bare, frill-less nature of the love tapes, viewers are not given much to look at beyond his face, making the dancing of eyes, scrunching of forehead, and licking of lips seem like extraordinary events– though small and casual, these movements are visual representations of heightened emotions with their corresponding phrases. Throughout the majority of the tape, his eyes are cast upward above the camera, moving regularly left and right as he processes his thoughts and finds the words to best express them. However, he locks his eyes on the camera, speaking directly to us now as viewers without any ocular or vocal wavering, and says, “…with the knowledge I got of love, it’s one of the most monumental things in the world. Understanding in love is just what it says– love. It can really hurt you. It can tear you down, like I said, and it can build you up.” Perhaps some of the confidence comes from the assuredness of restating an idea mentioned previously, but the fixed stare means much more. It seems to be less about confidence and clarity and is more rooted in conviction of significance. This direct eye contact signifies he truly believes what he is saying– that love is monumental.

This direct eye contact acts as a turning point in the tape, and he moves from attempting to explain what love is to reflecting on his own difficulties expressing love. “I got plenty of love inside of me, but it was just that I’ve always been withdrawn about giving it because I’ve always seen other people being hurt by it so it makes a real difference… it is hard to just give something when you can see if you give it it’s gonna hit you back in the face and hurt you…it makes you afraid, it scares you.”As he says this, his eye contact with the camera becomes scattered again, but as he says “it makes a real difference,” he stares directly into the camera, at the audience, and shakes his head slightly, a punctuating movement on reflective moment. He continues on to say, “if there is one little thing that goes wrong [in a relationship], man that’s a hurtin’ feeling, that’s worser than being in jail, than right now. That’s on the real side. Love is hurt, and love is good. It’s gold, and, then again, it is ashes. That’s what it is about love.” As stated previously, there are few context clues present in the video beyond the title that inform us as viewers of the speaker’s incarcerated status. It is not until this concluding statement, as our speaker reflects on the negative power love has, that such systems are mentioned. His focus on the dichotomous experience of love shows why there are such a vast number of love tapes that address the emotion in an endless variety of manners. He mentions his experience in jail in passing, and as something weaker, less painful than love. He then sits, staring into the camera, seemingly content with his contribution to the collection, and the screen fades to black.

Despite the lack of information we have on the speaker, this love tape is an example of how much emotional connection can be felt with someone when talking about an impactful experience like love. It is an emotion that works to develop relationships and building meaning in our lives, and the simplicity of The Love Tapes allow us to reframe how we visualize bodily experiences of love– love does not need to be visually represented by sex or kissing or holding hands or arms thrown in the air while exclaiming, “I’m in love!” Rather, it pushes us to focus on the small bodily shifts that express love, the nervous licking of lips, the reluctant shaking of the head, and the declarative eye contact whispering, “I’ve known love.”

Ashton Leach is a Ph.D. student in Film in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. Her prevailing research focuses on characterization in genre films, concentrating on aging and gender in film.