Wendy Clarke's LOVE TAPES – Rare Screening of the Monumental Video Project!

Just in time for Valentine's Day, 7th House and Los Angeles Filmforum are proud to present a rare theatrical program of selections one of the most singular, affecting, and long running works of video art ever made – Wendy Clarke's THE LOVE TAPES (1977–present)!

Spawned from a workshop with her mother’s (pioneering filmmaker Wendy Clarke) UCLA graduate students, “The Love Tapes” project has began in 1977 and continues to this day, amassing video recordings of several thousands of diverse people from around the globe as they intimately share their feelings about love. Participants enter a booth and sit in front of a camera and a monitor, so that they can see themselves, and then proceed to speak candidly about their opinions and experiences – illustrating a vast range of interpretations, meanings, and memories prompted by the word “love.”  Afterward, they view their tape and decide either to have it erased or add it to the collection. 

The Love Tapes’s profound beauty lies in their simplicity, asking only the rarely addressed question: what is love? Rather than offering a definitive answer, the project creates space for understanding by inviting people of all races, genders, sexualities, classes, and ages to speak freely—within a flexible three-minute format—about how they experience love in their own lives. A couple in love and a parent with a child may describe the feeling in radically different ways, yet neither is presented as more valid or insightful than the other. Participants remain unnamed on screen, shifting attention away from identity and toward the words themselves, while the tapes are organized by filming location to avoid imposing thematic or demographic hierarchies. Over time, however, patterns naturally emerge—particularly across age groups—not to suggest superiority or uniformity, but to illuminate how the focus of love evolves across different phases of life. Taken together, the Love Tapes form an extraordinary participatory archive that invites reflection, fosters empathy, and affirms both the diversity and the shared core of human emotional experience.

Through this process, Clarke found that video operates as both an apparatus for intimacy and a facilitator for self-examination. The project’s scope revealed a rare glimpse of humanity communing through shared experience, albeit one mediated by video technologies of both recording and exhibition. Released on public television stations in the 1980s, the Love Tapes marked a milestone for the advancement of the medium and have been exhibited extensively at prestigious institutions around the world since 1980.

This rare theatrical program has been culled from decades of recordings to celebrate one of the most ambitious, intriguing, and affecting works of video art ever made. 

Dir. Wendy Clarke, 95 mins, Various Countries, English, Unrated, Digital.

Special thanks to Wendy Clarke, Video Data Bank, and Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.

Please email [email protected] or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.

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With some exception, The Philosophical Research Society’s 7th House Screenings does not typically provide advisory warnings about potentially upsetting content or subject matter, as sensitivities are particular to each viewer. Please be sure to read event listings, research on the web, or visit Common Sense Media, IMDb, and DoesTheDogDie.com for thorough info on content and age-appropriateness. If you have any specific content advisory questions, please email [email protected].

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The views, opinions, and thoughts expressed within exhibited works are solely those of their creators and may not represent those of the Philosophical Research Society (PRS), its affiliates, or any individuals associated with PRS. Screenings are intended for educational and entertainment purposes.

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