Anti-soulmate Mixtape, produced as part of the 20th Biennale of Sydney and Artspace’s Bureau of Writing
Beyoncé’s 2006 track ‘Irreplaceable’ addresses a bad boyfriend at the moment of break-up. The title is ironic – the boyfriend thinks he’s indispensable, but in fact, he’s not. He’s infinitely substitutable, because a boyfriend is anyone who comes to occupy that category. The song is therefore a kind of anti-soulmate anthem, describing the love relation as that which exists in time and as time, rather than dependent on the beloved as a singular, fated ‘one’. This audio piece takes the song, subjects it to a vaporwave-style slow-down, and loops it (almost unbearably) alongside a text that thinks through the anti-soulmate as an ideal other.