"I've cut up pieces of old stag movies, slowed them way down, and set them to music," McLaren said. "What you see is not people having sex but people about to have it. The old movies had a lot more foreplay. I was interested in the body language of non-actors, how they communicated their longing."
McLaren said MTV was "extremely strict" about content, making sure genitals were not visible in the final product.
One piece has a woman descending a staircase, McLaren said. "She's wearing a garter belt and a mink. She's going to an orgy, but you don't see where she's going. It's set to a mashup of the Captain and Tennille's 'Love Will Keep Us Together' and Joy Division's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart.'"
Viewers can listen to the music on their cellphones by calling a number on the screen.
McLaren was amused that the videos are showing in an area that was called the Tenderloin when it was filled with adult stores, peep shows and prostitution.
"Hundreds of people would walk down the street thinking about sex," McLaren said. "Now the outlawed culture will live on."
McLaren's presentation is called "Shallow" and is presented by Creative Time. It will run through Aug. 14.
McLaren first came to notoriety in the early '80s as manager of seminal punk rock band the Sex Pistols.
