Open Studio

Workshop "Repurposing the Architectural language of the Cold War"

5.9.2023 - 9.9.2023, Hanoi

38mm, Ha Viet Nga (Phong)

“Funeral House” is a funeral home or Vanh Sang Duong. More than 100 years ago, the Funeral House was located in the old French estate and is now located in the Nguyen Cong Tru KTT. Currently, the Funeral House has stopped operating, leaving only a working part of the tennis club.

The thickness of the iron door of the Funeral House is 38mm - a pure boundary but thick with temporal, cultural and spiritual sediments. 38mm has affirmed two worlds of yin and yang, two different times, two different states of feeling.

1/1

The Gate, Yuri Frassi

Represents the synthesis of my 4-day workshop studying KTT in Hanoi. This video has been created using VDMX5, a software designed for VJ live performances and custom graphic effects. The choice of this medium is both highly experimental, as it marks my first foray into it, and closely tied to the key concept of this work: "people are shaping spaces, and spaces are shaping people." This work is designed to be an automated live performance where what is happening inside and outside KTT Kim Liên is portrayed through a juxtaposition of images controlled by a crossfader, which moves 8 frames at a time. The two videos jump forward or backward based on an input received from an audio analysis filter. This filter can read certain frequencies of the audio itself, resulting in the video shaping itself based on its own soundscape.

Hunches, Afra Rebuscini

I stroll through the corridors as a stranger, yet I sense that I’m a part of something larger. I wonder how people live and what unfolds behind the rows of closed doors. I find myself peeking inside, imagining, assuming, guessing. Through the main gates, I catch glimpses of something, but I struggle to fully grasp the intricacies of this place. I navigate through these layers, just as I navigate through the floors and doors.

Then, I close my eyes. I hear a faint whispering voice, the sound of water splashing, beeping, pounding, metallic clatters, a dove cooing, birds chirping, a rustle, a dog barking, and finally, a familiar melody.

---

This work delves into the concept of prior beliefs, serving as a foundation of knowledge one holds about something before experiencing or observing any events. Through this work, sounds become my medium for imagining life behind the doors of a khu tập thể, as well as the sensory qualities of the places I encountered during this workshop.

These sounds were collected from all the KTTs we visited during the workshop, at various times of the day, intentionally blended together in a single composition. The door is one of the simplest elements in architecture, yet its dialectical essence makes it one of the most symbolic aspects of a building. A door defines a space, representing a threshold between two worlds. We walk through the door to enter or exit a space, leaving one reality to embrace another. In ‘Door: 11, rue Larrey,’ Marcel Duchamp plays with this ambivalence by creating a door that swings both ways. When the door swings in one direction to close one room, it simultaneously opens another.

This journey invites the audience to guess and imagine how life unfolds in a KTT. Yet, it also highlights the idea that fully comprehending the complexity of this unique architectural and social space remains elusive.

on softness, Nguyen Kieu Anh

olfactory archive: series 1
—
on softness
mini essays on softness
03 x 250ml of tinctured objects, scented memory, bottled air.

air
as soft as
drying bedsheets under the sun
vertical beds of moss catching dew drops from air conditioners
flaking skins of outdated contacts on the walls
as soft as
the murmuring time
of passing by

Sensing Temporalities, Trinh Hanh An

Sensing Temporalities

An.
Marker on (tracing) papers.
09.09.23

How do you know time? How do you unknow time?
How do you hear the past and smell the future?

Vu Nguyen Khanh

"It’s not that what is past casts its light on what is present, or what is present its light on the past; rather, image is that wherein what has been comes together in a flash with the now to form a constellation. In other words, image is dialectics at a standstill. For while the relation of the present to the past is a purely temporal, continuous one, the relation of what-has-been to the now is dialectical: is not progression but image, suddenly emergent. — Only dialectical images are genuine images (that is, not archaic); and the place where one encounters them is language."
— Benjamin, “Awakening” (Arcades, 462; n2a, 3)