fig. 09 to connect
fig. 19 to mirror, Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi

fig. 01 to negotiate
fig. 23 to cross, Simon Starling

fig. 06 to envision
fig. 20 to live/to die, Minh Nguyen

fig. 03 to burn

fig. 25 to move, Pujan Karambeigi

fig. 16 to expand

fig. 10 to reflect

fig. 24 to de/stabilize, Anonymous

fig. 11b to solidify

fig. 14 to frame

fig. 07 to observe

fig. 02 to turn

fig. 13 to internalize/to externalize

fig. 04 to shift

fig. 08 to navigate

fig. 15 to transform

fig. 05 to shoot

fig. 21 to exist, Vu Tran

fig. 11a to solidify

fig. 11c to solidify

fig. 12 to oscillate
fig. 22 to flee, Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi

fig. 18 to fragment

fig. 17 to de/construct

Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, Syncrisis, movement II, 2019

Syncrisis is a multi-layered cinematic libretto in six movements.

In the second movement, a father and daughter explore their relationship by contemplating the aerodynamics of flying objects and recounting fragmented microhistories of the Cold War era in Germany – birthplace of the daughter – and Vietnam – birthplace of the father.

Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, Linger On Your Pale Blue Eyes, 2016

Linger On Your Pale Blue Eyes is an attempt to imagine a scientist’s stream of consciousness in the course of her escape from East Germany. In order to reach West Germany via Bulgaria and Turkey, she swims through the Black Sea in darkness and navigates with the aid of the Polar Star and the continuously changing starry sky.

The inner monologue is based on a document on astronavigation written by a scientist, a friend of the artist, who fled the German Democratic Republic in 1969.

ACT II

Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, Image List: Actions to Relate to Oneself and The World, 2020

Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi
Image List: Actions to Relate to Oneself and The World, 2020

Films:
Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, Syncrisis, movement II, 2019
Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, Linger On Your Pale Blue Eyes, 2016

Letters:
Anonymous
Pujan Karambeigi
Minh Nguyen
Simon Starling
Vu Tran

Artist
Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi is a Berlin- and London-based artist whose practice mutates in and out of sculpture, installation, moving image and interdisciplinary research. Her work explores imaginations of freedom at the intersection of film-making and film theory, critical refugee studies and postcolonial studies, personal/prosthetic memory and individual/collective histories. In September 2020, Thuy-Han will begin pursuing PhD research in film at the University of Westminster. She has previously exhibited and screened her work at Atletika, Vilnius; Centro di Musica Contemporanea di Milano, Milan; Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago; Kunstverein Nürnberg, Nürnberg; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Portikus, Frankfurt; Sàn Art, Saigon; University of Bonn, Bonn, among other venues.

Writers
Pujan Karambeigi is editorial contributor at Jacobin, co-founder of the criticism newspaper Downtown Critic and a doctoral candidate at Columbia University, New York, where he focuses on cultures of labour and economies of identity. His writing has appeared in Art in America, Artforum, Texte zur Kunst, Frieze, Mousse, among other platforms. Most recently, he edited Alice Creischer, In the Stomach of the Predators: Writings and Collaborations (saxpublishers, 2019).

Minh Nguyen is a writer and curator of exhibitions and programmes currently living in Chicago, IL, by way of Saigon, Vietnam. She graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a Master’s degree in Modern and Contemporary Art History. She has organised exhibitions at Chicago Cultural Center (forthcoming), Wing Luke Museum, King Street Station, and SOIL Gallery, and is currently Curatorial Assistant at Conversations at the Edge (CATE), which is a series of screenings, talks, and performances by new media artists. Minh Nguyen’s writing has appeared in ArtAsiaPacific, Art in America, Art Practical, and AQNB, among others.

Simon Starling lives and works in Copenhagen. Since emerging from the Glasgow art scene in the early 1990s, Starling has established himself as one of the leading artists of his generation, working in a wide variety of media (film, installation, photography) to interrogate the histories of art and design, scientific discoveries and global economic and ecological issues, among other subjects. He represented Scotland at the 50th Biennale di Venezia (2003), and won the Turner Prize 2005 for his work Shedboatshed. Simon Starling’s work has been presented at the Villa Arson, Nice; the Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel; Mass MOCA, North Adams; Tate Britain, London; Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart; and MUMA in Melbourne.

Vu Tran was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and raised in the United States. He is a fiction writer, a criticism columnist for the Virginia Quarterly Review, and a professor at the University of Chicago, where he directs the undergraduate programme in creative writing. Vu Tran’s first novel, Dragonfish, was labeled a ‘notable book’ in the New York Times and received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

See navigation map here.

Sets and Scenarios

Sets and Scenarios is a collaboration between Jade Barget, Angela Blanc, Panos Fourtoulakis, Sha Li, Yi-Ning Lin, Charlotte dos Santos, and Lindsey Wiercioch as part of the MA Curating Contemporary Art Programme Graduate Projects 2020, Royal College of Art, London in partnership with Nottingham Contemporary.

Every evening, on the homepage, a screening programme presents moving image works interrogating the relationship between viewer and screen as moving images penetrate retina and ear, before creeping beneath the skin.

Tuesday June 16, 8 pm

Shahryar Nashat, Image is an Orphan, 2017, 18 min. 22 sec-  loop 1 hour

Please be aware that the work contains violent imagery.

Wednesday June 17, 8 pm

Deborah Stratman, Vever (for Barbara), 2019, 12 min.
James Richards and Steve Reinke, What Weakens the Flesh is the Flesh Itself, 2017, 40 min.

Please be aware that works within this screening contain female and male nudity, and sexual content. 

Thursday June 18, 8 pm

Ken McMullen, Ghost Dance, 1983, 5:23 min. (excerpt)
Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, Syncrisis, movement I, 2018-ongoing, 7:54 min.
Mary Helena Clark, Orpheus (outtakes), 2013, 6:08 min.
Cerith Wyn Evans, Degrees of Blindness, 1988, 19 min.

Please be aware that works within this screening contain flashing images and lights.

Friday June 19, 8 pm

Eva Gold, Perv City (Act I), 2020, 30 sec.
Bette Gordon, Variety, 1983, 01:40:00 min.

Please be aware that some of the works within this screening contain female nudity and sexual content.

Saturday June 20, 8 pm

Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Seroquel, 2014, 8:11 min.
Adam Christensen, The Last Fucking Rave, 2015, 12 min.
James Richards, Not Blacking out Just Turning the Lights off, 2012, 16 min.

Please be aware that works within this screening contain female nudity.

Sunday June 21, 12 pm

Closing
All moving image works presented throughout the week will be streamed together in a day-long stream that will mark the end of Sets and Scenarios‘ live programme.

Sets and Scenarios is a collaboration between Jade Barget, Angela Blanc, Panos Fourtoulakis, Sha Li, Yi-Ning Lin, Charlotte dos Santos, and Lindsey Wiercioch as part of the MA Curating Contemporary Art Programme Graduate Projects 2020, Royal College of Art, London in partnership with Nottingham Contemporary.