Portrait
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Treffpunkt: der Vulkan (Azahar, Admiral und Lazy_fairy)  

   
Installation view, 2022 – Photo by Fabian Fröhlich. "Lazy_fairy's childhood memory", 2022. Still Image from the video. Visitor's VR experience at documenta-fifteen – Hafenstrasse 76, Kassel, DE "Volcano", 2022. Still image from the video.
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︎︎︎Programme
︎︎︎Trailer

[EN] Meeting point:
the Volcano (Azahar, Admiral and Lazy_fairy) [VN] Gặp nhau nơi miệng núi lửa
(Azahar, Admiral
và Tiên_làm_biếng)

Two-channel Video Installation with VR activations.
10:00 mins

2022

Three fictional characters explore their personal experiences with the "welcome culture" in Germany and discuss strategies for survival against institutional powers. They propose using an intersectional feminist lens to create fairytales that serve emancipation and transformation, and consider how to build a sustainable and supportive system for POC/FLINTA* in exile.

The artwork is connected to lumbung in the sense that it examines the idea of collective storytelling and resource sharing in a virtual world. The artists also practice lumbung in their own work by collaborating with other artists and communities and creating a shared archive of stories and experiences. The artwork is part of the lumbung program during documenta fifteen, which features various events and activities that reflect the values and practices of lumbung.

From time to time, Admiral (Sedawi), Azahar (Al Kayal) and Lazy_Fairy (Lương) offer visitors the chance to step into their reality with VR glasses to embody the fourth character and immerse themselves in their mixed-reality stories. 

© Cẩm-Anh Lương, Mayada Al Kayal, Batoul Sedawi
Courtesy the artist

Production Credits:
Cẩm-Anh Lương – Conception, Video Editing, VR design
Esra Sakalli – Photogrammetry
Mahmoud Ismail, Roland Sookias/EDDy Lab ULiège – 3D scanning
Edoardo Micheli – Music & Sound design

With thanks to: Nadira Husain, Noureddin Yassin

Inspired by the collective work The Super Empowered,
*foundationClass, nGbK, Berlin, 2020

Part of

documenta fifteen


June 18 - September 25, 2022
Hafenstraße 76
34125 Kassel
Germany

TrótTin_AI / TrustIn_AI 

   

Visitors interact with the artwork "TrótTin_AI" at the Vietnamese Women's Museum in Hanoi - Photo VDCD 2023 "TrótTin_AI" - Installation view at VDCD 2023
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Interactive-Sonic Installation

Intervention performance:
Lyon Đạt Nguyễn

Sound composer:
Edoardo Micheli
Motion Designer:
Unaporn Kitcharoenwong

Documentation:
Esra Sakalli (Berlin), Ly Lê (Toronto) & Khuê Bùi (Saigon)

Tools: AI -Text-to-Image Generators
(NotionAI, Bing Chat AI, ChatGPT) and
AI-Image-to-Image Generators
(Dall-E 2, RunwayML)

2023
"TrótTin_AI", Installation View - Photo by Esra Sakalli, 2023 "TrótTin_AI", Installation View - Photo by Cam-Anh Luong, 2023 Intervention performance by Lyon Đạt Nguyễn at VFCD 2023 - Photo by Khuê Bùi Lyon Đạt Nguyễn's intervention performance at Hai An Gallery, Ho-Chi-Minh City VFCD 2023 - Photo by Khuê Bùi
Algorithms can be biased in several ways. AI systems learn to make decisions based on training data, which can include biased human decisions or reflect historical or social inequities. This can lead to the perpetuation of biases in decision-making. [1]

When carnival rituals represent the crowning and subsequent de-crowning of a king/queen/power upholder, does AI represent a crowning of power? Most of our searches, conversations, secrets, hopes, needs, and worship might start with a question to AI. The work "TrótTin_AI" (TrustIn_AI) aims to question the trustworthiness of AI, It asks whether we can trust AI as much as we question the trustworthiness of our ancestors' beliefs, customs, and traditions. For example, in Vietnam, ancestor worship involves believing you can communicate with ancestors through a third-party fortune teller. [2]

By drawing parallels between AI and traditional beliefs, "TrótTin_AI" prompts reflection on the potential biases of algorithms and their impact on the news and resources with which humans converse. Using various AI image and text generators and Touch Designer, the installation detects human bodies and generates a projection mapping display featuring abstract forms based on a particular dataset. This dataset on the themes of human beliefs, carnivals, and festivals generates horizontal, adaptable words, ideas, thoughts, and feelings without any hierarchical structure. "TrótTin_AI" aims to blur the line between the physical and digital worlds, creating an entertaining and thought-provoking experience that encourages dialogue around the carnival theme.

Participants can engage with the installation directly and personally by sharing or performing personal gestures of offerings, worship, or other customs they practice, along with their experiences. This engagement fosters a closer understanding of the relationship between AI and human beliefs, encouraging reflection on the ways in which these two seemingly disparate entities can interact.

  1. Manyika, J. (2022) What Do We Do About the Biases in AI? Available at: https://hbr.org/2019/10/what-do-we-do-about-the-biases-in-ai
  2. Long, N.T. and Van, V.H. (2020) “Ancestor worshiping beliefs in the beliefs and religion life of vietnamese people: nature, values, and changes of it in the current period,” PalArch’s Journal of Archaeology of Egypt / Egyptology, 17(3), pp. 370–388. Available at: https://doi.org/10.48080/jae.v17i3.92.

Part of

Carnival
of Algorithmic Culture


June 23rd & June 24th, 2023
bodyshop studios
Toronto, Canada

Supported by the Canada Council for the Arts


Part of 

Vietnam Festival
of Creativity & Design 2023


November 13th-19th, 2023
Hải An Gallery
Hồ Chí Minh City, Việt Nam

December 1st-7th, 2023
Vietnamese Women’s Museum
Hà Nội, Việt Nam


"TrótTin_AI", Installation View at Hải An Gallery, HCMC, Vietnam - Photo VFCD, 2023 "TrótTin_AI", Installation View at Hải An Gallery, HCMC, Vietnam - Photo ©VFCD, 2023

Look up look carefully (Water tower / Wasserturm)  


   
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Mixed media (Photography Book, Sculpture, Video Installation, VR)
2018 – present

Supported by DAAD Studienabschluss Stipendium  2024
Water towers – “châteaux d’eau” in French – form an imposing feature in many towns and cities acros Vietnam with an alien architectural presence attracting attention with size and shape. Each tower tells its own story: about their builders and about the rise, fall and change in societies and régimes of the country.

The water tower is an analogue of the hero, serving only the régime which constructs it and failing to transpose its function and strength to new rulers, despite its structure remaining sound. However, unlike clear symbols of political power, the water tower remains relatively immune from the explicit atempts of rulers to exert their influence. 

Initiated in 2018 through numerous documentation photos, fragmented videos, and installations, the project interrogates its extended question: “How can foreign structures become part of collective history and heritage ?” The “Wasserturm-VR” project uses 3D scanning, photogrammetry, and VR technology to create immersive, interactive experiences. It encourages visitors to explore these unofficial industrial/cultural heritage sites as digital traces, stimulating discussion about their alien presence.

Sneak peak from "Water tower-VR" / "Wasserturm-VR", 2023-24 Fragmented sculpture, 2018 Water Tower– The Book, 2018-19
The VR experience is set to launch in 12-13th October 2024.
Updates on the project's progress and upcoming shows will be available here on the website.

jardin d(’h)ivers 

 

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VR-Video Installation
Programme Curation

in collaboration with
Edoardo Micheli

2023

Funded by Musikfonds e.V. by means of the
Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

VR Video-Installation:   20.01.23
silent green
Gerichtstr. 35
13347 Berlin

Programme: 21-22.01.23
Neue Nachbarschaft Moabit
Beusselstraße 44
10553 Berlin



Provoked by the statement of EU foreign affairs representative Josep Borrell: "Europe is a garden, the rest of the world is a jungle", JARDIN D[‘H]IVERS*,  a proposal by visual artist Cẩm-Anh Lương, musician Edoardo Micheli and members of Neue Nachbarschaft Moabit, is a two-day event about the fragility of gardens, of their boundaries and their dependence on the hostile jungle outside. It is an attempt to cultivate and open up an experimental, virtual world in which we examine the power relations between all creatures and the world's inhabitants beyond these distinctions and limits, with reflection on the power dynamics, resonating from recent developments in art, science, technology, music, as well as migration stories, ecology, policymaking.

(*) JARDIN D [‘H]IVERS is a play on words in French. “Jardin d’hiver” means “ garden” while “Jardin divers” can be translated as “garden of diversity”.

Featuring an artist talk, a gaming installation, a sound installation,  a short film screening and a sound workshop on ecoacoustics and soundscape ecology.

Inviting Participants: Shane Munro, Florine Schüschke, Roland Sookias, Lucien Danzeisen

The Volcano Chronicles (Part I: Lazy_fairy)  

   
"The Volcano Chronicles" - Still life from the video, 2023 "Lazy_fairy", 2023. Still image.
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Two-channel VR Video
08:40 mins

2023

Link for screening

Lazy_fairy sets out on a whimsical journey to reach a volcano and reunite with their imaginary friends. Along the way, they share personal experiences and family archives while pondering the true fairytale of "welcome-culture" in Germany, a place that seems bizarre to them. By borrowing storytelling techniques and folktales from Vietnamese, as well as cyber and other mythologies, they hope to weave their voice through a process of collective storytelling and claiming space. Throughout this journey, Lazy_fairy investigates the intersections between institutional power, identity, community and even a strange connection to coffee paths.

Despite their determination, as the volcano begins to erupt, Lazy_fairy vanishes into the fiery abyss.

"The Volcano Chronicles" is a series of immersive VR and video works that explores the transformative power of (collective) storytelling. The name also references the sculpture "Tanz aus dem Vulkan" ("Dance out of the volcano"), 1988, by Ludmila Seefried-Matějková, located at Nettelbeckplatz, Berlin. Although the location's name is controversial due to its colonial past, it serves in present days as a focal point for the yearly demonstration and discussion meeting on International Wom*n's Day (March 8th) in Berlin.

"The Volcano Chronicles" proposes a collective fairy tale approach through an intersectional-cyber-feminist lens; It offers a strategy for resisting institutional powers and working towards emancipation and transformation from within. The series poetically attempts to create a sense of community and belonging for BIPoC and/or FLINTA* individuals in exile.

Each part of “The Volcano Chronicles" will delve into the perspective of one or more fictional character(s), embodied through 3D scans of one or more humans.

© Cẩm-Anh Lương, 2023