ERIC WONG
Instructions
Please turn the volume down to barely audible.
Watch the videos and listen to the audio tracks with the built-in speakers of your laptop, smart phone, or tablet. Headphones, stereo system, near or far field speakers are not preferred.
If you have more than one device, like a laptop and a smartphone, for example, watch the video on one device and listen to the accompanying track on the other, try to start both tracks as simultaneously as possible, but it's not required. If you only have one device, just watch the video without the accompanying track, or you may listen to the accompanying tracks before or after the videos, or in any order you prefer.
Concept:
Ten audio tracks consist of sine waves, processed sound, and pseudo- environmental sound for audience to download to their phones or tablets prior to the event. Audience will be instructed to play back tracks of their choice in low volume during the performances. The devices will become part of the piece interacting with each other when the participants move around, getting closer or further away from other sound sources. The accumulated sound will also fill up the space, and become part of the environment.
Notice: Please find each track alongside the videos.
Ly Nguyen
Mukbang
Sit down to enjoy a meal with your favorite mean girlfriend.
Inspired by South Korean mukbang culture, this work reflects upon the subliminal bonds formed between consumers and those on the opposite side of the screen. While the viewer becomes immersed in the dialogue between themselves and their virtual girlfriend, suggestions of a seemingly dysfunctional relationship begin to appear. As they backtrack through the narrative, moments alternate between absurd and familiar. Fragments of intimacy are shared through observing the virtual girlfriend's small rituals and daily routines. However, some insight remains to be given: How did we get here? Where will we go?
MING POON
Exotic Animal on the loose
Exotic is warm and spicy - one letter away from erotic.
Exotic is adventure to somewhere faraway and foreign.
Exotic is strange, but also very appealing and desirable.
Exotic is dark and mysterious, but its threat is tamed and contained.
Exotic is always over there, not here; them, not us; you, never me.
The ongoing pandemic exposes the unequal power relation and the instability of the exotic gaze. "Asian-ness" now loses its exotic appeal to the public and is once again treated with mistrust and associated with contamination and danger. But the Exotic Animal simply refuses to be locked away and erased from the public spaces. It is out to seduce and at the same time, challenge the exotic gaze which seeks to displace and appropriate it.
This is a work-in-progress of “Exotic Animal”, an online audience-collaborative performance which will be presented at the English Theater Berlin on the 3rd - 5th December 2020. (www.etberlin.de/production/exotic-animal/)
About Artists
Eric Wong
Eric Wong – Composer / performer / guitarist / computer musician. Born 1981 in Minneapolis, grew up in Hong Kong, studied psychology at the University of Minnesota, and audio production and engineering at the Institute of Production and Recording. Currently based in Berlin. He performs works of his own and other composers’, as a soloist as well as in groups including BISTRE, Panomorph, möbelgruppe, and collaborators including Fredrick Rasten, Siri Salminen, Johnny Chang, Matthias Müller, Brad Henkel, Ute Wassermann, Sayori Izawa, Yan Jun, Beat Keller, and Derek Shirley. Wong has released records for solo and group projects on labels Edition Wandelweiser, Creative Sources, and Inexhaustible Editions.
Website:
Soundcloud:
Ly Nguyen
Ly Nguyen is a dancer and interdisciplinary performance artist based in Berlin. Growing up as a queer WOC in between a predominantly white environment and an exclusively Vietnamese community, both with their own many traditions and conventions, she has soon questioned those norms and values put upon her. In her work she is curious about the integration and segregation of the individual body and the group. She likes to explore the tension between adaptation and rebellion, and engages the audience by moving them in and out of their comfort zone. Topically, her work ranges from personal to political, usually having many intersections.
She studied Theater Science at Leipzig University and is now graduating from the Contemporary Dance program at Etage Berlin. Besides her solo work she has been performing in theater productions and commercial jobs.
Ming Poon
Ming Poon began his career as professional dancer in 1993, and started to develop his choreographic practice in 2010. He creates choreographic interventions, where spectators are invited to exercise their agency to create change. His works are interactive and collaborative in design. They usually take the form of collaborative performances, public interventions and one-to-one encounters. He works with vulnerability, care, peripherality and failure as performance strategy. His practice is influenced by Buddhist concept of interdependence and care, Judith Butler’s resistance in vulnerability, Augusto Boal’s theatre of the oppressed and Nicolas Bourriaud’s micro-utopias.
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