[1/5] The Contemporary JournalSonic Continuum

A Mirrored Conversation - Sung Tieu, Cédric Fauq,Damian Lentini

The Contemporary Journal

A MirroredConversationSung Tieu, Cédric Fauq, Damian Lentini

Damian Lentini: Let’s start by talking about twoprojects, which are taking place concurrently in2020 – ‘Zugzwang’ at Haus der Kunst, and ‘InCold Print’ at Nottingham Contemporary – andthe way in which you thought about thesecommissions.

Sung Tieu: At Haus der Kunst, my initial desirewas to propose something derived frompersonal experience. ‘Zugzwang’ isautobiographical in a way, but it’s alsotangential, told through bureaucratic forms,from the perspective of fictional characters. I’mlooking through the lens of paperwork, mostly,and the ways they have formulated parts of mybeing. The sculptures, objects, texts, andsounds attempt to open up a psychicallycharged space between the personal andsomething culturally far more universal,something everyone can relate to.

Sung Tieu, Alekhine’s Defence, 2020. 31 pencildrawings on 31 documents, framed, each: 32.1 x23.4 cm. Courtesy the artist and Emalin, London.

Photography: Maximilian Geuter.

In Nottingham, the show departed from myprevious research into Ghost Tape No. 10,which was the name of a sound weapondeveloped by Psychological Operations of theUS Army at the end of the 1960s in Saigon, andwhich I also like to call ‘the ghost of theAmerican psyche’. We collaborated withscientists from Nottingham Trent University inorder to find out about sound frequencies, howthey travel through the body and througharchitectural space. One focus was the ‘HavanaSyndrome’, which I first read about in the newsand found an immediate connection to myprevious research into psychological warfare,their histories and contemporary resonance.This so-called syndrome consists of a set ofsymptoms, such as headaches, hearing loss,and nausea, which were reportedly experiencedby US embassy staff based in Havana. The USgovernment declared Cuba responsible forperpetrating the alleged ‘sonic attacks’ thatcaused these symptoms. This mysterious caseraises relevant questions not only about post-Cold War relations between the US and Cuba,but also about the role of science versusconspiracy, and how longstanding politicalprejudices can be weaponised. I also wanted toknow how that data could be manipulated toconvey certain political narratives.

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A Mirrored Conversation - Sung Tieu, Cédric Fauq,Damian Lentini

Sung Tieu, ‘In Cold Print’, 2020. Installation viewat Nottingham Contemporary. Courtesy the artist

and Emalin, London. Photography: Plastiques.

DL: You speak of this intermingling of theautobiographical within your research intovarious structures – administrative as well asmilitaristic – and the superstructures that informthem. I would say that a third component,which manifests in both shows, is concernedwith the history of modern art and design. Howdoes this strand of your research come intoplay?

ST: I have been looking into the history ofMinimalist art and design because there issomething about it that I am intuitivelyskeptical about: its supposedly neutral forms.To me, these design choices communicatecertain inscribed values and speak of largersocial imaginaries even though their simplicityappears devoid of signifiers. For instance, thefurniture I use, originally fabricated for theprison-industrial complex, is designed tocomply with government regulations safety-wise but is also devised with a certainskepticism towards their users; in this case,prisoners. The similarities between Minimalistdesign and this state-imposed furniture arestriking.

Sung Tieu, Monologue 2, 2020. Engraving onstainless steel mirror, writing table with combined

stool, 294 x 110 x 81 cm. Courtesy the artist andEmalin, London. Photography: Maximilian Geuter.

Another relationship I have been preoccupiedwith lies between the dematerialised art objectand the war in Vietnam. Lucy Lippard notes thatthe era of Conceptual Art is also the era of thewar in Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement.The influential ‘Primary Structures’ show at theJewish Museum in New York from 1966 comesto mind, but also Conceptual Art’s proposal toprioritise art as idea or action. What we havenowadays might be understood as a form of‘Governmental Conceptualism’, seeking thewithdrawal of exactly that: idea and action. Itstands in total contrast to the 1960s ethos.Working towards ‘In Cold Print’, we cameacross another idea Victoria Hattam proposed:that one could think of Minimalism as a form ofAmerican cultural imperialism.

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A Mirrored Conversation - Sung Tieu, Cédric Fauq,Damian Lentini

DL: A form of aesthetic imperialism, so tospeak?

Cédric Fauq: Which particularly manifeststhrough grid patterns.

ST: The grid reveals aesthetic affinitiesbetween a broad spectrum of disciplines andsites. For ‘In Cold Print’, we researchedhelicopter landing mats that were producedduring the war in Vietnam to land heavyvehicles under monsoonal conditions. What isso fascinating about these landing mats is theirdesign. They are essentially made out ofcorrugated steel arranged in grids. The ideawas to make them sturdy and yet as flexible aspossible for transportation. If you look closelyat the grid patterns, you will find echoes of SolLeWitt and Agnes Martin’s works.

Sung Tieu, Recycling – Army Style, 2020. Four-imaged looped digital file, two 75” display TV

screens, two USBs with one MP4 digital file, each:1:30 min. Courtesy the artist and Emalin, London.

Photography: Plastiques.

Later, after the war, these M8A1 landing matswere repurposed by the Army Corps ofEngineers to build large sections of the borderfences between the US and Mexico, cost-free.So something that had a horizontal orientation,lying flat on the ground, was then turnedvertical. The landing mat itself is a grid, with ahorizontal and vertical axis. What does it meanto use that same grid to land on foreignterritory you attempted to occupy and thenrepurpose it as fence to protect your ownborders? There is a direct connection betweenthe physical and psychic architecture of war andthe wall.

CF: Another motif that appears in bothexhibitions is the use of stainless steel, andmore generally, mirrored surfaces.

ST: In Munich, large stainless-steel mirrors areengraved with a digital rendering of a forestborder between the Czech Republic andGermany. The mirroring at Haus der Kunst wasinspired by visitation rooms in correctionalfacilities. Similarly, at NottinghamContemporary viewers encounter themselves insix prison mirrors, overlaid by scans of mybrain taken while being subjected to arecreation of the ‘Havana Syndrome’ soundweapon. Simultaneously, the audience isexposed to this same sonic attack through mysound work while walking through theexhibition.

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A Mirrored Conversation - Sung Tieu, Cédric Fauq,Damian Lentini

Sung Tieu, Exposure to Havana Syndrome

(MRI/left), Self-Portrait, 2020. Laser engraving onstainless steel prison mirror. Courtesy the artistand Emalin, London. Photography: Plastiques.

DL: It would be great to hear about the way youworked with the sound components.

ST: At Haus der Kunst, we made newinstruments based on office noise. I usedWagner’s overture to Tannhäuser (1845) andfiltered its score through these office sounds. Inorder to do that, we had to devise an instrumentfor each noise. Then these instruments were fedback into Wagner’s composition.

CF: Did you use recorded sounds and thenchange their frequencies to match the score?

ST: Yes, which works better in some instancesthan in others. That’s very much part of thesound work: to try and live up to something likea Wagnerian ‘masterpiece’ – something culturalconvention perceives as high art – but actuallyintending to force its collapse, itsdestabilisation, its breakdown into parody,

twisting it and asserting one’s own ideas onto it.

Sung Tieu, ‘Zugzwang’, 2020. Installation view atHaus der Kunst, Munich. Courtesy the artist; Haus

der Kunst, Munich; and Emalin, London.Photography: Maximilian Geuter.

CF: It’s interesting to think about it in relationto how diplomacy plays out and to thereconstitution of a sound weapon as noisemusic.

ST: I was eager to understand the witnessaccounts of the US diplomats, what theyactually heard. What constituted the ‘weapon’essentially. We then found a reconstruction ofthe sonic attack released by the US governmentbased on witness descriptions. Bizarrely, itresulted in a high-pitched cricket sound. That’sexactly how it was described by a US official ina video clip we found.

To me, the ‘Havana Syndrome’ is less of asound weapon than its psychologicalimagination: a sort of collective hallucination.It’s partly a psychological fiction and yet itinflicted real pain. The US Foreign RelationsSubcommittee tried to find proof of itsexistence. But how do you find evidence ofsomething so intangible, and secondly: How doyou scientifically manifest that in order toleverage it as a fact? There is a cognitivedissonance inherent within the process offinding proof of an invisible threat.

One of the sound channels in ‘In Cold Print’ is

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A Mirrored Conversation - Sung Tieu, Cédric Fauq,Damian Lentini

the ‘original’ high-pitched cricket sound – therecreation of the ‘Havana Syndrome’ so tospeak. Another channel plays my brainwavesresponding to that recording, and the thirdlayer is a composition of sounds based upon allthe written descriptions of the sonic attack thatI collected. So, you have these various ways inwhich the sonic attack has been psychologicallyor physically experienced through a collectivebody as well as my own.

DL: The use of sound to engender a physicalresponse winds back very nicely to an ideaunderpinning Wagner’s conception of theGesamtkunstwerk. [For him], ‘music dramas’were environments whose sounds sought toelicit an active response from the audience.

ST: And we also know that classical music wasused during the war in Vietnam as a form ofweaponry, broadcast through loudspeakersmounted on helicopters.

CF: In your sound installations however, thespeakers are concealed. Can you speak aboutyour approach to how sound is installed andspatialised?

ST: What’s most appealing about sound is itsomnipresence. You don’t need to see it in orderfor it to occupy your mind. In pretty much all ofmy installations, the sound source remainsuntraceable, to an extent, uncertain. I enjoyhow much confusion this creates for peoplewho haven’t visited my exhibitions in personbut experience them online or via images. Theymiss the main work and, since I provide asmuch visual material as sound, they don’t seemto notice it. It goes unregistered … as intended.

This abridged conversation is excerptedfrom Sung Tieu: Oath Against

Minimalism (forthcoming, 2020),

published on the occasion of the artist’ssolo exhibitions ‘In Cold Print’ atNottingham Contemporary and‘Zugzwang’ at Haus der Kunst, Munich.A public dialogue between the artist andcurators was due to take place atNottingham Contemporary on April 25,2020 as part of ‘AcousmaticParanoia’, an afternoon of talks andperformances expanding on Sung Tieu’sartistic practice by AUDINT members,Hyperdub founder Steve Goodman(Kode9), media scholar Toby Heys, andmedia theorist and sound artist EleniIkon, which can be read in this specialissue.

Cite this piece as:Tieu, Sung, Cédric Fauq, Damian Lentini. ‘AMirrored Conversation’. The ContemporaryJournal 3 (April 28, 2020).[https://thecontemporaryjournal.org/strands/sonic-continuum/a-mirrored-conversation].