Music:
Tiny Giant and Quách Thị Hồ (song “Hồng Hồng Tuyết Tuyết” at 15:00)
Hanoi Undercurrents
Episode 18 of the Timezones podcast series, co-initiated and co-produced by Norient and the Goethe-Institut. In this episode we travel to the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi and dive into its diverse sounds, noises, and artistic practices. We visit three female sound artists who talk about listening despite noise pollution, changing soundscapes through the past decades, how they collaborate with their peers, and how they cope with ongoing gender inequalities.
A selection of sounds from the community of music makers and sound artists in Vietnam and also from the Vietnamese diaspora community, including artists from this TIMEZONES episode. Curated by LinhHafornow.
To be released on Spotify on January 17, 2024
[0:16] Ho Tram Anh
Sound is not tangible.
[0:36] Nhung Nguyen
Sound is, kinda abstract… but maybe, one can visualize them.
[1:05] Hoang Thu Thuy
Be ready to listen the sound. You spend a lot of energy. Even you don’t want to listen even, the sound still come to your ear.
[1:47] Nhung Nguyen
The more they observe, the more, the more time they pay attention, the better, the sharper their sense are. That’s kinda like a meditation exercise.
[2:15] Hoang Thu Thuy
Silence does not mean that we don’t hear anything.
[2:33] Ho Tram Anh
We’re having noise pollution, really, we’re having noise pollution everywhere.
[2:38] Hoang Thu Thuy
When you wake up, you wake from the sound from the street. My house is next to the street, so I can listen the traffic before I listen the other sounds I like.
[3:06] Ho Tram Anh
Hanoi is such a… (laughs) it’s a hot pot. It’s a zoo.
[3:37] Nhung Nguyen
The spirit of the city
[3:48] Ho Tram Anh
Many times, I’d just like to slow down.
[4:07] Hoang Thu Thuy
I am Thuy, I am sound engineer working for film and television.
[4:13] Ho Tram Anh
My name is Tram Anh, and I’m an interpreter and a musician. I have a passion for music and for listening to music as well.
[4:23] Nhung Nguyen
My name’s Nhung, and I’m a sound designer and composer. I’m based in Hanoi
[4:28] Ho Tram Anh
I believe that most of the good creative works have arisen out of the conflict to find one’s self, find the voice to express what’s in their hearts. Hanoi has given me the same thing, to question myself and to make me think. To take all of the chaotic things going around as materials and inspiration for me to make art. I try to lean myself toward a more nostalgic and more human side of the sonic landscape of Hanoi. So that’s what I’m going back to, but that being said I’m also influenced heavily by Western practices of making music. Whenever I try to make music it’s also the combination between those things.
[4:26] Hoang Thu Thuy
So the difference is go up to noisy than before. So for me as the sound engineer I am… more difficult, more challenged to capture the sound. Mostly we work for independent movie, creative movie. We are make a good quality because you are creative. You create in individual films. In the other side I am a teacher at the university.
[6:10] Nhung Nguyen
I think I work with a little bit of this and that. I work between performers, and artists belong to the visual and cinematic fields. Also curator and researchers, and translator if my work involved with researching. I live near a couple of lakes, so I like to record lakes myself. I do record a lot of traffic for work, for sound design work. Without the subconscious learning of the soundscape here I wouldn’t have become a sound designer myself. Sounds are the way I navigate the world.
[6:55] Nhung Nguyen
I think it means a lot to me, to… to be born in Hanoi, to have grown up here.
[7:05] Hoang Thu Thuy
I’ve been in Hanoi since 25 years. So, compare 25 years ago and now, it’s much different.
[7:23] Ho Tram Anh
The city’s landscape has changed drastically.
[7:29] Nhung Nguyen
It shapes my… my mind as a person, a creator.
[7:38] Ho Tram Anh
It’s not so much the place but the people associated with it that make the difference.
[7:51] Hoang Thu Thuy
You listen the sound from the door. You listen some people speak. You can listen the sound of the man who use a pipe for smoking.
[8:13] Ho Tram Anh
How is it that we’re living in the city and we’re not finding any fulfilment from… from this.
[8:32] Nhung Nguyen
After all my life living here, I would say that the city feels familiar and strange for me at the same time. Like, it feels familiar cause I grew up here, I got used to certain customs and the environment and the habits of people. But also, I, somehow I feel, a little bit like a stranger in my own home. Sometime the city change too fast. I couldn’t keep up with that.
[9:04] Hoang Thu Thuy
The first day I come to Hanoi I was impressed by the calm. Calm inside the way people living together. Like, you are in a very small village, and then you speak low but people can feel you and can clear to understand you. Now there’s construction everywhere, especially in the city. I, I feel more sound. More sound of, more activity sound than before. Actually, Hanoi, I don’t know where we can find a quiet environment. Even you see the peaceful lake, but the sound is not peaceful.
[10:10] Ho Tram Anh
Sonic wise, Hanoi has changed a lot. I mean, it was noisy in the past with all the public speakers going on. Those people who sell toys on the street would have like, the little melodies to attract the attention of children. Even the horns from ice cream vendors. Even for those who would sell bean curds, for example, they’re not going to use their own voice anymore, they’re going to use some pre-recorded tapes. All in all, it sounds cold to me.
[10:54] Hoang Thu Thuy
Before they speak directly. For example, people sell some, some sticky rice for every morning, they speak directly. Now they use a speaker, so it’s, the sound is louder.
[11:19] Ho Tram Anh
Sometimes you’d hear, in the morning, very early in the morning, some endearing children’s songs, or songs about Hanoi. It’s all become a melancholic memory in my brain now because they don’t, they don’t exist anymore.
[11:44] Nhung Nguyen
20 years ago it would be very different. When I grew up the soundscapes change. When my parents grew up they used to go on the tram a lot. And now we can only find the sound of tram in very old Vietnamese movie, and that’s something belong to the archive. I’m always curious about how the soundscape in the past would sound like, before all of this urbanization. I want to know what memories do people have about the sounds and also the music of the time. I think it would give more understanding between generations.
[12:38] Hoang Thu Thuy
The value of my life is the sharing with people. If we don’t share, if we don’t treat well people, what is the… what is the thing you wanted, you need. Also I love the feeling – work together, but also, share together.
[13:08] Ho Tram Anh
All in all, we still need connection. I want to be connected with people, but only when the connection is genuine. We’re sensitive, and if it doesn’t click – we know. Any connection, any friendship, and relationship would take work, but I think that this, this, this chemistry, this feeling this click is important.
[13:41] Nhung Nguyen
Communication is the key. Discussion, idea exchange. I think that foster the relationship.
[13:51] Ho Tram Anh
But it’s also important to get help. To team up. I do relate quite well with the collaborators that I’ve worked with. They are all genuine in their crafts. There’s this sense of quiet passion. What I’m trying to look for is a shared wavelength.
[14:25] Hoang Thu Thuy
You are respect the job of the other ones. I think if you really ready to listen people, that mean you have a really open mind to input all the different way of thinking.
[14:46] Nhung Nguyen
I’m trying to learn how to be more compassionate to people.
[15:09] Nhung Nguyen
Like many people I would need to overcome a lot of self-doubt. Sometimes I would like almost give up and say that I couldn’t do this anymore.
[15:25] Ho Tram Anh
I absolutely resented my voice until recently. Do you think that it’s more difficult to realize your musical practice as a woman? Does gender discrimination hinder you at all at any point in your musical practice?
[15:57] Nhung Nguyen
Discrimination. For female electronic artists in general. Record labels or promoters prefer to book male artists, and automatically refuse female artists.
[16:17] Ho Tram Anh
Confinement, conformity, arrogance, discrimination.
[16:33] Nhung Nguyen
I see no point continuing this, and sometimes, in some cases it appears in a very regular basis. I think the coping mechanism is giving me patience.
[16:58] Ho Tram Anh
Be fearless. Because if you can ignore the barriers, if you can ignore the fact that we’re discriminated against, if you could just move forward with, let’s say, a blind drive, we’re going to make it somehow. And it’s a long journey.
[17:20] Nhung Nguyen
The show must go on anyway.
[17:25] Hoang Thu Thuy
Some of my student is the woman, but they go to be an officer of different studio.
[17:39] Ho Tram Anh
Access to, to knowledge and to practice should be distributed evenly to people, especially women. The overall sense of this community, of this sonic landscape should be more inclusive. What we can try to do is to team up. To collaborate, to create this sort of shared movement that would allow us to stay strong together. To educate each other, to empower each other.
[18:33] Hoang Thu Thuy
There is a poem about Hanoi. When you listen these words you feel, ok, you are from far away and you can listen this sound, every single sound. And you feel like, calm and peaceful.
[19:15] Poem
Gió đưa cành trúc la đà,
Tiếng chuông Trấn Vũ, canh gà Thọ Xương.
Mịt mù khói tỏa ngàn sương,
Nhịp chày Yên Thái, mặt gương Tây Hồ.
Linh Hà’s most recent projects have focused on live improvisation (CHẠM with harpist Esther Swift, 2022), healing (SILHOUETTE with visual artist Heather Lander, 2021) and archiving (personal) histories of East Germany and Vietnam (#dchmvrbndgcnnctn with producer AGF, 2021). Her music/voice was featured in Má Sài Gòn – a movie that explores humanity’s universal desire for love, acceptance, connection, and belonging through an LGBTQ+ lens.Linh Hà hopes to raise more awareness about the culture of listening– especially in the context of modern Vietnamese society.
Her work has been presented at biennale Sonica 2022 (Glasgow), Cryptic Presents 2020 (Glasgow), Blind Signal 2019 (Berlin), LUCfest 2018 (Taiwan), FAMLAB x Seaphony 2019 (Vietnam), Jai Thep 2018, 2019, 2020 (Thailand), VCCA, Heritage Space (Vietnam). Her projects have received support from the Goethe Institut, the British Council, Cryptic (Glasgow), FAMLAB, Phu Sa Lab, VCCA, and Blind Signal (Berlin).She also writes and performs music with the live electronic project Tiny Giant, with whom she has performed in Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, Belgium, and Australia. When she’s not making music, you can find her teaching German and Vietnamese or organizing events focusing on live / electronic music in Central Vietnam.
Hanoi: Pausing from Change
moderated and produced by Elise Luong
A conversation between TIMEZONES episode producer LinhHafornow, production assistant Tomes and their biggest fan, art manager and writer Elise Luong. Hanoi is set to triple in population. Within its exploding economy and suffocating density, musicians and sound artists struggle to find a sense of space. Hanoi is seductive, with roads that curve around ancient trees, bodies of water that offer respite to toads and culinary delights of all kinds. But the ground shakes with the vibrations of jackhammers, and smog and concrete dust fill the air. We live packed together in each others’ spaces, watching the city hurl towards a consumerist future. With the arts and culture flailing at the periphery, Hanoi’s creatives are swooped up into the chaos. How do we hold onto the sonic worlds of the past? What do artists need as cities morph and expand, modifying possibilities of connection, isolation, and identity? What helps us to reflect?
In 2012, when based in Brussels, she co-founded a non-profit organization called Undecided Productions, programming an array of public events, and working closely with artists to develop inclusive platforms for dissemination. The closing of Undecided’s gallery space HIDDEN opened doors for change, and since moving to Vietnam, Elise has focused on cultural exchange projects, such as founding and running the residency program live.make.share. Headed by Elise, Undecided Productions is now registered as Vietnam’s only international non-governmental organisation. As an art manager, she is concerned with the development of production and dissemination opportunities for young creators, particularly those whose work engages with the themes of ecology and gender. In parallel, she also works as a writer, editor, events manager, program curator, and communication designer.
Artistic Editor: Suvani Suri Project Management: Hannes Liechti Video Trailer: Karrl Jingle Voiceover: Nana Akosua Hanson Jingle Mix: Daniel Jakob Mastering: Adi Flück, Centraldubs Artwork:Šejma Fere Copy Editing: Kathrin Hadeler
