Hi, I'm Vivien Vuong. Artist and designer based in Rotterdam. I care about media, technology, and the contexts they create. I think through writing and making—from process to discovery to experience.

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Breath/in Soft Power

Performative objects (2023) – padded fabrics, air bags, tubes, air compressorPhotography by Laila Snevele

Breath/in Soft Power explores medial situations through various breathing interfaces, with each visitor participating as a performer or observer with one person or multiple people.During the experience performers can breathe for one another and hold one another with their body balance. With each out-breath specific body parts can be sensed and touch is either solely human powered or aided by a machine. Breathing and body balance prompt bodily awareness and navigate a different mode of being and becoming together.

Breathing Affect

Web application (2022)Collaborator —Björn Keyser

Breathing Affect is constructed around the idea of breathing as an act of care. It involves two different species: rapid and slow breathing creatures. Each species can influence the breathing patterns of other individuals in the system. Proximity towards one another influences the synchronization of breathing.The work engages individuals to experience the effects of breathing in sync and ultimately invites the audience to dwell in these emergent patterns of closeness and empathy.We pursued the idea of the artwork as an instrument for observing and reflecting. A conversation piece rather than a tool to control and or influence the artwork. Without the ability of visitors taming these creatures by will, these creatures show self-propelled unexpected patterns in their own pace without a predetermined outcome of whether serenity or anxiety will dominate or whether they will live in perfect equilibrium.

Zoöp DataFusion point cloud portraits 2 by Rodrigo Delso

ZoopDataFusion

ZoopDataFusion is an installation and on-going research project, which is part of the exhibition Have we met? Humans and Non-Humans on Common Ground, organized by Nieuwe Instituut for the 23rd Triennale Milano Exhibition.Collaborators —Philipp Groubnov, Christine Hvidt, Andrzej Konieczny, Alexander Köppel, Leon Lapa Pereira, guided by Rodrigo Delso (Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid) and Eric Kluitenberg (ArtScience interfaculty).

The digital and analogue sensors of the ZoopDataFusion Instrument is part of this exhibition. The sensor register vibrations, heat traces, sound frequencies, electromagnetic waves, the smell and spread of pollen, the conductive capacity of mycelia growing underground, and the slow changes of humidity in the air. It has been installed in Het Nieuwe Instituut's garden since spring 2022, where it reads a space 30 metres wide by 30 metres long and 3 metres tall for eight months.About Zoöp
Zoöp is the title of an organisational model for cooperation between human and non-human life that safeguards the interests of all zoë (Greek for 'life'). The zoöp model makes the interests of non-human life part of organisational decision making. Het Nieuwe Instituut adopted this model at 22 April 2022.

Photography by Kasper van der Horst

Heat Waves

Interactive installation (2022) 1500 x 1500 x 3000 mm: performer, computer mouse, infrared light, cushions, floor mat.

The internet, is embodied, is warm,
is heaving with breath.

Constance Grady

Heat Waves is a sensory response to the cursed infinite scroll. By hacking an infrared light and connecting it to a mouse with a free spinning scroll wheel, its heat waves flicker with each scrolling action. Heat Waves reconfigures the act of doom scrolling and transforms it into a tactile phenomenon.

Artificial Creatures

At the interfaculty ArtScience I joined the Artificial Creatures course from Media Technology at Leiden University and below you can find the process behind the project Breathing Affect.Part I Breath ObsessedPart II Eye Gazing 2.0Part III Breathing Affect

Mosses: A Lush Lexicon

Installation (2021): stones, wood, various sizes textures in wool, textile backdropCollaborator — SONICrider

As we use words and names to relate to each other and things, having the words for each microscopic part of a moss builds an intimacy with the plant and speaks of careful observation (Kimmerer, 2003). Taking the architecture of mosses as a point of departure, the interplay with materials and techniques form a wordless intimacy with mossy otherness.Sumptuous soft looking repetitions crafted by hand invite participants to engage with an embodied occupation of time. Its textures branches from taxonomic descriptions and emerge from a combination of mimicry and an open-ended, exploratory process. The sounds are inspired by the evolutionary imperative of mosses to hold water. Electrified water affinity. Giving voices to the mute poetics of mosses. Its enchanting quality maps the audience map into the world with more attentiveness towards spell-binding other worldly mosses.

Tangible Interferences

Research Van der Lijn reservaat (2021)Samples: plaster, charcoal, wood, wool, juniper berries, clay

My material exploration for an imagined cartography of the Van der Lijn Reserve is rooted in the preservation of the geological conditions that make this area in the Netherlands unique.Glacial ice formations, stones transported from Scandinavia, and forest growth shape the landscape. Alongside these natural processes, preservation practices such as chemical land management, the use of animals, and controlled burning actively sculpt the terrain, producing new textures and material conditions.Each tile interprets a specific act or tool involved in preserving the Van der Lijn Reserve. To deepen my research beyond online sources, I contacted quaternary geologist Van Olm. These conversations led to a clearer understanding of the moraine landscape and its ongoing preservation challenges.The rocks and soil of the reserve hold a layered geological history. This protected area is the only place in the Netherlands that remains as it was found at the moment the polder was reclaimed. Through texture, pattern, and color, these materials carry traces of four geological ages.Through close observation and iterative testing, the tiles gradually take form. The laser cut maps are the only literal translations of the Van der Lijn Reserve, anchoring the more abstract materializations of my research to the physical site.

Photography by Gert Jan van Rooij

Yes, Please!

Exhibition ‘Yes, Please!’ in Marres, Maastricht (2020)Created in collaboration with Company New Heroes with designers Pascal Leboucq, Naomi Jansen and sound artist Marc Alberto.Photography by Gert Jan van Rooij

In the exhibition Yes, Please! visitors were invited to embark on a journey through an array of imaginative and sensual spaces. With a menu offering 333 erotic stories across 66 unique categories, visitors are guided through rooms that explore different aspects of desire. They navigate various rooms designed to tickle the senses and imagination, from being gently massaged by a curving carpet to exploring the kinky kitchen, all while engaging different senses.In Marres eight rooms were transformed into sensuous installations where visitors were invited to explore, play, touch, read and fully immerse themselves into other people’s fantasies and that of their own.

Photography by Boudewijn Bollmann

A Collective Breath

Kinetic installation (2018) of 3000 x 1500 mm – wood, foam surface, aluminum, mirror.Photography by Boudewijn Bollmann

When taking part in the installation, the work transforms and is able to transfer meaning. The more people blow out air, the more dynamic the textile moves. Like a human-generated wind, a wave of energy, a collective breath.In many ancient and tribal languages the ‘mind’, ‘wind’ and ‘breath’ evoke identical associations. A Collective Breath materializes all three in a design metaphor, reacquainting us with a spiritual understanding, in which the concept of mind goes far beyond just mental activity.By embodying an archaic metaphor through a designed experience, emphasis is given to a world that deserves to exist in a diverse way, where all view-points of all peoples contribute to our collective sense of being human.

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