Human Machine Fellowship 2023

Franziska Aigner & Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi

Based in Berlin

Vita

Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi's practice navigates between film, sculpture, installation, performance, and interdisciplinary research. Her recent body of work explores the epistemological, aesthetic, and political possibilities of the moving image at the intersections of art and science, documentary and fiction, personal/prosthetic memory and individual/collective histories. Her work has been presented in both the art and cinema context, including Art Collider Lab, Seoul; Belvedere 21, Vienna; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater, Los Angeles; Whitechapel Gallery, London; 12th Berlin Biennale; 60th New York Film Festival; 33rd Singapore International Film Festival; among others.

Franziska Aigner works at the intersection of philosophy, performance and music. She worked with the artist Anne Imhof on various performances amongst others FAUST, which was awarded the Golden Lion at the 2017 Venice Biennale, as well with the choreographer William Forsythe and the filmmaker Austin Jack Lynch. In 2022, her solo-record STYX was released on Shadow World/Bedroom Community, which she has since then performed internationally.

Residency

"The artist duo Franziska Aigner & Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi will explore the epistemological, aesthetic, and political possibilities of choreo-cinema from the perspective of a common and shared point of view—an archive of loss—assembled by the artist duo. The images assembled in the archive will range from personal memories to mediated historical narratives and serves as a point of departure from which one can remember and imagine, speculate and dream, and in so doing inquire into new forms and languages to contemplate loss and agency, individually and collectively."

If she was no longer herself… marks Han Nguyen-Chi and Franziska Aigner’s second collaboration. Their first joint effort resulted in the film Into The Violet Belly, which premiered at the 12th Berlin Biennale and the 60th New York Film Festival. This second collaboration is motivated by the shared desire to engage in a composition of cinema and choreography. To realise this interdisciplinary project of choreocinema—which will culminate in the production of an experimental film to be presented both in the art and cinema context—they have teamed up with cinematographer Andrew Truong.