To encounter Ho Tzu Nyen’s work is to be confronted by a multitude of philosophical and poetic reflections. Upon opening several glass doors and walking through an echoing sky-lit lobby at Bard’s CCS Hessel Museum, the sounds of Ho Tzu Nyen’s videos will start to faintly appear in the dark rooms ahead. A whispering voice narrates, while a panoply of images echo the words spoken. Critical Dictionary of South-East Asia (2017-) is a video project that the Singaporean artist created that is currently publicly available online. In the video, a voice alphabetically parses through words: “N is for Nation,” “O is for Ocean” and “T is for Tiger.” Layers of found footage act as emblems for the narration, contextualizing the history and specific dictionary created by the artist. The visual doesn’t necessarily compliment the audio, but it acts as a way to think about something beyond its obvious meaning. The voice continues on, occasionally switching from whispering to singing.
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At the opening one afternoon in mid-June, Ho Tzu Nyen told Observer that his videos T for Time (2023-) and Critical Dictionary of South-East Asia (2017-) are being edited live, by a set of algorithms. “Every loop is........