Live Listening

Event-performance (2022-present)

Live Listening is a series of live music performances directed by Tran Uy Duc, starting on New Year's Eve of 2022. This non-profit project uses mass entertainment as a medium to reimagine collectivism in all potential forms. “Live Listening #1” happened on New Year's Eve at a gay nightclub in Saigon where Tran and his performers were performing a 16-minute set in their high-school uniforms. "Live Listening #2" began at a night bar in Hanoi, this is where Tran brought their mother on stage and serve free milk to the supporting performers and audiences. Questioning intergenerationality, all performances from Live Listening are likely to put forward a mix of experimental and danceable music, often short and with a witty presence of very young to underage supporting performers.

Supporting performers: #1 - Đỗ Thị Thiên Hương, Phạm Hà Tố Nguyên, Bùi Hữu Phan Anh, Lê Minh Khôi, Nguyễn Cẩm Anh, #2 - Phạm Quang Hưng, Nguyễn Lê Hà Dương, Trần Phước Hải Quỳnh, Trần An Tuệ Anh, Nguyễn Thị Lệ Thủy, Lê Nguyên Khôi, Nguyễn Hoàng Yến, Phạm Nguyễn Hải Hà, Đặng Hạnh Nhi.

Listen: Live Listening #1 - New Year's Eve at Gai Nhay, Ho Chi Minh City (Real-time Performance Mix)

So Original - Live

Musical album

Venues: Saigon Community Radio (Saigon), Hòa Bình Theatre (Da Lat), Manzi (Hanoi).

Featuring vocals from Da Lat University's Dance Club.

Available on www.tranuyduc.bandcamp.com

"Best Club Music" from Bandcamp: "A series of albums and singles released between 2020 and 2022 situated Tran Uy Duc as one of the most exciting collagists in experimental music. The Hanoi artist specializes in barely contained montages and bitcrushed live recordings, but also has an exceptional ear for hooks, a quality that flits in and out of So Original – Live (April 2022). The seven track project is Tran Uy Duc’s first since 2021’s breakout Came and is as fragmentary as ever, composed of uneasy loops, speech refrains, rhythmic ticks and musique concrète abstractions."

Catwalk

Musical Film (producer, director, music producer, editor)

Produced in Hanoi during the Lunar New Year of 2022, "Catwalk" marks the start of the "new normal" phase after the city-wide lockdown was lifted. The film explores the intricate relationship between uniforms, gender roles in labor, and the ability to blend journalism with pop art. Influenced by the runway's feelings and Communism-related aesthetics, "Catwalk" remarked on the power of creativity and expression in difficult times by spreading a scattering vision on technology, drama and choreography.

Tiến lên 2010 (Megaproject 2010)

Performance-installation at Fulbright University of Vietnam (Saigon)

The first and yet only inter-American liberal arts school in Vietnam, Fulbright University, is preparing to move to its official location in District Nine. Despite this impending move, residents of District Seven can still observe the school's library and students through its transparent walls.

Located in the 2010-initiated Phu My Hung, one of the most privileged urban projects in the country that also follows the American paradigm, Fulbright University and the surrounding area have become prominent symbols of mass privatization and the rising elite class in Vietnam.

In the school's library, a performance and installation using three thousand burnt bricks prompt honest interaction with the outside world behind the transparent walls. The brick complex became an icon of confrontation and co-optation − by zoning out this dynamic existing between the non-functionality/non-aesthetic and the objective construction-being.

Supporting performers: Đặng Đức Xứng, Phú Lâm Thiên, Bé Minh, Bé Nguyên, Lê Minh Khôi, Nathan Collis, Nguyễn Hiếu Ngọc, Nguyễn Ngọc Khánh, Hoàng Thu Hằng, Nguyễn Đặng Hùng Cường, Tống Cẩm Chi, Trần Phước Hải Quỳnh, Trần Trọng Tri, Nora Taylor.

Rắn Cạp Đuôi (band project)

Vocalist (until August, 2022)

Live vocal improvisation with Rắn Cạp Đuôi (band project) at Nổ Cái Bùm (Da Lat), Pestapora (Jakarta), Insomaniaction and Boiler Room (Saigon)

Article: Pitchfork, Saigoneer

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Video screenings and other exhibitions

• Catwalk, video, 6:06, XPOSED Queer Film Festival Berlin

• Soundchecking, performance, 9:00, MoT+++ (Saigon, VN)

• Cậu bé Nệm, performance (featuring Da Lat University's Dance Club), 20:00, Nổ Cái Bùm Festival, Hòa Bình Theatre (Da Lat, VN)

• Cậu bé Rác, performance, 23:00, Saigon Community Radio (Saigon, VN)

Came

Musical album

Featuring: Pilgrim Raid, Zach Sch (Rắn Cạp Đuôi), Phạm Thế Vũ (Rắn Cạp Đuôi), Lý Trang.

Available on www.tranuyduc.bandcamp.com

Watch: "Came" - Music Videos

Article: Pitchfork

Interview with Bandcamp: "Trần Uy Đức projects himself “through a war and violence-influenced nationality.” Thinking through generations, he represents the collective trauma of machine-gun fire and napalm blasts sonically in the percussive noise of tracks like “got.”

Other related reports: Wire/ iDesign/ Below The Radar

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Video screenings and other exhibitions

• Not A Face, short, 3:23, Saigon Experimental Film Festival (Saigon, VN)

• 18 things to do before u turned 8, short, 7:25, Lưng Chừng with Phạm Nguyễn Anh Tú (online)

• Gummy Day, Instagram reel, 3:03, Videồ Ạt Features by Te Rẹt (online)

Liveperformances 2020

Musical album

Featuring Junichi Usui, Như Trăng Trong Đêm and Ian Richter.

Venues: L'espace (Hanoi), Goethe Institute (Hanoi), VCCA (Hanoi)

Available on www.tranuyduc.bandcamp.com

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Video screenings and other exhibitions

• KHOAN III with Lý Trang, 3:41, MO?:MƠ at Á Space (Hanoi, VN)

• Museum, Collage, Social Distancing Gallery Boston (online)

100 BROKEN DREAMS

Musical album (Debut)

Available on www.tranuyduc.bandcamp.com

"The best and most special debut of Vietnam in the 20s: a comprehensive abstract landscape painting with a color palette that does not mix too many tones but uses them in various ways to create basic sound effects that are not too complex, yet ridiculous or sarcastic. It opens up many new opportunities to perceive pop sounds, an era of experimentation that has been gone for too long." - Rắn Cạp Đuôi.