5 Video Clips from Vietnam: Life Imitating Art

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by Gãy

As the climate crisis shows, life is as fragile as ever. While Vietnam has recently faced devastating flooding, independent music scenes attempt to turn the uncomfortable into a new playground. Watch a new episode of the 5 Video Clips from Special curated by the Saigon based music collective Gãy, in which weird sounds and harsh cuts play with our senses.

In 2022 Central Vietnam has faced the worst flooding in 70 years. Vietnam’s latitude puts it at the forefront of global warming’s effects, and part of the country will be submerged within a few decades. We have already begun to see flooded streets in big cities, which has never happened before. This reminds us of how fragile life is. It makes us want to appreciate the little things in life. Even in difficult times, the playfulness and ingenuity of Vietnamese people can turn the uncomfortable and unforeseen into a new playground, adversity into laughter. It reminds us to always look at life with a smile.

With these music videos, we invite people from around the world to take a look at what’s happening in Vietnam in the most raw, casual, natural, and even funny way. These music videos are about life imitating art, life on the streets of Vietnam, or inside people’s houses and relationships. They feature original footage and footage found on the internet. A broken editing style gives a random feeling, as if we are going through fragments of memories and moments of daily lives full of unexpectedness and random events.


Music: Ngọt
Track: Chuyển Kênh
Director: Đỗ Như Trang
Camera: Nghia Minh Phan
Editing: Trung Nguyen

This music video takes place in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. Here, Ngot is questioning the relationships between people, singing about life that passes by every day – just like how you watch the news on TV, constantly changing the channels, or don’t do anything all day at all. Life goes on and we can always change the channel. Whether the channel is a metaphor for one’s perspective on life or not, one can always change when one wants, or simply sit and watch.


Music: Anh Phan feat. Tùng Chùa
Track: Phú Quý Bò Viên
Creative director: Anh Phan, Le Can Truong
Cam OP: Cu Thanh Hoang, Tu, Quan
Editor: Phan Trung Anh, Tri Hoang, Cu Thanh Hoang

This is a fun video that takes place in the streets of Saigon. It samples a «nhạc chế» song («parody music»). Tùng Chùa is singing about the gangster lifestyle and the handcuff that’s keeping him in prison. Anh Phan offers his distinctive style of rapping: a lot of words that don’t really say anything and, at the same time, say everything.


Music: Tran Uy Duc
Track: Catwalk
Camera: Tran Uy Duc, Vudieunongsay (Nguyen Duy Anh)
Editing: Tran Uy Duc

Tran Uy Duc is a rising star in the experimental scene of Vietnam. This latest music video is taken from his second album Came.


Music: Nodey feat. TUIMI
Track: SINH TỐ #03
Footage: Internet
Editing: Nodey

Nodey is a French Vietnamese producer now based in Saigon, Vietnam. He started a YouTube series called Sinh Tố («smoothie»), where he uses samples of traditional instruments to collaborate with local musicians, singers, and rappers. Videos in the Sinh Tố series use Nodey’s personal phone footage and friends’ footage of life in the streets of Vietnam, as well as footage taken from the internet.


Music: Rắn Cạp Đuôi feat. Abi Wasabi
Track: Bloody
Footage: Vietnamemes, Anh Phi
Editing: Celina Huynh

For Circa Art’s 10th anniversary, Gãy Collective submitted an art video under the general theme «Where Do We Go From Here?», raising a question about our future. In contrast to solalstagia and dystopian narratives, we embrace radical positivity by acknowledging we are already doomed, channeling the resilience and adaptability that have been our defining ways to navigate through history. Vietnam’s latitude puts it at the forefront of global warming’s effects and part of the country will be submerged within a few decades. Yet the playfulness and ingenuity of Vietnamese can turn the uncomfortable and unforeseen into a new playground. «SỐNG VỚI LŨ» literally means «living with flood». It is also an idiom used for accepting the situation – any situation at all. The video contains footage taken from our personal phones and footage from the internet.

Biography

Gãy is a Saigon-based music & arts collective. We throw rave nights, release electronic music, and lead mental health initiatives. We embrace flaws and oddities, fueled by the desire to connect and explore a shared common identity in constant mutation.

Published on February 02, 2023

Last updated on June 13, 2023

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