The Awkward Listener is a participatory performance. It explores the relationship between sounds, awkward intimacy, the act of listening and movement of the body. The piece will consist of handmade speakers with limited volume in order to demand a specific type of listening from the audience. The sounds are to be explore in limited body movements and demand a specific type of observing. The viewers are asked to have their ear against or close to the speaker’s surface, and also asked to be still in their movement. Thus this act of listening does not only demand a certain kind of attention, it also create awkward intimacy between the viewers and the objects. The piece contains 4 speakers, each plays a different track: a whispering of a story, a reading of academic text, a conversation and a composition of sounds of the body, bodies to bodies and bodies in space.

Artist Bio

Phuong Nguyen, originally from Vietnam, is currently a designer and artist currently residing in Brooklyn, NY. She concentrates in New Media art. She is a part of Fantastic Futures and performed at the New Museum. She also has worked as a designer for MTV Networks. Her works are usually mixed media installation, sculpture and performance. Currently she is an iLand’s resident and Culture Push’s fellow