The Cloud of Unknowing
7.2
June 2011
The boundary between viewer and art dissolves in Ho Tzu Nyen’s sublime work, The Cloud of Unknowing. Step inside and find a comfortable space in the room. On a screen, a narrative unfolds, set in a public housing complex in Singapore, where eight characters in eight apartments individually encounter a cloud, embodied both as a figure and a vaporous mist. The film is rear-projected and looped, integrating a complex soundtrack and synchronized steam machines to create a seamless and sublimely atmospheric sense of film/audience permeability. (Sundance Film Festival)