On-Air, Off-Air Ideological Signal in the Atmosphere

# InsomniaInExhibition

"On-Air, Off-Air," an ideological sign in the atmosphere by Ho Rui An, a Singaporean artist, and Sung Tieu, a Vietnamese artist, under the selection of Vincent Ardidon, a Filipino curator.

This exhibition takes us to explore the role of the state and bureaucracy in the process of linking capital, finance, and global control mechanisms, and invites us to see that the atmosphere itself is a new battleground of war, since the Cold War era when the dissemination of one ideology would mean the exclusion of another, both on the ground and in the air.

Ho Rui An's work exposes the hidden side of Singapore, through artwork laid out by simulating an oil company executive's office decorated with trees, but what's hidden behind it are documents, videos and photos telling the story of the global oil trade. He also presents a series of AI-created still life works based on Louis Weselling's book Fuelling the War that reveal the role of the Singapore oil company during the Vietnam War, allowing viewers to go back and question the energy that nurtured the war, and the latent interests behind it.

While Sung Tiao's work takes the audience back into the psychological space and mysterious echoes of the Cold War like a video layout that simulates architecture inside the Nacional Hotel in Havana, Cuba, the place where US embassy officials experienced Havana syndrome, she later turned to explore her own body through a work that used laser extraction techniques on stainless steel glass to convey images of the artist's own brain scans. She also takes the audience back to the public sphere with two digital clocks timed in New Delhi and Washington, D.C., where Havana Syndrome was reported. The work turned time itself into a tool to link remote areas to psychological warfare.

Continuing then, Sung Tiao also expands the narrative with a video that simulates the message about sound wave weapons and their impact on international relations, before concluding with a high-tone speaker sculpture resembling a real sound weapon, but is presented as an art object which creates no harm to the body; these works are therefore both simulations, ridicule, and questioning invisible state power, but instead subtly affect real life.

As the works of Ho Rui An and Sung Tiao converge, the On-Air, Off-Air exhibition becomes a dialogue that reveals the hidden dimensions of the Cold War, energy, economy, media, sound and psychology, that continue to leave traces and forces of reflection to the present day. The exhibit is part of the Jim Thompson House Art Gallery's Future Project, which aims to present contemporary works linked to the Cold War context in Southeast Asia and other areas, with support from the James H.W. Foundation. Thompson, Goethe Institute, A + Works of Art and GroundControl

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📍 Exhibition Place: The Jim Thompson Art Center, 3rd Floor, Gallery Room 1 and 2 (Bangkok)

📆 is open daily from now - October 5, 2025.

⏰ from 10 to 6 p.m.

🎟️ Admission fee 50 baht

🚘 There's parking.

🚍 Public Travel: BTS National Stadium

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# JimThompsonArtcenter

# InsomniaScene

# Bangkok exhibition

# Cold War