2-channel video-installation, color, sound, 22’, salt. Commissioned by the 12th Berlin Biennale, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin.

The work is a virtual diaspora of intergenerational memories. The work metaphorically links the Vietnamese ritual of caring for the dead with an allegorical and virtual memory box that stores mnemonic moving images. The installation functions as a Vietnamese water puppet theatre, utilizing its ancient methods of storytelling and knowledge dissemination to preserve historical narratives. Vietnamese Mathuật (“magic”) = ma ("ghost") + thuật (“craft”), is the art to communicate with ghosts. MMRBX is an acronym for the working term “memory box", which simulates the diaspora of memories. Through choirs and other storytelling devices, the work evokes a sense of intergenerational continuity, where stories begin and end through ghostly encounters. The work metaphorically links the Vietnamese ritual of caring for the dead with an allegorical and virtual memory box that preserves mnemonic moving images.

Mathuật–MMRBX is a virtual diaspora of intergenerational memories. The work metaphorically links the Vietnamese ritual of caring for the dead with an allegorical and virtual memory box that stores mnemonic moving images. The installation functions as a Vietnamese water puppet theatre, utilizing its ancient methods of storytelling and knowledge dissemination to preserve historical narratives. Vietnamese Mathuật (“magic”) = ma ("ghost") + thuật (“craft”), is the art to communicate with ghosts. MMRBX is an acronym for the working term "memory box", which simulates the diaspora of memories. Through choirs and other storytelling devices, the work evokes a sense of intergenerational continuity, where stories begin and end through ghostly encounters. The work metaphorically links the Vietnamese ritual of caring for the dead with an allegorical and virtual memory box that preserves mnemonic moving images.

Touring
2022, 12th Berlin Biennale
2023, Screening, FAMU, Academy of Performing Arts, Prague, CZ; Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, DE; Kunsthalle Bratislava, SK
2025, Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, DE; Screening, Kunstmuseum Moritzburg Halle (Saale), DE; rk Galerie für zeitgenössische Kunst im Ratskeller, Berlin, DE; Spreepark Art Space, Berlin, DE
2026, Silent Green, Berlin, DE
2027, Kunstraum Bethanien, Berlin, DE

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2-channel video installation, HD, color, sound, overhead projector, film, shadows. Commissioned by Galerie im Turm, Berlin, DE

Collaborators

Vanessa Vu is a journalist and writer. She was born in Eggenfelden in 1991 and spent her childhood in a home for asylum seekers in Pfarrkirchen. She has been working as an editor at ZEIT ONLINE since 2017. She has been awarded the Theodor Wolff Prize, the Helmut Schmidt Prize and the Lessing Prize for Criticism, among others, for her work.

Petra Molnar is the Associate Director of the Refugee Law Lab at York University, a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Centre for Critical Internet at Harvard University, and co-creator of the Migration+Technology Monitor– a map of border technologies across the world. Petra’s first book is called The Wall Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (The New Press, 2024).

Khoi Nguyen is a postdoc at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Vienna. He completed his PhD on language practices in the Vietnamese diaspora of the United Kingdom at the University of Manchester, where he also held a Research Fellowship until 2023.

Ahmad Katlesh is a writer. He was born in Damascus in 1988 and studied mathematics. After the Syrian revolution, he fled to Jordan in 2013 and worked there as a journalist. He came to Germany in 2017 with a scholarship from the Heinrich Böll House.

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Igloo White‍

Using the cover of darkness, dense jungle and bad weather, North Vietnamese trucks carried critical supplies downthe Ho Chi Minh Trail nearly undetected. Since large numbers of American ground troops were not permitted into neutral Laos to stop the trucks, the U.S. Air Force deployed a system of electronic equipment to thwart the enemy's cover and alert U.S. commanders. This highly-classified electronic system was known as Igloo White. The system became operational in late 1967, and it consisted of three elements: sensors dropped by aircraft along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, an orbiting EC - 121B "Batcat" or the QU-22B aircraft that picked up and relayed signals from the sensors, and the Infiltration Surveillance Center (ISC), which received the data. Operated by Task Force Alpha at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base (NKP RTAFB), the ISC interpreted the sensor data and passed target information to combat commanders, who sent attack aircraft to the target.

shadows, blackout film, mirror film, dimensions variable. Commissioned by Galerie im Turm, Berlin. Photo: Alice M. Huynh.

The Birds (1952), Daphne Du Maurier used “The Birds” to reference the environmental destruction to England from events such as the Battle of Britain and The Blitz. The birds attacks reveals a broader view towards Nazi’s and how they invaded England during World War II resulting in the destructing of the environment.

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The Birds (1963) is a natural horror thriller film by Alfred Hitchcock, that is loosely based on the 1952 short story of the same name by Daphne du Maurier. It focuses on a series of sudden and unexplained violent bird attacks on the people of Bodega Bay, California, over the course of a few days.

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The Drones (2015) In the 63-second ad by Audi, a huge swarm of rogue delivery drones hovers menacingly outside a corporate office building; nervous employees waiting to go home gather in the lobby as they are warned to walk slowly and quietly out to their cars.

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The Wall of Drones (2018) "Each drone in the wall starts its day in a base station where it is recharged, using solar power. Then, the drone automatically takes off and goes on patrol towards the next base station." In a 2018 promotional video, BRINC CEO, Blake Resnick, standing at an unnamed stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border, demonstrates how his company’s drones could be used to detect, track, and interrogate. Brinc’s “Values & Ethics” webpage offers a salve, asserting a “duty to bring these technologies into the world responsibly” and a commitment to “never build technologies designed to hurt or kill.” In the promotional video the BRINC drone ultimately physically attacks with a Taser. Resnick later said that “the video was faked” — the company “never built a drone with a functional taser.” The video, he said, used compressed gas to fire a Taser dart at the actor but “without actually putting high voltage through the wires.” Brinc’s current main offering to police and other first responders is the LEMUR S drone, which closely resembles the Wall of Drones unit but does not have a weapon installed. Watch BRINC promotional video (2018) https://theintercept.com/2021/12/13/brinc-startup-taser-drones-migrants/

Research Excerpts

Robotic Dogs
In 2022, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it was training “robot dogs” to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border against migrants. Four-
legged machines equipped with cameras and sensors would join a network of drones and automated surveillance towers nicknamed the “smart wall.” Molnar,
P. (2024). The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. The New Press.

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Boston Dynamics
Likewise, several U.S. cities seem to have acquired dog-like robots for policing. In 2023, the Los Angeles City Council approved the donation of a four-legged
robot to their police department, the third largest in the county. The robot named “Spot” is roughly the size of a golden retriever and was manufactured by
Boston Dynamics, a Massachusetts-based robotics firm that is a global leader in developing quadruped robots for policing and surveillance.

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“Spot”
The US robot has also made it to Germany. On 13 May 2024, a customised version of “Spot” patrolled the Munich Airport for demonstration purposes. It is part of the Digital Testbed Air Cargo (DTAC) project, where several AI and autonomous devices were demonstrated to either completely take over some labour-intensive and repetitive tasks, or to support employees in their physically demanding work. The project includes researchers from the Fraunhofer IML, the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, the insurance company KRAVAG and industrial partners at Munich Airport, including Cargogate, CHI, Sovereign Speed and DB Schenker.

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Cardboard, print, laser cut, Commissioned by Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig.

Taking the form of a Zettelkasten––a card-file system––the work stores and organizes information. Punched cards are arranged in a grid, interrupted by deliberate gaps that echo the holes of a punched card. The curation attends to systemic non-linearity and incompleteness by resisting any legible totality, and insisting on fragmentation and indexicality. Given dynamic logic and its continuous expansion, the work foreground how meaning remains provisional––rearranged and contextually renegotiable.

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Through contextual relations, intertextuality and cross-referencing, it negotiates how to hold space for the unspeakable and unrepresentable dimensions of collective trauma, and its largely unwritten histories. Operating as both a material carrier and a trace of human labor, each manually designed punched card encodes asymmetries of power and memory.

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Further developed in 1890 by Herman Hollerith for the U.S. Census Bureau and data processing, punched cards were appropriated by the Nazi regime. They allowed for systematic categorization of populations for census purposes.

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Found objects, metal, steel balls, dimensions variable.

From the Provisionals Series: qưa bom I (lê, engl. Pear), 2025, found object, metal, steel balls, 16,5cm x 10cm x 4cm. Commissioned by Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Julian Blum.

Provisionals is a series of allegorical, found, and modified objects in correspondence with the Punched Cards Series. They are not merely objects, but examinations—stand-ins and for cycles of metal reuse and violent histories // Bà Nội, my grandmother, still keeps three aluminum pots of different sizes. These pots were cast from parts of U.S. aircraft shot down during the war in Vietnam // “Pots and Pans for Planes” was campaign launched by the British Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP) in 1940 to requisition household aluminium for the production of fighter planes in World War II // The donations often went toward making other military equipment, such as mess tins, rather than being used directly in airplane alloy, which required higher-grade materials // Amid shortages, potters in Japan were ordered to produce ceramic grenades // Church bells were melted down into weapons; after the war, decommissioned arms were recast as bells // In Lao, the classifier for bomb – nuoy – is the same as for fruit // in Vietnam, explosive remnants of war are named after fruits they resemble // Here ordinary language collapses lived realities. Mundane objects and materials oscillate between the domestic, the industrial, and the destructive.

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Cardboard, print, laser cut, paint, found metal objects, metal detector, 1-channel video, sound, color, robotic vacuum cleaner. Commissioned by Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig. Photo: Julian Blum

Paint Test, 2025
‍Paint, wall, dimensions variable paint, dimensions variable, commissioned by Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig. Photo: Julian Blum

Munich, 201X: A painting company reported how an open-plan office called in disbelief the day after the renovation. As the fresh paint dried overnight, the black of a hugeright-wing extremist symbol emerged from the wall. // Bitterfeld-Wolfen, 2017: A janitor was frustrated that during renovation work, the walls often had to be repainted several times – due to right-wing extremist symbols. A man in the same building proudly shared, that he had been in prison–not because he had killed a Vietnamese person, but because he had a right-wing synodal on his wall.
Paint tests, 1904 to 2031: The fields on the walls symbolize the period from 1904 to 2031. Each area marks one year. The black ones represent the beginnings of wars, massacres, and (disputed) genocides. If all armed conflicts were recorded, the wall would have to be completely black.

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Punched Cards, 2025 – ongoing
Cardboard, print, laser cut, commissioned by Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig.

Taking the form of a Zettelkasten––a card-file system––the work stores and organizes information. Punched cards are arranged in a grid, interrupted by
deliberate gaps that echo the holes of a punched card. The curation attends to systemic non-linearity and incompleteness by resisting any legible totality, and
insisting on fragmentation and indexicality. Given dynamic logic and its continuous expansion, the work foreground how meaning remains provisional––rearranged and contextually renegotiable. Through contextual relations, intertextuality and cross-referencing, it negotiates how to hold space for the unspeakable and unrepresentable dimensions of collective trauma, and its largely unwritten histories. Operating as both a material carrier and a trace of human labor, each manually designed punched card encodes asymmetries of power and memory. Further developed in 1890 by Herman Hollerith for the U.S. Census Bureau and data processing, punched cards were appropriated by the Nazi regime. They allowed for systematic categorization of populations for census purposes.

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Provisionals, 2025 – ongoing
Found objects, metal, steel balls, dimensions variable.

Provisionals is a series of allegorical, found, and modified objects in correspondence with the Punched Cards Series. They are not merely objects, but examinations—stand-ins and for cycles of metal reuse and violent histories // Bà Nội, my grandmother, still keeps three aluminum pots of different sizes. These pots were cast from parts of U.S. aircraft shot down during the war in Vietnam // “Pots and Pans for Planes” was campaign launched by the British Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP) in 1940 to requisition household aluminium for the production of fighter planes in World War II // The donations often went toward making other military equipment, such as mess tins, rather than being used directly in airplane alloy, which required higher-grade materials //Amid shortages, potters in Japan were ordered to produce ceramic grenades // Church bells were melted down into weapons; after the war, decommissioned arms were recast as bells // In Lao, the classifier for bomb – nuoy – is the same as for fruit // in Vietnam, explosive remnants of war are named after fruits they resemble // Here ordinary language collapses lived realities. Mundane objects and materials oscillate between the domestic, the industrial, and the destructive.

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Deminer, 2025–ongoing
Metal Detectors, commissioned by Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig.

Continuing the research on Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), the project examines how to the labour of demining can be mediated in institutional ans artistic contexts. Through the use of functioning metal detectors, visitors are invited to navigate Provisionals, encountering metal objects as materialized histories of violence. Within this interaction, the embodied experience positions visitors as both archaelogists and deminers.

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Ecosystem around E-WERK Luckenwalde, sand, stones, bricks, rope, cable ties, paper, tape, 3D-prints, acrylic, canvas, yarn, adhesive structure paste, foundobjects, steel balls, metal detectors, robot vacuum cleaner, cleaner, various found objects, 1-channel video, 2’, color.Installation view at E-WERK Luckenwalde, 2025. Photo: Leila Kaletta

Work Description‍

Operation Remediation examines the migration of technological innovations and their impact on ecosystems, with an emphasis on renegotiating the boundaries of the humanoid. Informed by Maithu Bùi’s personal history, the work addresses the enduring legacies of war and the entanglement of technological systems with structures of exploitation. The research project focuses on the instrumentalization of biological agents in the detection and disposal of explosives—for example, giant pouched rats, honeybees, or genetically modified E. coli—often in conjunction with sensor technologies within complex environmental conditions.

Text by Helen Turner

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Overhead Cable Infrastructure post-1975, after the war in Vietnam
In Saigon overground cable infrastructure post-1975 are a historical feature of the city and a visual manifestation of Time–space compression, a Marxist concept describing the altering of the qualities of space-time and the narrowing of the relationship between space and time that is a consequence of the expansion of capital. Due to Vietnam's rapid transition from a centralized command economy to a market-driven, capitalist system, the overground cable infrastructure is characterized by massive, tangled bundles of electrical wires and telecommunication cables that hang from concrete poles, often nicknamed "spider webs”. For decades, rapid urban growth and lack of strict planning led to a chaotic layering of power and communication lines. The overhead cables have posed significant hazard and infrastructure risks and failures due to short circuits, monsoon seasons and heavy rains, and a structural concerns due to their weight. Since 2017, the city has been aggressively moving these cables underground to improve safety and city appearance. This infrastructure shift is essential for "smart city" goals, including modernization, and a transition to high-voltage Iines for capacity expansion, improved telecommunications and traffic management.

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Mushrooms with a Mission, 2025
rope, cable ties, 3D-prints, acrylic, canvas, adhesive structure paste, dimensions variable.

In Quang Tri Province, one of the most mine-affected areas in Vietnam, a project called Mushrooms with a Mission provided survivors of intentionally placed landmine or dropped UXO (unexploded ordnance) survivors who had lost their limbs with mycelium bags to grow and farm mushrooms to earn a living. (Source: Humpty Dumpty Institute, Project RENEW).
Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor: “Impacts of 2025 United States Funding Cuts on Humanitarian Mine Action”: In Vietnam, where mine action operators rely heavily on funding from the US government, the work of all international operators stopped and around 1,000 deminers were let go when the funding freeze was introduced.