Ho Tzu Nyen : Phantom Day and Stranger Tales

Rooted in the cultural and historical landscapes of East and Southeast Asia, Ho Tzu Nyen creates immersive video installations that blur the lines between myth and history, fiction and memory. “Jour spectral et contes étranges” (“Phantom Day and Stranger Tales”) brings together five multimedia works spanning over a decade, showcasing his ongoing exploration of fragmented narratives and unstable realities.

Ho combines lens-based media with AI, animation, found footage and algorithmic editing to question how state, cultural and personal histories are constructed and performed. His works draw from pre-colonial myths, colonial legacies and present-day geopolitics, where characters and motifs migrate across projects, forming a fluid, hallucinatory universe.

At the centre of the exhibition is “Phantoms of Endless Day”, a new installation commissioned by LUMA Arles. Based on an unfinished feature film, the work uses AI to reimagine lost footage, evoking multiple timelines and voices that suggest countless possible narratives. Ho’s experimental approach proposes a new cinematic language, where storylines fracture and recombine, inviting the viewer into an experience that is at once intellectual, emotional and speculative.