Siedl/Cao: Listening to Noise with a Different Ear
I first discovered Siedl/Cao through a video of two young artists releasing a white flute-kite into the sky, capturing its drifting whispers with a wireless microphone. The resulting soundscape felt like a gentle composition drawn from everyday natural noises. They are sounds we encounter all the time, yet rarely pause to savor amid the pace of contemporary life.
Sound Rides with a Flute-Kite
“Sound ride” was one of Siedl/Cao’s most delightful projects. Participants rode motorbikes through Hà Nội, Đà Nẵng, and Quy Nhơn with flute-kites mounted on their helmets. The familiar whistle of the countryside kite rose above the urban din, creating a quietly poetic contrast. Each participant brought their own motorbike and helmet, and the ride invited them to rediscover familiar streets from a new sensorial angle.
The duo still recalls the project fondly. “Some xe ôm drivers were visibly amused to see a long line of people cruising through the city while producing soft flute sounds. At traffic lights, passersby often approached us because they wanted to join the ride or try wearing the flute-kite themselves. We loved watching adults explain our odd little contraptions to curious children. We still remember the mood of the whole ride, the bright faces of the participants, and the reactions from people on the street. Some were even surprised at how short the trip felt, even though it stretched nearly 14 kilometers and lasted more than an hour.”
The sound ride was designed to deepen one’s awareness of the world around them. By placing two contrasting layers of sound next to each other, the noise of the city and the voice of the flute-kite, Siedl/Cao hoped participants could see themselves in a new relationship with their environments. It was a way to hear noise with different ears and to see the city with different eyes.
Contemporary Art as Gradual Evolution
Lan reflects that contemporary and experimental music is created in the immediacy of the present moment and often carries the spirit of improvisation. She believes what Siedl/Cao are doing is not a sudden shift but a gradual evolution. Since graduating, both have repeatedly questioned who they are and what they want to pursue. They are still searching and still testing new approaches. Siedl shares this view. His own journey began in jazz and then unfolded naturally into the artistic language he uses today.
Although their practice is contemporary, both artists still admire classical art. They believe classicism is a quality that art in any era can aspire to. For them, “classical” is not a label but a virtue, and “experimental” is a mindset. Following that logic, Mozart, Beethoven, and many great composers who constantly pushed the limits of their craft were, in their own time, both contemporary and experimental.
Sound is not their only medium. Siedl/Cao use whatever means best to translate an idea. Movement, light, costume, text, shadow, video, and object-based installations are all part of their vocabulary.
Inspired by Local Stories
Throughout their practice, Siedl/Cao have created works shaped by the cultural textures of places they travel through. One example is “Rites of Kite,” a multi-disciplinary performance series that reimagines the act of flying a kite through poetry reading, minimalist music, and contemporary dance. Their intentional use of traditional Vietnamese recitative poetry created a striking contrast with the modern setting of high-rise buildings and an eight-lane expressway.
Their music theater work “The fifth cardinal direction,” premiered at the Hà Nội Opera House in 2017, was inspired by the music and rituals of northern Vietnamese ethnic groups. Another project, “The voice of shadow,” drew from stories in Cyprus and allowed participants to move their own shadows across various instruments, creating different rhythms through the gentle “touch” of shadow.
Speaking about their research in northern Vietnam, Lan says the music and rituals there are moving because of their sincerity, mystery, ancient atmosphere, and closeness to human life. Many of these traditions use the raw human voice as their main instrument. Lan admits she is not an overly emotional person, and she does not try to insert a specific emotion into her work. She prefers instead to evoke a mood or a mental state.
Intentional Moments of Quiet
Modern life has left most of us overwhelmed by information, including sound. We now encounter noise everywhere, both offline and online. Thoughts are constantly interrupted. Lan describes this as the fragmentation of modern living. Aware of this, the duo spend less time on social media and give more of themselves to real-life presence, practicing the ability to concentrate on a single activity for a long stretch of time.
What message do they hope to share about listening?
LAN
Try listening to the sounds around you as if they were your own artwork. A background score may even hint at your next decision in the film of your life.
SIEDL
Listen consciously. Even the most ordinary moments hold beauty and surprise. Leave your earphones at home and take time to truly hear what surrounds you. See if you can recognize what you’re listening to and what it might mean.
They both agree that absolute silence is impossible. We always hear our own breath and heartbeat. They say they seek quieter moments because sound carries so much information that it can become overwhelming. When Lan lived in Hà Nội, she learned to filter out sounds she did not want or need. Now, living in a quieter area, the act of perceiving sound and music has become easier.
In many ways, the way Siedl/Cao weave a symphony from so many different sounds, connecting the city with nature, the present with the future, and humans with everything we interact with, becomes a form of balancing the outer world with the inner one. It is a practice of navigating between noise and quiet.
Siedl/Cao is an artist duo composed of Cao Thanh Lan from Vietnam and Gregor Siedl from Austria. They met at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels and have worked together in sound art, interdisciplinary art, and contemporary music since 2013. The duo received Austria’s “New Sound 2018–2020” award in the Contemporary Music category.
Their works have been performed and exhibited at numerous festivals and art institutions around the world, including Ars Electronica in Linz, the Ming Contemporary Art Museum (McmA) in Shanghai, the Taipei Contemporary Art Center (TCAC), and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin.
Originally published in Đẹp Magazine, Issue 299
Photography: Siedl/Cao
