Good morning Vietnam

Think contemporary art and this small corner of South-East Asia is not the first place that springs to mind. But a casual flick through Vietnam Eye – part catalogue, more book – will have you turning to the East and booking your flights in no time. Over the past few years there has been growing interest and anticipation around a groundswell of new talent, whose work is both visually striking yet deeply thoughtful and frequently provocative. The breadth of styles, often produced by one artist, is also really impressive.

But why now? And how did this happen? Editor Serenella Ciclitira, who founded the Global Eye Programme with husband David, gives important context in the introduction. "Reforms that took place thirty years ago in art education [known as "Doi Moi' or "open door"] have borne fruit, with a new generation who have been able to combine local concerns with a sophisticated awareness of international contemporary art. The growth of an international Vietnamese diaspora also meant that a number of artists, such as DInh Q Le, grew up with both a global and a Vietnamese sensibility."

At its best, art is fascinating because it can reflect what's going on in a place and time, but also in the artist himself/herself. Surveying inner and outer worlds and pondering a compelling tension between the two. A country like Vietnam has gone through so much change over the past century, the effects of which are still contemplated to this day as Nguyen Quan explains in his essay.  

"Pre-war artists were romanticists always in search of poetic and lovely objects. Resistance/war patriotic artists used their tools to look for realities and truths that were 'presumptively established' by the then ideological system. Doi Moi artists, instead, only embrace the quest for their own identity. Asking themselves the most important of all questions , 'Who am I?', they were able to resurrect the original and universal core of artistic creation. After the year 2000, this 'modern-style' confidence, arrogance even, was further backed by their willingness to provoke and challenge anyone to defined anything that was contemporary art-related."

A combination of international patronage, the burgeoning digital economy, restless ambition and pockets of healthy resistance have conspired to create a scene that is so hard to pin down. Here are a few favourites from the 75 artists included in the book. Many of these people will be part of a huge showcase exhibition that opens at the Saatchi Gallery this September.

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A Snapchat story

It's not my go-to app but occasionally someone does something interesting with Snapchat. There is editor Yusuf Omar and his mobile team at the Hindustan Times, for example. They have covertly reported on the drugs problem in Punjab and discreetly given voice to sexual abuse victims. But student Trim Lamba's short film Cracked Screen has taken the social media tool into a whole new realm.

Chantelle Levene stars as a regular young woman sharing her everyday life with followers on Snapchat. She goes to the gym, goofs around with friends, dances in her bedroom to the likes of Nadia Rose and airs her frustrations about job hunting, among other filter-enhanced moments. When she suffers a horrific attack, the story becomes quite gripping … and disturbing.

Having read the synopsis, you expect the worst and wait for the shocking act. As Short of the Week's Chelsea Lupkin points out, "You’ll experience empathy for her injuries, the betrayal she feels by her followers, and a creeping guilt at being a voyeuristic spectator in her undoing." For me, it's the reactions of others, played out through her reactions on Snapchat, that are most affecting. How things can quickly turn nasty, and friend becomes foe. Her see-sawing emotions as the victim becomes increasingly insecure, unraveling in a series of images and messages.

Good news travels fast but bad news is almost instant. In the intemperate and often disheartening world of social media, people frequently bypass compassion and empathy, taking pleasure in the misfortune of others. And they love to gang up on those under fire. It's the mob mentality that Jon Ronson wrote about so poignantly in his book So You've Been Publicly Shamed. 

The title Cracked Screen acknowledges the obsession with image and the power of myth-making in the age of social media. When that image is tarnished or shattered, what then? Where does that leave us? This is a bold and exciting use of the medium. Snapchat, an in-the-hand experience, definitely makes the narrative feel more intimate. And real. Chantelle's character could be your friend. You feel complicit.

The composite narrative – a sequence of moving image, stills, captions and doodles – adds tension and mystery to the story, not least because we only see the victim's reactions. The viewer's imagination then goes to work. Trim Lamba and his team have done a great job on this. It's exciting new ground for filmmaking and, as she says, challenges our conception of what we deem 'cinematic' — an idea that should intrigue and propel us all".

Digging in the archive: ITN Source Competition

The other night I was having a chat with a friend of mine about filmmaking and editing. We are both determined to get busy behind the camera this year but, in fairness, I'm the one that needs to pull up his socks.

My script writing for branded short films is developing nicely but it's been a while since I last said, "Cut!" on my own set. I am currently scheming with my good friend Paul Reson, who is a talented editor and director, so we may collaborate on a few documentary projects this year.

Of course, there are myriad technical skills to acquire if you want to be a professional filmmaker but one of the most crucial is editing. Even if a producer/director works with an editor, it's only going to be a fruitful collaboration if he/she has a good understanding of the edit and shoots accordingly. Being an experienced editor can even make you a better director.

There are two main options for software, apart from Avid. Many seasoned filmmakers still swear by Final Cut, while others find Adobe Premiere more manageable. I tried the latter last year for the first time when entering the ITN Source Short Film Competition. It was great fun to root around their gargantuan archive, and quite a challenge to stay focused on task. Thankfully, selecting, chopping and changing were simple tasks with Premiere. (It still went down to the wire on deadline day.)

I needed to pick a theme and then try to convey the corresponding mood within 60 seconds. It's often said that a film is made in the edit. As I started working with all the clips in my bin, I quickly realised how influential editors can be in constructing a narrative, particularly on a shorter piece. The impact of quick cuts to add tempo or a pause to heighten suspense, putting the right sounds to a sequence to project a certain mood… 

Unfortunately I wasn't shortlisted but I'm grateful for the opportunity to learn a new skill with the support of ITN Source and Audio Network. Hopefully, they will run the competition again this year. If so, definitely give it a go; especially if you're a beginner. Experiment, play, let your imagination run wild. Even greats like Kubrick and Herzog had to start somewhere.

Here is my entry. Can you guess what the theme is?

Music: Audio Network
Stonk (Chris Blackwell)
Chase (Evelyn Glennie)
Batucada (Neil Clarvis)

How to harness stress

I was a kid with a lot on his mind. Conscientious yet earnest. Exams were second only to pre-season fitness training in the list of things I most dreaded in life. Well that’s the standard school experience, isn't it? Yes, but there’s more to it than that. I was conditioned to define myself by intellectual ability from an early age. My family would often tell me how clever I was, which only ramped up the pressure to perform while my boisterous classmates seemed to cruise through adolescence without a care. And these were good schools by the way. Private schools where academia was taken very seriously. I often look back and wonder what I would say to my 15-year-old self? “Chill out mate,” for starters.

The assumption is that stress is bad for us. Our mood goes down, we feel increasingly irritable, we drink more, sleep less and age faster. Our world is one of increasingly burdensome demands and unrealistic expectations – at school, in the workplace, at home, online. Many of us simply can’t cope. The number of prescriptions for anti-depressants has doubled over the past decade (to 61 billion), while suicide – often linked to feelings of extreme stress – is the biggest killer of men under 49. No wonder meditation and mindfulness are big business.

So imagine my surprise when I attended a talk given by Ian Robertson, professor of psychology at Trinity College Dublin and currently a director of Global Brain Health Institute, advocating the benefits of being under pressure. He is the author of a new book called The Stress Test, which is the culmination of more than 30 years of research into neuropsychology. Like me, he’s been looking back on his life and thinking, “How could I have done things better?”

His starting point was Nietzsche and this quote:

“What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”

Robertson talked about an “arousal sweet spot” and trying to find that optimum activation point where we are challenged but not overwhelmed. He went into the science behind this state, clearly explaining that we are able to regulate the level of noradrenaline in our locus coeruleus by a simple act such as taking a few deep breaths. Or adopting a power pose and better posture to create a desired positive emotion (such as confidence) and improve blood flow to the front of the brain.

“Anxiety is excitement without breath” – Fritz Perls

We can also change the context of our brain’s arousal using words. He gave one delightful example of an experiment where two sides of a room were asked to calculate sums and perform songs in front of each other, preceding their test with one of two phrases – “I feel excited” and “I feel anxious”. The first group comfortably performed better. Robertson said the anxious group had a “threat mindset” while the excited grip adopted a “challenge mindset”. 

The symptoms of both states are quite similar – increased heart rate, dry mouth, sweating, churning stomach. The key is being able to use this heightened sense of sharpness to your advantage and to reframe potential threats as challenges. In turn, you begin to notice signs of good things to come and can more easily recall good memories in the moment. For example, anticipating the thrill of nailing that presentation and holding a crowd rather than dreading the embarrassment of fluffing your lines in front of everybody. Robertson goes into more detail on this fight or flight phenomenon here. A little stress can be good, therefore, but not the chronic kind as this stimulates the production of cortisol, which is quite corrosive in the body, moving a person into a state of fear and avoidance.

“I can’t go on. I’ll go on” – Samuel Beckett

Another factor that profoundly affects the biology in our bodies is adversity. According to Robertson, 30% of genetics is inherited. The remaining 70% is “to play for”. He described the brain as a “highly sophisticated piece of hardware, with 100 billion neurons and millions of connections [synapses].” Software can have a profound effect on the performance of that hardware, so experiencing or undertaking moderately stressful challenges is a way of writing/re-writing that software.

Consequently, a person assumes greater control over their life and becomes more resilient in moments of adversity, thus being able to thrive in moments of stress. Compare a person that’s been cushioned and coddled as a child with someone that’s come from the school of moderately hard knocks and the former is far more likely to buckle than the latter. Apparently, it’s not good to tell kids how intelligent they are. Thanks mum.

One of the ideas that really tickled the audience was “being your own drug dealer”. Robertson was referring to the fact that successful people regularly reappraise themselves and set moderate goals. These stimulate the left-brain approach system, which encourages us to seek rewards while triggering the release of anxiety-tackling, mood-boosting dopamine. Being skilled in goal setting can help you get the best out of a given situation, as long as it’s balanced with right-brain avoidance activity and noradrenaline release. How you find that balance and draw the line between moderate and extreme stress can only come with trial and error.

Baffled by all this science? Ok, here are the key takeaways:

• Breath deeply, regularly
• Stand tall
• Say “I am excited” 
• Set goals and reappraise them
• Read The Stress Test
• Play this ("We gon make it.")