Ho Tzu Nyen’s multichannel video installation The Cloud of Unknowing (2011) explores the expansive subject of the representation of the elusive and amorphous cloud. Inspired by philosopher Hubert Damisch’s thesis on the form’s aesthetics and symbolism, A Theory of /Cloud/: Toward a History of Painting, first published in French in 1972, Ho’s work incorporates a set of eight compartmentalized vignettes, each centered on a character that stands for the cloud’s representation in historically significant Western European artworks by artists including Caravaggio, Francisco de Zurbarán, Antonio da Correggio, Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, Andrea Mantegna, and René Magritte, as well as the Eastern landscapes of Mi Fu and Wen Zhengming. This incorporation and blending of cultural, historical, and philosophical references, both Eastern and Western, is prevalent in Ho’s practice, which references painting (EARTH, 2009), pop music (The Bohemian Rhapsody Project, 2006), literature (The King Lear Project, 2008) and philosophy (Zarathustra: A Film for Everyone and No One, 2009).

5 to 9 comprises four short films that transpire across 5pm to 9am on the evening of the historic Brazil-Germany match at World Cup 2014, spanning intimate vignettes of unrequited love and final meetings. In China, a young migrant worker has saved 3,000 RMB to finally spend a night with a middle-aged prostitute, but she plans to leave the city the same night instead. In Singapore, a local teacher and his paramour from China are out for a rendezvous, submitting the fate of their future to the result of the football match. The Japanese counterpart centres on a porno-projectionist collecting debts from the punks for the poor. The film concludes in Thailand with the filming of the last scene of a sci-fi movie. Behind the camera, the director is suspicious of his leading actor and the actress who is also his wife.