Alien Signal: Saigon Murmuration

Alien Signal: Saigon Murmuration is a three-day international workshop in speculative design and technological art, run by the Department of Design at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) and RMIT University Vietnam. It is the second chapter of the Alien Signal series, an international interdisciplinary speculative design workshop series whose first chapter took place in Seoul.

Who is listening to the city? Every day, horns, engines and phone alerts fill Saigon's streets. The workshop asks what if all that noise is a language we have not yet learned. Twenty NTNU design students and twenty RMIT students, working in mixed teams, record central Saigon at rush hour, listen to it as a living sonic ecology, and turn what they hear into speculative work: an object, an imagined organism, a design fiction archive or an environment.

Programme

The workshop runs Tuesday 15 to Thursday 17 December 2026 at RMIT Saigon South, with fieldwork in central Saigon. Participants receive a Certificate of Participation. No experience in sound or speculative design is needed.

Open call

Twenty places are open to all RMIT University Vietnam students. Applications need a motivation statement of up to 250 words and three selected works shared as one link. Applications close on Friday 20 November 2026 at 11:59pm; outcomes follow on Friday 4 December.

Hosts

Dr Yiwen Tseng and Dr Liting Huang (NTNU); Bin Youn and Chau Tran-Vi (RMIT University Vietnam); Giang Nguyen Hoang, Local Artist Lead (Vietnam Media Lab).

Guests

The Korean artist duo CORD, Stella Kim (Jinju Kim) and Hyojin Ahn, join the first day and the field recording in central Saigon. Taking listening as a starting point, they explore how sound, space, bodies and relationships take shape, mainly through sound-based installation and performance. Their recent work asks how people perceive and make choices within environments shaped by technology. Their projects include Echo of the City (2025, a performance built from urban field recordings, and a 2026 sound and video installation), Dear Then (2026) and the musique concrète workshop series SOUND COLLAGE, in which participants explore a neighbourhood by listening.

Dates