Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts

Project Coordinator
Niranjan Rajah
niranjan@faca.unimas.my

World Name: MERU
 

Project Description

: I am an art theorist, curator and artist. I am is Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and a Doctoral Fellow at CAiiA in Wales. I co-curated Malaysia's First Electronic Art Show' (1997) and co-founded E-Art Asian Online http://www.freespeech.org/eartasean/ I first heard of Eduverse through CyberForum ACCD where I was guest speaker recently http://www.mheim.com/cyberforum/html/summer2k/log-S3.html I am so excited by my experience that I want to use active worlds for my own Art Work, Art Pedagogy and Art Research Art Work - The Interrogation Of The Opposition Of 'Site' And 'Non-Site' In Installation Art Practice This part of the project involves an exhibition Singapore titled 'La folie de la Peinture' (http://www.artpages.de/installation). that is scheduled for March 2000 at the Substation. In this show I will examine the ontology of installation art. The central core of this work is a multivalent linking of photographic documentation of past "site-specific" installation work. Photographs of the inert objects of the original installation are reinvested with an online interactive presence. The presentation of this work at the Substation will involve a display of the 'objects' of the installation. Some of these objects will be exhibited as in the original installation, others in a vitrine to index historicity and the museum. There will be a computer with internet connection and a data projector in the exhibition space. This 'remediation' of the earlier site-specific installation will be extended into Avatar desk top VR. A room will be built in MERU that is analogous to the real world installation. Via a the 'virtual world' interface the audience in the gallery and elsewhere on the Internet will be able to engage with the artist and invited theorists as 'Avatars'. Art Pedagogy - The Creation Of An Environment For Teaching And Learning Of 'Contemporary Southeast Asian Art'. As a historian and theorist of 20th Century Southeast Asian Art, I have designed and taught courses on Contemporary Southeast Asian Art at the Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS). In the Winter Quarter of 2001 I will be delivering two courses in the same subject at the Dept. of Design and the South East Asian Institute at UCLA. MERU will develop a transgeographical site for a seminars in Contemporary Southeast Asian Art that will bring together students at UCLA and at UNIMAS. This space will also serve as a model in the Faculty's (based in Sarawak) efforts to develop a Studio based MA in Expanded Media at a remote location (Kuala Lumpur) and one of the main questions is -"How do we deliver a studio based course without extensive 'Studio Crit" engagement. The answer may lie in the creation of a 'Cybrid' environment where MA candidates (artists) can build 'virtual studios' with real world intefaces via video conferencing and or still image uploads using digital cameras etc. The Contemporary Southeast Asian Art 'virtual classroom' will serve as a prototype or at least as an experiment towards realising the 'Cybrid Studios' for the MA programme. Art Research -The Application Of New Media In The Sacred Arts. MERU will serve the applied aspect of my doctoral research. 'Digital Tools as Divine Instruments: Towards the Application of Computer Networks and Virtual Reality in the Sacred Arts'. Metaphysics and spirituality have been central to the understanding of 'Cyberspace' but the approach has essentially been secular and eclectic. While, the theories and terminologies of various sacred traditions have been applied in the interpretation of and even in the very 'construction' of the notion of 'virtual reality', there has been a dearth of investigations as to how these new modes of representation might be applied within the traditions from which they have drawn their metaphors. Indeed, the subtle human/computer interfaces that are emerging hold great possibilities for the extension of traditional forms and rituals into networked and immersive environments with their sacred instrumentalities intact. With a focus on Hindu and Buddhist traditions, this research will attempt to lay the theoretical ground for the application of digital technologies in the sacred arts. To begin with a Temple to Lord Shiva will be erected, consecrated and used for worship.