TAT FAT SIZE TEMPLE

Tat Fat Size Temple (TFST) began as an audio based netcast originally commissioned by KunstRadio for Sound Drifting, an international project for generative sound composers held during the 1999 Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria.

Encouraged by the success of this project we (Toy Satellite) were interested to take the idea further and develop a totally screen-based music/sound instrument that worked in tandem with image - a prototype of an instrument that both sound and image designers could compose for.

Rather than opt for the conventional knobs and sliders approach, we were interested in the notion of an interface that had a strong conceptual background, that was subtle, delicate, informative and satisfying to use. Stuff-Art 2000 gave us the opportunity to explore these ideas as well as to illustrate the source of our sound and visual inspiration.

In the late 80s, the Penan people of Sarawak, East Malaysia, made news across the world when they blockaded the encroachment of logging activities in their ancestral lands, land that they were still inhabiting. Since then, much of this land has been clear felled and much more continues to be logged, making way for oil palm plantations and other questionable developments. Many have suffered for the excesses of a few.

The plight of Penan, Iban, Kenyah, Kayan, Kelabit and other indigenous people of Sarawak is more desperate now than it has ever been. Lives have been lost, land has been destroyed and homes have been ravaged. Despite the losses there remains natural resources yet to be discovered, nurtured and protected.

TFST is an attempt at creating an informative and interactive, sound-based website of a culture in transition, one that endures both the urbanisation and economic imperatives that are alien to it.

This is identified by the contrasts provided in TFST by the images of Smith Street, the main commercial artery running through the former working class suburbs of Fitzroy and Collingwood, Melbourne.

Landmarked by government housing apartments, these suburbs have been common destinations for migrants in particular Vietnamese, Chinese, Greek, Italian and to a lesser extent, middle eastern communities.

In the past two decades these areas have become synonymous with significant increases in residential and commercial property values. Despite the fact that inhabitants of government housing live on the fringes of the poverty line, commerce has descended and with it comes expectations of a higher standard of living at the expense of low income residents.

The conditions in this urban environment informed the parallels that could be drawn between urbanisation of indigenous Sarawak society and the homogenisation of urban life in Australia.

Soundscapes evolve out of recordings made in June 1999 during the Gawai Antu festival at Rumah Sauh and Rumah Jeli, Iban longhouse communities, Sarawak, Malaysia. TFST is dedicated to these remarkable and resilient people.