Digitisation of Indigenous Knowledge for Extended Reality and Cultural Heritage

From December 2nd to 12th, MoA Principal Investigators and Christian Kassung and Jürgen Sieck traveled to Sarawak for the Filtering project to prepare a Summer School directly on-site, which will take place there in March 2023. Already during the change in Singapore, we received the funding approval from the DAAD, so we had not only shorts but also good news in our luggage.

The trip began in Kuching, the capital of the Malaysian state of Sarawak in Borneo. Fortunately, the Borneo Cultures Museum there, the second largest museum in Southeast Asia, was currently hosting the temporary exhibition Serumpun: Crafts Across Borders as part of the »Cultural Assets and Vernacular Materials« program. This project of the Glasgow School of Arts with the Borneo Library showed the intertwining of ecosystem, craft practices, and materials using indigenous communities from Kalimantan, Sarawak, and Sabah as examples. Of particular interest in the cluster, context were lampshades made by designer Rosemarie Wong using traditional weaving techniques from Betong, Sarawak, but combining old and new materials. Due to rising sea levels, many natural materials are expected to become unavailable in the future. By interweaving different materials, they can be tested for their properties in the production process, but also in new contexts of use, before this comparison may no longer be possible. Diana Rose is also taking a similar approach with Batik Linut, using sago to create patterns for batik fabrics, a natural food, allowing communities to produce a marketable product.

On December 7th, we visited the World Fuzhou Heritage Gallery in Sibu. In 1901, the first just over 1,000 Chinese from Fujian Province landed on Borneo, and 100 years later 'their' story is found carved in stone on commemorative plaques at the entrance to the Gallery. The plaques tell a clear story, but the museum does not. We see in neo-Saxon imagery how the settlers struggled through the jungle, »but their perseverance and hard work brought about prosperity and progress.« The images focus on the successful subjugation of nature, but do not take into account possible other colonial perspectives. Thus, the snake gives way to the machete slash through the rainforest, while three people recognizable in their dress as 'other ethnics' (can) sell their wares. And while World War II bombers descend low over the city, parents calmly walk their children to school or stroll down the street with their arms folded behind their backs. So while we are dealing with a story on the panels at the entrance to the museum, the 600 or so objects inside are fighting their anonymity. Just under ten signs point to concrete object biographies and thus to possible stories. All other objects sink into the sea of historical things without being able to establish any contact with the reasons for which they were brought to the museum and kept there. Thus, the Fuzhou Gallery proves to be a difficult place in two senses: On the one hand, the exterior of the memory panels refuses any form of symmetrical historiography; on the other hand, the interior lacks any possibility of object-biographical access. The challenge of ethnographically appropriate access is high, especially when one considers the reception of alternative historical perspectives, which is difficult to assess from a European perspective.

The last two days were dedicated to field trips: on December 8th, to the Bawang Assan Longhouses of the Iban, and on December 9th to Mukha in the Lamin Dana Melanau Heritage Lodge. The nine longhouses of the Iban go back to the 18th century. Still, at the same time, they are connected to the mobile phone network by initiatives of the University of Technology Sarawak. This has had a significant impact on many areas of the community. For example, people are no longer invited to work together or hold meetings by passing on small personal messages, but via a WhatsApp group. What all the houses have in common is that they are acutely threatened by rising sea levels. In the monsoon season, the houses have to be partially lifted with jacks, which is possible thanks to the wooden construction, but directly illustrates the precarious environmental situation. Since a member of the community accompanied us, we were able to participate in a family dinner. The generational shift between the parents living on-site and the children studying or working in Sibu during the day was palpable but not disruptive. In one important respect, the Iban are self-sufficient: rice wine for daily use is made in every home in clay pots reminiscent of amphorae. Due to environmental conditions, local rice can only be used to a limited extent, but this has not yet made wine production obsolete as an everyday practice, at least not.

In contrast to the older longhouses of the Iban, the Lamin Dana Lodge in Kampung Tellian was rebuilt, but with traditional handicraft techniques and local materials. With its connection to Diana Rose, the lodge is also a cultural center for the sago-based dyeing technique Batik Linut. So Linut, eaten with sambal, was on the table while reducing the use of chemicals in textile production. But the visit to the »village museum« was particularly impressive. In the »small island«, the entire culture of the Melanau can be derived from the artifacts of a single family, including bodily practices that are extremely difficult to understand from a European perspective, such as the plating of newborn girls' foreheads. Also almost incomprehensible to Europeans was the cultural practice of headhunting. Despite being banned in the mid-19th century, this can still be traced among indigenous populations as late as the 1970s. Artifacts of this practice are present in the family museum, for example, storage jars, and carved figures with trophies on the belt, but also trophies in the community area of the longhouses.

Just before leaving, we had the great fortune to meet the manager of »Think and Tink«, Wendy Teo. Among other things, the free cultural center in Kuching conducted the workshop »B-Lab | Betterment Lab« in 2022. The questions and problems worked on there are closely related to the goals of the cluster. The cooperation between communities, universities, and industry is about developing new design strategies in the interplay of materials and structures. New materials and new and traditional design techniques are also being experimented with to develop innovative objects. It was impressive to see how interdisciplinary collaboration is organized without government funding and how offices, workshops, and communication spaces are operated alongside a gallery.

The visit to Sarawak, the numerous conversations, and the new experiences prepared us well for the Summer School »Digitisation of Indigenous Knowledge for Extended Reality and Cultural Heritage«. In addition to presenting Germany as a location for study and research, we will develop several joint projects. There are currently six topics to choose from:

MR & VR for the old Borneo Culture Museum,
Weaving & Contemporary Art,
New Material & Innovations,
Food & Culture,
Buah Pecah Pisau (Warrier Techniques) and
Borneo Culture & Shamans.

The visit of the University of Technology Sarawak in December 2022 and the realization of the DAAD Summer School in March 2023 are only the beginning of continuous cooperation. Further activities are planned such as joint scientific events, e.g. the conferences InHERIT in Sibu and Culture and Computer Science Lisbon as well as the exchange of lecturers and students within the framework of further DAAD projects.