13 States of Malaysia
production credits
Poems
The poems were composed by Christopher Funkhouser in Malaysia, 2006. These writings result from a combination of observation, notation, and processing information found via the WWW Search Engine Google by way of Leevi Lehto's Google Poem Generator. Lehto's program was not used to write the poems but was used to obtain and order some of the information contained in them.
Images
All images were captured by Christopher Funkhouser in Malaysia, 2005-2006. For more images see the author's Flickr site, http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_funks.
Sounds
All of the ambient recordings were made via MiniDisc by Christopher Funkhouser at various in Malaysia, 2005-2006; seven of these recordings benefited from the production assistance of Dzulhafidz Dzulkifli (Ajoi), the studio engineer in the Audio Lab at Multimedia University (MMU), who used the program Sonar to polish the raw recordings. Ajoi co-produced the "Rin Gong" recording and engineered the rendition of "Negaraku" that is included in the database; MMU Faculty of Creative Multimedia (FCM) Tutor Lydia Chin Weng Ping played the keyboard on "Negaraku." My daughter, Constellation Hufnagel Funkhouser, was a willing collaborator on the "Multimedia University FCM Building Percussion" track.
Programming
The concept and design of the database was devised by Christopher Funkhouser during a residency as Visiting Fulbright Scholar in the FCM at MMU in Cyberjaya, Malaysia, in 2006. The java applet that serves to randomize delivery of the content was written by Chee Keh Siong, a researcher in the Faculty of Information Technology, MMU, who helped shape the project and was a helpful collaborator in many ways.
Further Acknowledgements
Several institutions and individuals have helped to facilitate the production of this work. The Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) and the Malaysian-American Commission On Educational Exchange (MACEE), organizations that administer the Fulbright Scholar Program in the United States and Malaysia (respectively), were instrumental to this research by approving my Fulbright proposal ("Hypermedia Writing") and supporting my residency in Malaysia. The Faculty of Creative Multimedia at Multimedia University gave me access to vital resources (such as the WWW and Library) and a space in which to conduct the research; the College of Science and Liberal Arts at New Jersey Institute of Technology generously supported my leave of absence in Spring 2006. As a participant in the International Visitors Programme sponsored by the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia I visited Langkawi, where some of these recordings were made above Datai Bay. I wish to thank the following individuals, who also helped enable the work: Professor Somnuk Amnuaisuk, Faculty of Information Technology MMU (for sharing Keh Siong with me); Wong Chui Yin, FCM (for introducing me to Prof. Somnuk); Dr. Ahmad Rafi, Dean of the FCM (for granting access to the MMU FCM Audio Lab); Rozi Amin (for sharing his MiniDisc battery) and, finally, as always, I applaud the steady foundation of my family, especially my wife Amy Hufnagel, who was a brave and patient accomplice during this Malaysian journey.
Chris Funkhouser
Visiting Fulbright Scholar
Faculty of Creative Multimedia
Cyberjaya, MalaysiaAssociate Professor
Department of Humanities
New Jersey Institute of Technology
University Heights
Newark, NJ 07102 USA© 2006
For more information or inquiry please contact the author via funkhouser@adm.njit.edu