Faridah Mohd Noor

Cyber performances, technical and artistic collaboration across continents

Our objective was to verify whether modern computer network and audiovisual technologies can enable collaborative work between performing artists when they are distributed across large distances and what the requirements and limitations are. Such distributed collaborative environments will bring new opportunities both for the artists and the audience.We describe our experiences gained from laboratory experiments and during cyber performances at APAN meetings that took place in Korea and Taiwan. We conducted several experiments of playing music together over distance.The maximum acceptable delay is between 15 and 30 ms.Order of importance for performers is good sound, feeling other musicians and good vision.Good sound means similar acoustic space characteristics of the local and remote sound.With higher delay, distributed music and dance can be successfully contributed to a common performance.

Gender-based strategies in Malaysian student blog forums

In this study we explored gender-based strategies used in mixed gender blog forums among Malaysian students. The qualitative study was based on the comments and feedback messages posted at the researchers blog by 53 students over a period of 13 months. By using Herrings [1] Computer Mediated Discourse Analysis [CMDA] approach, this study found that the female participants had used a significant percentage of stereotyping strategy, alliance building strategy, solidarity strategy and direct strategy compared to the male participants. This is contrary to some gender studies that found males to be more direct in gender-based interaction. Therefore, online interaction is not a representative of the way Malaysian men and women observe politeness system in face-to-face interaction.

Reproduction of South-East Asian cultural artefacts: A case of the Mah Meri

Priceless cultural heritage artefacts are gradually being lost due to negligence or the natural processes of deterioration and decay. As a modern means of preservation, three dimensional (3D) scanned replicas of cultural heritage artefacts are often reconstructed for research or for viewing by the public while the original is properly stored and curated. This paper describes the reproduction processes involved using a colour scanner and a colour 3D printer. The subject matter is based on the moribund cultural heritage of the Mah Meri tribe where its artefacts were fully scanned in 3D. The digitisation of its form, colour and texture followed by the physical reproduction of the Mah Meri heritage is the first of such activity in the nation.