Category: What and who is it for?

Time have fly fast, year 2008 is now reaching at the end. Moi? I’m still in the progress of writing up…It’s been a hard year for me although I have to admin I have learned a lot. Few weeks ago I presented a paper in ICPE’08 (International Conference of Postgraduate Education) organised by USM in Gurney Hotel, Penang. As I imagined the crowd is not from the design background therefore the critics and comments I received is different, positive at least. It is interesting to see what others who come from non-designed background think about design project. I think designers should present more in the conference and write, it is very important to make others understand what we’re doing, and by doing so we will get a better idea and understanding of what we’re doing or working on. I have learned this process while teaching. I’ve been teaching more than 5 years now, casual, part-time and full-time. I found myself fascinated with the student behaviours and reaction with the subject. I came to understand that teaching requires a never ending learning process. To teach is to learn, by doing so one will never stop learning.

In our day to day life, unwittingly we practice this process. Progressively we learn and teach regardless the small actions, issues or thinking. And we talk about it to our families, friends etc. For example, we learn to have a breakfast everyday, by observing or by learning it from our parent. Breakfast, depending which cluster or ethnic group one belong to have its own way. It can be heavy, light, spicy, sweet, etc. Then we practiced and teach it to our children or friends. It is by nature a way of practicing our life..anyway..I shall not continue this discussion until I can articulate this topic clearer.

In relations to my blog title, I’m still asking the question about the notion of Malaysian Identity, I wonder if I ever would have the answer, or not? But I’m hoping I would be able at least to understand a lot more about Malaysia and its intimate connection to the design practice.

To open the new year event I will be giving a talk about Malaysian Design in particular on a topic or vernacular design in Malaysia, whether it is genuine or merely a copycat act. I’m exited about this topic and hoping to get something out of this discussion with other Malaysian designers.

Meanwhile I’m still continue writing my pieces of collected design exploration through my PhD. Rewrite is the words that I’m now more and more getting comfortable with. It is now my close friend. If you in KL and interested to listen more about design in Malaysia and its relation to identity please do drop by to www.kakireka.com on the 14th of January 2009.

It has been a while since the last time I wrote in this blog. It’s not that I’m no longer involve in writing, instead I still do. I’ve just been busy writing for a chapter for my PhD. This chapter is about the case study that I undertake in the beginning of my PhD. I was searching for Malaysian Identity. To search for this identity is very close to impossible, at least I think so…

I started to look what is not Malaysian Identity? Actually quite a lot, and some can be confusing because ti can be part of identity but it is not belong to the Malaysia. For example rendang (Malay think curry sause that were cook usually for celebrating the first day after Ramadhan – fasting month. Rendang is claimed comes from Indonesia, and lots of indonesia are ready to fight if I said not them. Come to think about it, it is not impossible that the rendang comes from Indonesia. But then though time, rendang that were brought to us in Malaysia are now adopted in the Malaysian taste and flavor. Therefore there are the version of the rendang that could identify that it comes from Malaysia. Instead of claming that the rendang is from Malaysia, we should acknowledge that it is not but mentioned that it is an adaptation of the original rendang from Indonesia.

Back to my PhD, I really have to be clear here that it is not my PhD intention to define or discover Malaysian Identity.

I think it will take ages to do it, even still I dont think we could ever articulate what is Malaysian Identity. Also I agree with few scholar and author (Anderson, Hall, Babha) arguments that in a big picture identity itself is constructed. In my context, I’m arguing that Malaysian Identity is constructed, therefore there are no real identity, what we have in Malaysia is the ‘imagined identity’ where most of us believe that it real. (e.g. part of history, education system, administrator etc.). That is not my main argument. It is just part of the journey. My research is interest in in the role of communication designer in the process of constructing Malaysia Identity, the visual rhetorics in shaping this ideology (e.g. Malaysia Boleh!, Uniquely Malaysia etc.) At this stage I still didn’t have the clear view of what is my argument – I sort of know it but still I can’t articulate the argument.

Question from Andy – “Identity is something virtual, everything is constructed, images, texts form a simulation. So how you want to identify the identity of being Malaysian?”

In the beginning of my research I’ve explore different project as an attempt to search for Malaysian Identity at least the element of it. I found Lat Cartoon is interesting, partly I think because I grew up with it and also I think he could be called a social commentators. I’m using Lat as a case study of my research, looking at Lat as a communication designer and as a cartoonist. Now I’m writing about Lat in my 1st chapter. By the way do you know how to get in touch with Lat?
Please email me – nurul.rahman[at]rmit.edu.au

Later on after Lat explorations – I did a project called ‘searching for Malaysian Identity’ – I decided to asked around what other people think about Malaysian Identity – Malaysian and non Malaysian – so I produced and designed a website called – www.malaysianidentity.com as my 2nd PhD project. Now I’m also writing up a chapter about it. I have presented in few design and cultural studies conference; and published paper in relation to it. The outcome of this website is the most interesting and significant to my PhD research. All the projected idea about Malaysian Identity promoted by government and Malaysian brand/products is there. That’s the idea people have about Malaysia. This is Malaysia and that is Malaysia. We are unique and different from others. Are we? Why?
That process has leads me to this questions – What makes Malaysian believe that the image projected are their identity. Why no questions or contesting if they disagree with it? Or they did? Indeed, it is not just in a day these notion of identity is constructed, it takes years of building this believe, and it is still under construction isn’t it? Each year there these notion of identity will be presented through different angle and views. Like in branding there’s alway a target audience but using different tactic to sell the idea. In Malaysia, most of the idea is projected through visuals, most of it because we don’t really have a reading culture therefore visual is the best way to persuade the nation. Plus Malaysia is a nation that believe in visual rather than doing the research or dig information about it, which is pretty easy to deal with. That might be one of the reasons why Petronas won the advertising award most of the time. Using past history to bring back the spirit of ‘nationalism’.

One of the interesting discoveries that I found while doing this research is I found that Malaysia/Malaysian – culture, behaviors etc, are very similar to American. Remember the American Spirit? Hmm…We’re not far from that. The ‘Malaysian Can Do It’ spirit. Neither the Singaporean. Knowing that it is since our independence day, American influences are already been around (New Strait Times 1957). My hypotheses are due to why we act similar to American or influence by American is because we’ve been colonised by English, therefore we tried to somehow to get away from being colonised by English/British. Unfortunately we still been colonised by them and America.

How many American movies in Malaysia? We even have similar culture, if we really think about it. We’re scared of nearly everything. We even have the same sculpture artist for our national monument – the ‘Iwo Jima’ monument and ‘Tugu Negara’ are sculptured from the same artist, an Austrian Sculpture artist. What a coincidence? Even our flag looks similar. Why? Because our Malaysian flag is based on the idea of freedom in United State of America – therefore it was designed very similar to it. We also use a lot of national icon as a way to promote the nationalism spirit. Are Malaysian patriotic? or nationalistic? This is for our future communication designer to discover and investigate later on…Hopefully it will be useful enough..

What I’ve written above is some of my research discoveries through reading and analising the printed visuals (50 year period of time) that I’ve collected when I went back for my research trip a year ago. I’ve spend nearly 3 weeks traveling around peninsular Malaysia and Broneo (only Sarawak) and spending time in National Archive, libraries and Museums. I still didn’t see any vernacular Malaysian design still, most of them are standard version kind of design, is it because that most of our design school is looking up at the Western or European design as our leading design?

So, in relation to what I have wrote before, it is my PhD aim to be able to used my research materials/artifacts as a way to teach design students in Malaysia. Instead of reading or looking at the Western design, we should look and study our own design as a way to understand our identity, to be able to critising and contesting it, and perhaps by doing that we designers or the future Malaysian designers will be able to come to an understanding and to be able to create a vernacular/ distinctive Malaysian design.

Questionsfrom Andy – “After you deconstruct it, do u want to put a new image or create something new?”

Hell no! nothing close to it..I don’t want to spend time creating something new like everything in Malaysia. It’s always about creating new innovation, products, terms etc. Very little about maintaining and nurture the process. To understand the whole process is to reconstruct and reconstruct, then we will be able to preserve and maintain it.

Peace!
What do you think?

Email me at nurul.rahman[at]rmit.edu.au

A friend of mine told me about a Malaysian artist called Yee I-Lann who exhibited one of her artwork in Brisbane art Gallery. The interesting part in her digital imaging artwork is the buffalo. Well, if you travel around Malaysia, not only in Kuala Lumpur, Penang or Johor, you could see buffalo around in ‘kampung’ village area. The connection she put together between the image of PutraJaya building and a buffalo, for me is interesting as it somehow shows the different between the rural and the urban view in Malaysia. Noted that there a flag clearly hanging on the road. This is a common situation in Malaysia, if you drive through in the main cities in Malaysia, flags are everywhere.

Yee I-Lann

Roslisham Ismail make another interesting artwork, a form of collage images that could be seen in most of Malaysian printed material. He also add in words or tag-lines that been chattered everywhere in Malaysia. Images of modernity, independence, Malaysian’s icon such as twin tower and the latest is about Malaysian astronaut. Whether this is an image that are obvious in Malaysian’s eyes or an artist view of what he thinks about the identity of Malaysia.

Roslisham Ismail

“Selamat Datang ke Malaysia” is the first survey of contemporary Malaysian art exhibited in Australia by Gina Fairley. Curator Beverly Yong, of influential organising gallery Valentine Willie Fine Art says, “It plays with the idea of contemporary art as cultural expo. We ask: How would we present ourselves to the world? How are we identified? How far is our real experience¦ a reflection of our ambitions?”

A PhD investigation on comm. design contribution on Malaysian Identity by Nurul Rahman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.
Based on a work at www.nurulrahman.com.

GRC Spring 2008 just passed. I think it went well. I’ve learn lot more than I thought I would from the respond of the panel and from others presentation. It’s different feeling after 6 times been through the GRC, this time I was more critical in others people comments on my research, I think I was more confident too in presenting my argument.

In my research, I’m arguing that Malaysia National Identity is a constructed Identity. But how do I relates it to Communication Design and what will be my contribution in this research, PhD? Let’s see who said what about Malaysian Identity?

Shamsul A.B, a Malaysian anthropologist in 2001 wrote an interesting paper questioning on the origin of Malay ethnic identity, the dominant ethnics in Malaysia.

A history of identity, an identity of a history “ The idea and practice of ˜malayness in Malaysian reconsidered argued that the ˜Malay-Malayness identity is not innate as but rather learned or constructed.

As Shamsul wrote:

In Malaysia most historians and other scholars [in the humanities] accept ‘colonial knowledge’ as the basis of Malaysian and Malay history. Moreover, they do so in what seems like an almost unproblematised manner, even though politico-academic attempts are being made to ‘indigenise’ Malaysian history and the ‘Malay’ viewpoint has been privileged. [Such attempts are admirable, and yet it is good to realise that this emphasis on the] ¦ Malay perspective has been primarily motivated by a ‘nationalistic’ need to reinterpret history, and not by the urge to question the ways historical knowledge per se (itself) has been constructed. In Malaysia historical knowledge, a crucial element in every identity formation is still based on colonial knowledge; [¦] “ Shamsul AB (2001)

Still that does not answer how does this argument relates to communication design. Let me take you through a journey. Most of the visual we see around us that informed and educate us are mainly from advertisements. Communication medium can be powerful sometimes. It can be seductive and provocative, it stimulate our thinking about and towards others such as issues about environment, materials that we want but might not need and etc. Communication designers work closely in this areas that connect to different communication medium. Their roles is to suggest a methods or strategy that could communicate the product, visual, information etc. to the spectators. Most of the time it visual is chosen as one of the medium to reflect to others or to attract the audience. Communication designer is a communication agent that in some ways could create a system for people to communicate and connect to each other. Some of the communication designers role are used for the purpose of selling and not communicating.

The fact that communication designers could be point out as someone who is responsible of making or delivering the selling point to other and provoke other to make action, reflect or believe. Adolf Hitler, knows and understand well the power of communication, most of all the visual language in communication. The use of colors, shape, lines, space, font type etc. are the tools that are use as a way to influence others about German status at that time. However, without strong power control visual itself could hardly work. But together it could create a sense of believe in people’s mind.

“Picture says a thousand words” is an interesting line to start with.

I’m presenting a paper at a 17th Biennial Conference of Asian Studies Associations of Australia (ASAA). It at Albert Park Hotel, in St Kilda, Melbourne.

In this paper I will discuss about the earliest project in the beginning of my PhD, the Online Forum and www.malaysianidentity.com is the case study of this paper. As my PhD is a practice-based design research project, it is challenging to explain it to the non-design background what is design research and what is practice-based research. Here’s the abstract of my paper. If you interested to read the whole paper, please do email me.

Can an online discussion be used as a new research practice? A case study www.malaysianidentity.com

Nurul Rahman

With the rise of web 2.0, and collaborative web sites and communication platforms, there is the temptation and the possibility of utilising innovative technology for research methods and practices.

As part of a practice-based design PhD research project, I used an online discussion forum as an environment to enable focus group discussions. The aim was to gather together a selection of research participants (artists and designers) involved in creative fields, to start a conversation, and explore ideas about, Malaysian identity and its representations within cultural artifacts. I facilitated this discussion, exploring particular topics; and through the use of open-ended questions and threads within the forum, encouraged participants to present their ideas and engage with others.

This paper will discuss how an online tool can be used within a research project to experiment and confront ideas, to find new directions for investigation or to have a general discussion about a specific subject with research participants who are located in diverse international locations, asynchronously.

The forum malaysianidentity.com will be used as a case study to explore the advantages and challenges such a solution may present.

Full paper

Can online discussion be used as a new research practices? by Nurul Rahman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Talking to Yoko about my research always helped me in putting my puzzle together. Yoko asked me to visualized my research using a metaphorical methods. Because Im still researching and not so sure weather the words Im using is what Im really mean, Yoko suggested me to either leave it blank or give it a name. Leaving it blank is not very easy for me as ˜blank for me means nothing, and it will confuse me later on. So this is how I decided to do it taking on board what Yoko suggested me to try on. I will use the metaphorical idea of ˜cake. Before I continue this idea of cake, I would like to define some parts in my research that I will relates with using the metaphorical of ˜cake.

What are my key questions in my research?

My research interested in the contributions of design, particularly communication design and it close relations to the constructions of national and cultural identity. Although, both national and cultural identity are two different things but both connected to each other closely. Without one, the other will not mean anything. Thinking what comes first in identity is like thinking what came first in chicken and eggs. Both inform each other constantly. This leads to the question Quest-ce quune nation? What is the nation? Apa itu bangsa? And the next question narrowing it down to subject in my research is about Malaysia which what Im searching for What makes the nation? ˜Apa yang membentuk bangsa?.

Now, I have to admit, these questions is really broad and it is the on going questions that most of the researcher in sociology, anthropologies, media and cultural studies, history etc. have asked in their research until now. My research although it relates very much to the questions that Ive asked before, it is also relates to communication design. In fact my PhD is focusing on the roles of design, particularly communication design in the construction of national and cultural identity. I argued that communication design play a significant roles in the shaping of national and cultural identity. Clearly it is quite obvious but there is not much written about it, the involvement of communication design in the constructions of national and cultural identity, particularly south east asia, such as Malaysia. Which areas in design or what medium in design that Im focusing in is a good questions. And how it contributed, through what medium and what makes it is a strong argument is what Im still investigating.

Back to the attempt of using a metaphorical ways of looking at my research questions ˜What makes the nation? ˜What are the ingredients that shape Malaysian identity, nationally and culturally?. If ˜cake is the Malaysian identity, then what is the ingredient of making that ˜cake? Why is that this cake is claimed uniquely Malaysian? I think what Im doing is questioning the idea of uniqueness in Malaysian identity. Why did Malaysian think that Malaysia is unique? Or not.

If I argued the Malaysian Identity is not unique, because what makes Malaysian Identity is similar to what makes any other countries such as the different in of culture, custom, cuisine, etc. then what is it then? What makes the people (Malaysian) believe that their nation is unique? Theres a lot more in unique than different. Indeed, each nation is different in some ways, lifestyle and culture but is it unique? Is it by using the word unique are strategies to a nation building, or as a way to promote the country? In fact is it part of the country branding to create a belief that the country is special? This is interesting, focusing on the words unique, what are the relation between branding and the nation building?

Unique = being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else, particularly remarkable, special, or unusual.

Is Malaysian unusual? Lets have a look at what different mean?

Different – not the same as another or each other; unlike in nature, form, or quality ; distinct; separate

Therefore it is no longer unique, but it does have ˜________ that somehow makes Malaysian different, that distinguish Malaysia from others, that relates Malaysia to something, could be an object, could be material or immaterial (Dewey pp.? 1938 “ refer to Margolin Experience as a product). What are the relationship between the product and the person, and how it creates the notion of national/cultural identity? What makes a person feel the connection between self and identity? How does the graphic design contribute in the construction of it?
22 August 2008

Memories play a significant part in our day-to-day life. A grand father will past some stories from his past experiences in life to his grand children. Memories could be categorized in different areas, some could be sweet memories, some are sad memories and others could be the unforgettable memories. But some of these memories can be maintained or forgotten depending how important it is, particularly when it relates closely to the development of a country. Stories of the victory and fighting for freedom are mainly the ˜active memories that been used in a country as a way to construct the national identity. Memories can be represented and transformed through writing, photograph, images etc.

Long time ago, writing, printing and speech are the main medium of transmitting the memories. It been used as a way to transform information, history of the past etc. Now a day, where communication mediums are expending borderless with the use of Internet, satellite televisions, images etc, memories now can be share by others around the world. Visual are widely and strongly used as a way to transmit the memories to others.

A story about victory is much more effective if its been view through represented imagery rather than writing. Visual imagery helps to transform the memories to a reality. For example, image of victory scene would be repeated again and again through different medium as a reminder that people have fought for the freedom. It stayed in our memories as part of our cultural memories and soon we will transfer it to our children.

What is called ˜prosthetic memory (Connerton, 2006) when it takes more on the visual forms can sustain the existence of imagined communities as effectively as does, according to Benedit Anderson, the diffusion of printing.

Museums, libraries and national archives are places where the memories particularly national memories are stored. The artifacts that been kept in these place are carefully chosen as it would reflect the national and cultural identity of the people. History of the past have to be told correctly as it is part of the process of shaping the national identity. Collective memories through conversation, visual images and text help in rewriting and re-imagining the past. Repeated images, narrative of visual, symbols and representation through advertisements, popular pop culture magazines, poster etc. are examples of a way to sustained the notion of identity, that could be related to either nationally or culturally.
The relations between images and advertisements and their connection to national and cultural identity.

In the case study of Malaysia and its relation to my research going back to in 1957, through the national Malaya newspaper, most of the advertisements are mainly from the international brand or company such as Shell, Palmolive, Pan American, Bank of America, Qantas etc. They are the one that filled in most of the space for advertisement particularly on the celebration of independences Day. What does this mean? Why in the main national newspaper this kind of advertisement been chosen to be put in? Interestingly, it is seem to me, Malaysia or known as Malaya at that time, is seen as a young nation searching for identity, a way forward, development, growing of economy and social. Therefore, through these advertisements it could inform, educate, or offer the people choices of what they country want to be in future.

Wearne Brothers LTD (1957)

I got this piece of 1957 advertisement from a reprinted New Straits Times newspaper on the 31st August 2008. Its an advertisements for a car company and it is one of the ads that been published in the New Straits Times newspaper for Malaysian Independence Day. Its interesting to see the difference between 50 years from 1906 to 1957 through the ads of a car company. Not only the design and the look of the car that could remind us of the differences in time but also it could also show the growth of economic development in Malaya at that period of time. For me it also indicates that moving forward and better future through car as one of the moving vehicles, the design evolution and the indication of the year as a plat number.

Lets focus on the man standing beside the car. How often did you see a man as a model for a car company? One man standing at the car that dated 1906 as the plate number, wearing a semi-normal clothes with the gesture positioning both of the hands behind the body such as a position that called a ˜resting position such as in the army, point out to me as a position to wait for order. For others, without knowing where this advertisement comes from it is very hard to tell which country origin of both of the standing man.

This advertisement was published in English and it targeted the spectators who are ˜Bumiputra , educated, wealthy and can communicate in English. From my cultural understanding, I recognized this man as a ˜Bumiputra man through his look and the color skin tone. Most Malay have a medium brown tone skin color, compare to Chinese who are very fair close to yellowish cream color, and Indian that have much darker brown from Malay. Although these days it is difficult to recognized each ethnics through their skin colors as there are many intermarriage between each ethnics.
For people who are not familiar with the ˜Bumiputra this man could be from any English spoken country such as Philippine, Pacific island South America, Mexico, etc. He looks like a middle-class man could be a businessman, from a professional background, of perhaps from a government administrative. He is well dressed with his shirt tuck in his pants gave an impression that he could come from a wealthy and educated family background.

The word ˜Yesterday that stated beside him added some extra meaning in this advertisement. Apart from the indication of ˜Yesterday that its from the past, it could be also reminding the spectators of some nostalgic memories or dreams with connection to the car. At that period of time, it is very difficult to own a car because of various reasons mainly financial. Middle class people in the past particularly in 40s to 50s can only afford to have a bicycle or scooter motorbike. Other vehicle such as cars could only be affordable to people who comes from wealthy and high status family background. The date also was stated nicely as a plat number of the car. ˜Yesterday means in 1906 seem to be far away and perhaps its time to move forward.

In the next image that stated the word ˜Today, the same position the man standing beside the car with the plate number dated 1957 which is the year Malaysia gets independence. The layout position look nearly the same except the man in ˜Today was wearing ˜Songkok a Malay men hat. Its also indicates that this man is Muslim. This image is telling me that in 1957, the people in Malaysia are searching for identity by putting the man with his ˜Songkok. Does it telling us that the Malays are the dominant ethnics therefore they are the main authority. Where are the Chinese, Indian and the indigenous? Are they part of Malaysia? Most of the advertisement in Malaysia hardly have an indigenous images, only recently when Malaysia celebrate her 50 years of independence the images of the indigenous starts to appear in most of the advertisements. (Packaging a myth¦refer this to it)