tsunamii.net is a Media Art collective which I co-founded in 2001 with artist Charles Lim and scientist Melvin Phua. The idea of working together came about through discussions Charles and I had about the Internet and all the interesting ‘stuff’ that was happening around new technologies. We started to make some works based on the ideas that came out of the discussions and subsequently, we roped Melvin into the team.
Melvin became a part of the team not because we needed someone to take care of the technical stuff but because he knew about technology and played an important part in our dialogues and discussions. Melvin’s knowledge on the technical aspects of technology played an important part in shaping the works which the collective produced.
How the collective came to be named tsunamii.net is worth a mention here. The name was adopted from a ‘pre-registered’ domain name which Charles owned at that time. This domain name was originally intended for a web portal for online-gaming which was going to be a ‘dot-com’ venture. However, before the venture got set up, the dot-com bubble burst (in America and UK) and the plans in Singapore stopped. In a way, the pre-mature dot-com bubble burst meant that the dot-com mania never really made it to Singapore. However, prior to this chain of events, there was much hype and preparation by the Singapore Government for the arrival of this dot-com era.
Thus, we considered the name an ‘artefact’ of the dot-com era and thought it was a cool thing to adopt. The best part about it, which made it local, was the fact that it was waiting for the dot-com wave that never came to Singapore and thus, it was left on the Internet registrar – with no content and no purpose. We liked this sad and ironic tale and so, we decided to adopt it and brought this domain a new lease of life.
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