Resample Tatau: turning a personal tattoo journey into audio-visual composition

Auckland-based artist and producer Faiumu Matthew Salapu, better known as Anonymouz, is the 2021 inaugural recipient of the new virtual Toi Rauwhārangi Pacific Art Residency. The residency commences on 15 November and runs for three months.

The Pacific Arts Residency is taking place online due to the current COVID-19 alert level restrictions.

Massey University College of Creative Arts will be supporting the developmental phase of Anonymouz’s new audio-visual work Resample Tatau - Tali le ‘au - lean into the pain.

The work will combine his classical hip hop sampling fusion style with his personal journey of receiving his tatau – a traditional hand tapped Samoan tattoo applied to the mid section from the ribs down through to the knees. Receiving his tatau from Su’a Suluape Paulo Jr of the prestigious Sā Su’ā Suluape tufuga clan back in 2015.

Anonymouz says he made audio recordings of his tatau journey to provide the foundation for this work.

“My tatau was done within seven sessions, I had a microphone setup recording the tapping sounds and spatial ambience. These archive recordings will be resampled into a foundational 62-minute soundscape layer using hip hop music production techniques interwoven with music composition, avant garde sound design, orchestral string arrangement, indigenous Moana Pacific instrumentation, video production and live performance.”
 
Resample Tatau will be premiered in next year’s Tāwhiri Aotearoa Festival in Wellington 2022, scheduled for 9 March 2022.

He will be working over summer in the recording studios in Te Rewa o Puanga School of Music and Creative Media Production in Auckland. In 2019 Anonymouz collaborated with local Wellington Pacific high school students where he wrote and recorded Indigenous Pride as part of Tautai Fresh Horizon’s workshops.

Toi Rauwhārangi College of Creative Arts has supported Pacific Residency programmes for nearly a decade. In 2012, artist John Pule, Siliga Setoga and Janet Lilo were the first Pacific artists in residence. Other recipients of this residency include Shigeyuki Kihara, Taupou Tatau, Lindah Lepou and The Pacifica Mamma’s.

Anonymouz says he is excited to be working again with the Creative of College Arts.

“Through numerous previous engagements over the years with Massey COCA through projects such as Tautai’s Fresh Horizons, I’ve already experienced first-hand the amazing facilities and people at the school. There is a beautiful synergy between my experimental creative production practise and the innovative, forward-thinking culture at Toi Rauwhārangi.”

“In a case of life imitating art, and art imitating life, the current uncertainty around COVID-19 restrictions and lockdown throws a beautiful and fitting chaos into the development of this work in a way that mirrors the chaotic emotions of undergoing the tatau journey itself. Through my own personal experience, each of my painful sessions completed rewarded me with insight into a mental and spiritual approach for the next subsequent session.”