DabbleLagu Hantu
A ritual sound installation built from Southeast Asian value systems instead of imported Western ones.
The need
The dominant story of technology asks the rest of the world to modernize by importing Western tools — and Western values — at the cost of their own. Anastasha asked a different question: what would technology look like if it grew from a tropical, Southeast Asian worldview rather than being translated into one?
The approach
Tropical Technologies is a body of work rooted in cultural value systems instead of borrowed defaults: tangible form over screens, ritual and magic over pure utility, and the slowness of “island time” over relentless speed. The method was as much making as research — speculative artifacts, participatory experiences, and a makeathon to bring others into the inquiry.
- Speculative, ritual-centered design
- Needfinding grounded in cultural values
- Physical prototyping and participatory making
The artifact
Lagu Hantu is its flagship — a sound installation of sensor-embedded hardwood panels tuned to the Indonesian pelog scale, shown publicly at Dolores Park in San Francisco and at the d.school. Alongside it: a rain-sensing Balinese gong and a “Silly Bots” makeathon that invited others to build playful, culturally rooted machines.
Why it matters
Lagu Hantu is a proof that advancing and remembering aren’t opposites — that a community can build the future without erasing where it came from.
“It brings me hope to know that we can advance without sacrificing where we came from.”
Visitor, d.school showcase
