The Roar of Fossil Fuels in the Forest

In this clip we follow two young men through the shadows of the Bornean night, as they attempt to gain power with a generator to light up their home. In many Penan villages sunken in the forest interior of Sarawak, Malaysia there is no power. There are only household generators, used for a few hours a night, only if the household can afford the petrol. 

In the changing climate, fossil fuels and petrols are to be held accountable. And even in the most unassuming of places, we see an increasing reliance on carbon. For Penan villages, through there are increasing solar-power projects, the vast majority still rely on fuel-powered-generators for their household needs. 

“Radical Listening” is an interesting technique. And it often results in things we don’t want to hear. Mutang Tu’o, Blake Kendall and Stan Thomas have been collaborating and making films for over ten years. They have interviewed and documented hundreds of testimonies and countless hours of material. Often the process of filming holds a synthesised environment to limit the variables for sight and sound, to ensure the quality of recording. However more often than not, when filming in what they intended as an ideal environment, they are interrupted. The chainsaw, the generator and the mechanic roar of fuelled machines more often than not interrupted the harmony of listening in the forest. 

Al Gore, the ex-vice President of USA and author of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ reflected on when Mutang Tu’o and several other Penan leaders went to visit him in the early 1990s to campaign to end the destruction of their homeland. Gore reflected on the testimonies, that the sound of the bulldozer never slept and became a haunting sound of damage and destruction. 

When one listens today in the forest interiors of Sarawak, it is the roar of the engine that still rings loud and clear.