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SAMIR BHOWMIK

Artist / Architect / Research

Second Theme Day at Gallen-Kallela Museum March 9 2014

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ARTIST BIO

I am an artist, architect and researcher. I am currently engaged in artistic works in Helsinki and Berlin along with post-doctoral research at the Institute for Musicology and Media Studies, Humboldt University-Berlin. My research is funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation since 2017. I have a Doctor of Arts degree (2016) from the Media Lab of the Aalto University. A Finnish Citizen, I was born in India, lived and worked in Washington DC and New York after receiving my Master of Architecture at the University of Maryland in 2003. My artistic practice is focused on the past and the future materialities of media, digital memory and media infrastructure. My work is concerned with how these materialities affect and shape material resources and environmental responsibility. I am interested in disruptive strategies, media archaeology and participative projects related to energy, natural resources and cultural heritage. Since 2015, my research in Media Lab was funded by the Kone Foundation of Finland. I have also taught Digital Strategies for museums and media for Master of Arts students and have mentored and provided guidance for master’s theses. I have published in international journals regarding media and museums and delivered talks and presentations in international forums and museum conferences. As a continuing member of Pixelache, an experimental arts organization based in Helsinki, I engage with colleagues in experiments with community, emerging media and the environment.
CONTACT ME

BIO (Finnish)

Samir Bhowmik (s. 1975) on taiteilija, arkkitehti ja tutkija. Hänen toteuttaa parhaillaan uutta mediaa ja kulttuurista muistia käsitteleviä projekteja Helsingissä ja Berliinissä Humboldt-yliopistossa. Samir valmistui taiteiden tohtoriksi alanaan uusi media Aalto-yliopiston Media Labista ja arkkitehdiksi Marylandin yliopistosta Yhdysvalloista. Hänen taiteellinen työskentelynsä, opetustyönsä ja tutkimuksensa käsittelevät uutta mediaa, kulttuurisia infrastruktuureja, arkkitehtuuria ja digitaalista muistia. Hänen työskentelyään tukee Suomen Kulttuurirahasto.

NEW PUBLICATION 2019: COMMUNICATION +1 JOURNAL

The Battery is the Message: Media Archaeology as an Energy Art Practice (2019)

This text is an investigation of battery technologies and planned obsolescence in the context of energy consumption, electronic waste and environmental crisis as brought on by current communication technologies.

Keywords: media archaeology, art, battery, energy, lithium, obsolescence, e-waste, environment

TEACHING [2014-16]

2014 - 2016: Digital Strategies for Museums & Cultural Heritage DOM
E-5064 Aalto University: The course presents a theoretical and practical overview of digital strategies for museums and cultural heritage. Participants develop museum digital projects supported by how-to lectures in a 'make' environment. http://digitalmuseum.mlog.taik.fi
2014: Must-Ache Project
2015: EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art
2016: Design Museum Finland

DOM E5006: Media and the Environment [2019]

Department of Media, Aalto University
OVERVIEW: This course will investigate Media and Communications infrastructures as intertwined with the surrounding environment. It will look both back into history (media-archaeological past) as well as forwards in dystopian futures (science-fictions) to explore how media infrastructures co-exist and affect the environment.
ENROLL

COURSE-POSTER

P-WALL — ATENEUM ART MUSEUM 2011

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DOCTOR OF ARTS 2016 – MEDIA LAB

The Deep Time of the Museum / The Materiality of Media Infrastructures: The dissertation aims to develop a design framework for building ecological media infrastructures that support museums and cultural heritage. By examining the museum system, the study traces the domains of media infrastructures related to embodied energy and energy use. Then by design interventions it attempts to model alternatives. The resulting design framework provides key methodologies for museums and their user communities towards shaping an ecological institution.

LIGHT IS HISTORY — HELSINKI 2012

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ANNANTALO HELSINKI 2017

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Participatory art Workshop with Freshly arrived asylum seekers in Finland.

Lines and Coils 2018

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Pen and pastel on tracing paper. 30 x 20 cm.

DIGITAL MEMORY

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Link to radio interview

COMMUNITY POWER BANK 2016-2017

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Photo: Justin Tyler Tate

HALOO AKSELI (2013-14) – GALLEN-KALLELA MUSEUM

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Robotic Digitization and Archiving at Gallen-Kallela Museum

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INVITED TALKS/PRESENTATIONS/WORKSHOPS

-University of the Arts Helsinki, 25 April, 2018: Invited Talk: 'The Battery is the Message.'
-Swedish Historical Society (Mickwitz Seminar), Finland, 9 February, 2017: Invited Talk - ‘The Materiality of Digital Heritage.’
-Turku Museum Center (Turunmuseokeskus) Finland, 24 November 2015: Invited Talk about Media Strategies for Cultural Heritage.
-National Board of Antiquities (Museovirasto) Finland, Teemapäivät 2014, 11 -12 September 2014 : Invited talk and Presentation of ‘Haloo Akseli’ project at Gallen-Kallela Museum.
-MuseumNext Conference 2014 Newcastle-Gateshead, UK 18 -20 June, 2014: Invited talk and presentation about 'Light is History' Project in Helsinki.
-NODEM (Nordic Digital Excellence in Museums) Conference 1 - 3 Dec, 2013 Stockholm Sweden. Invited Talk & Presentation: 'Building Sustainable Practices for Museums'
-Digital Heritage International Congress 2013, 28 Oct - 1 Nov. 2013 Marseille, France. Presented ‘The Parametric Museum: : Integrating a Museum’s Building Information Model with its Digital Collections.’
-Inclusive Museum Conference 2013, 22 - 24 April. 2013 Copenhagen, Denmark: Paper presentation: 'Light is History: A Community Participated Museum Installation in Helsinki Finland'
-Modern Identities Conference: Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland 2012 12 October. Presented: 'The Post-Oil Museum: Building a Sustainable Framework for Heritage Institutions and their User Communities'
-Ecomuseums Conference 2012 19 – 21 September, Seixal, Portugal: Presented 'Museums by Communities: Exploration of a New Digital and Spatial Framework for Intangible Cultural Heritage'
-Trans-disciplinary Arts, Ethnography and Cultural Heritage Workshop 24 - 26 May 2012, Aizpute, Latvia: Organized a 2 hour community participated museum (Museum_2) for a local weavers association.
-Talking Trash(lab) Workshop + Lecture Series(Supported by Aalto Media Factory): Organizer in collaboration with Pixelache / Pixelversity Helsinki and Karthikeya Acharya ( Department of Design). Topics related to recycling and reusing digital and technological trash and transforming them into art.
-ESF-LiU Conference: Re-Visiting The Contact Zone: Museums, Theory, Practice, 17 - 21 July 2011. Linköping, Sweden: Presented 'Post-Oil Museum: Imagining Museums Beyond Oil'

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PUBLICATIONS

1. Bhowmik, Samir. “The Parametric Museum: Integrating a Museum’s Building Information Model with its Digital Collections. Journal of National Institute of Building Sciences, Vol. 3, No. 3 (June 2015): 12-16.
2. Bhowmik, Samir, Karthikeya Acharya and Lily Diaz. “Light is History: A Community Participated Museum Installation in Helsinki.” The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum 6, no. 1 (2013): 145 -157.
3. Bhowmik, Samir and Lily Diaz. "Hot Stones and Cool Digitals: A Sustainable Contact Zone for Intangible Cultural Heritage in Finland." International Journal of Intangible Cultural Heritage vol.11. 2016: 162-171.
4. Bhowmik, Samir, James Reilly, Lily Diaz and Agusti Pellicer. “Infrastructuring Digitization for Ephemeral Heritage” Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, Volume 11 (2017). Resubmitted. 10.2016.
5. Acharya, Karthikeya, Samir Bhowmik, and Jussi Mikkonen. “Light is History.” In the Proceedings of the Fifth Nordic Design Research Conference. Nordes 2013: Experiments in Design Research. Copenhagen, Denmark. June 9-12. http://www.nordes.org/nordes2013/pictures/ Nordes2013Proceedings.pdf (accessed May 4, 2014).
6. Bhowmik, Samir. "The Battery is the Message." Communication + 1 Journal Vol. 7 (Forthcoming, 2019).
7. Bhowmik, Samir. "Thermocultures of Memory." Culture Machine. Vol. 17 (2018). (Under review).
8. Bhowmik, Samir. "Hybridity & Co-Presence: A Brief History of Museums as Media." Museum History Journal. (under review).
9. Bhowmik, Samir. "The Infrastructure of Digital Memory." Museum Management and Curatorship Journal. (under review).

MEMI (2014) COOPER HEWITT SMITHSONIAN DESIGN MUSEUM NEW YORK

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Energy project to visualize the Collections of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum New York in context of its energy use, user-community and color search

FERMENT LAB (2015-17) HELSINKI

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A Participatory Space for Energy, Food and Social Fermentation.

http://www.pixelache.ac/projects/ferment-lab

LIGHT IS HISTORY (2012) HELSINKI

LIGHT IS HISTORY (2012)

A Community Participated Museum Installation in Helsinki.

TRASH LAB (2012 – ONGOING)

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Trashlab explores experimental art-design-technology practice between hacker and maker cultures, in the context of re/up-cycling and the increased availability of new fabrication tools.

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NEXT MUSEUM LAB Helsinki / An Agency for Critical Culture (2015)

The goal of Next Museum Lab is to foster a ‘Critical Culture’, to become its agent and through its agency represent the multicultural Finnish arts movement. Its role is to define and unpack the idea of agonism in Finnish visual culture—the frictive rub in between antagonism and consensus in context of Finland and thread it through Finnish artistic practices. Thus, Next Museum Lab seeks parallels, overlaps, linkages and even experimental clashes with Finnish museums and contemporary artistic practices. Not only does it pursue collaborations that lie on the border between activist, artistic and architectural activities (where they are subject to criticism, introspection, and analyses) but also encourages participative research-led initiatives and trans-disciplinary experimental projects that could lead to enriching cultural exchange. Next Museum Lab’s aim as an agency for ‘Critical Culture’ is to help ‘initiate a set of histories which then informs the development of a new collection of critical vocabularies for understanding artistic behavior’. This emphasizes and demands new modes of curating, management and funding strategies. Through tackling such critical histories, vocabularies and modes, Next Museum Lab intends to chart and share the age of Finnish artistic disruption with world audiences.

MANIFESTO: An Agency for Critical Culture

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RECENTLY

  • “Memory Machines” at Helsinki Central Library 2019 / Finnish Cultural Institute of New York January 26, 2019
  • Talk at Aalto HELDIG (Helsinki Center for Digital Humanities) 2019 December 11, 2018
  • Awarded 108 200€ by Kone Foundation for Imaginary Natures: On Extractive Media and the Cultural Memory of Environmental Change December 10, 2018
  • Circuit Breaker – Performance Installation – Pixelache Festival May 2019 December 7, 2018
  • Forthcoming: Polarity (2019) Performance Installation – Klosterruine, Berlin November 30, 2018
  • Selected Artist in Finnish Cultural Institute in New York + Helsinki Central Library Oodi Project 2019 October 8, 2018
  • Forthcoming in Communications + 1 Journal Vol. 7 (2) (Open Humanities Press): The Battery is the Message: Media Archaeology as an Energy Art Practice September 23, 2018
  • The Materiality of Happiness – Artist Workshops – Autumn 2018 at Annantalo, Vuotalo & Caisatalo Helsinki September 22, 2018
  • Alternative AI’s – PUBLICS Helsinki – 31 May 2018 May 29, 2018
  • Micro-Archiving the Environment in Signe Brander’s Panoramas – Hack4Fi 2018 Hackathon May 8, 2018
  • Pixelache’s BioSignals 2018 April 26, 2018
  • Lecture-Workshop with Artist duo IC-98 / University of the Arts Helsinki April 5, 2018
  • Awarded Finnish Cultural Foundation Grant 2017 – 19 March 2, 2017
  • Visiting Scholar at the Humboldt University – Berlin 2017-18 November 2, 2016
  • Deep Time of the Museum / The Materiality of Media Infrastructures: Doctoral Dissertation October 31, 2016
  • Digital Strategies @ Design Museum Finland 2016 September 24, 2016
  • Hot Stones & Cool Digitals: Sustainable Contact Zones for Intangible Cultural Heritage in Finland August 12, 2016
  • Community Power Bank – Recycling Lithium-ion Battery Workshops 2016-2017 June 22, 2016
  • Biological Wisdom and Social Transformation meets Ferment Lab – Pixelache Festival 2015 April 4, 2016
  • Hackathon Projects 2015-16 February 13, 2016
  • The World’s Last Museum (2016) January 23, 2016
  • Digital Engagements at EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art 2015 January 15, 2016
  • Digital Strategies Course @ EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art October 18, 2015
  • Published: Journal of the National Institute of Building Sciences 19.6.2015 June 29, 2015
  • Awarded Kone Foundation Grant 2015 -2016 December 10, 2014
  • Research Project: The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum (May 2014 – June 2015) November 3, 2014
  • Go Open Go Minimal / Museums & Social Networks 2.0 October 1, 2014
  • Museoalan #Teemapäivät 2014: Haloo Akseli @ Gallen-Kallela Museum Finland September 17, 2014
  • Digital Strategies for Museums Course @ Media Lab starting 08.09 August 13, 2014
  • The Data-Shaped Museum & Social Change: A Brief Insight from MuseumNext 2014 June 26, 2014
  • MEMI (2014) – Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum June 15, 2014
  • Energy Art Installation 2015 @ Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum New York June 14, 2014
  • “Light is History” Presentation Slides from @MuseumNext 2014 NewcastleGateshead UK June 12, 2014
  • Invited Talk: Light is History @MuseumNext 2014 June 20 Newcastle Gateshead UK May 15, 2014
  • Video: 7 year old Ramzi uses the Digitizing Robot at the Final Theme Day @Gallen-Kallela Museum May 8, 2014
  • Remixing the Museum Archive “Haloo Akseli” for Gallen-Kallela Museum May 8, 2014
  • A Future for Helsinki Art Museum 2020 – Tulevaisuuden Helsingin Taidemuseo 2020 March 19, 2014
  • Second Theme Day at Gallen-Kallela Museum March 9 2014 March 12, 2014
  • Haloo Akseli : A Public Domain Digital Archive for Gallen-Kallela Museum February 18, 2014
  • Video: Museum Robot in Action @Media Lab – Aalto University February 18, 2014
  • First Theme Day at Gallen-Kallela Museum Feb 9 2014 February 18, 2014
  • Digitizing Robot, Community Participation & Open Access Digital Archive for Gallen-Kallela Museum on Theme Day Feb 9. February 4, 2014
  • Video: Robot parts 3D printed @Aalto FabLab January 16, 2014
  • Light is History @NODEM 2013 Presentation Slides December 17, 2013
  • Beyond Control: A Nordic Perspective @ NODEM 2013 Stockholm December 15, 2013
  • The Case Against Guggenheim Helsinki November 20, 2013
  • Light is History Amsterdam 2016 November 17, 2013
  • Video: Light is History Installation November 16, 2013
  • Presentation: Digital Heritage Congress 2013 Marseille November 10, 2013
  • Crowdsourcing the Museum! A Digitization Strategy for Small Museums in Finland November 3, 2013

THEMATICS

Anthropocene Architecture Art Big Data Community Culture Design digital Digital Media DIY electricity electronics Energy Environment Exhibition Hacking Heritage Installation Media Museum Museums New Media Pedagogy Planning Sculpture Social Media Sustainability Transportation

(RE)THINKING CENTRAL PARK (2003)

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Master of Architecture Thesis 2003 / University of Maryland College Park USA

SPORA BOREALIS 2011

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LETTERS FROM SIBBESBORG (2011)

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A Plan for a Sustainable Community in Sipoo, Finland

VALLEY OF LIFE (2013)

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Manifesto for a sustainable community in the Dolomites, Italy

POST-OIL MUSEUM 2010

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POSTER

PARAMETRIC MUSEUM 2015

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© 2019 - (C) SAMIR BHOWMIK 2018-19