Transportation – SAMIR BHOWMIK

SPORA BOREALIS [2012] Art Installation Helsinki

A GPS based video animation installation that charts the tram movements of Helsinki in real time and generates color patterns using heat signatures in the surrounding air, a process similar to the aurora borealis seen in the north of Finland. spore4

SAMIR BHOWMIK (FINLAND)

Samir Bhowmik (born 1975) is a Helsinki-based multidisciplinary Finnish artist. He received a PhD (Art & Design) from Aalto University, Finland, and a Master of Architecture from the University of Maryland, United States. Samir’s artistic research project “Imaginary Natures: Extractive Media & the Cultural Memory of Environmental Change” (Kone Foundation) examines media cultures of extraction through artistic and critical AI practices. Samir teaches New Media, Infrastructures and Environment at the Aalto School of Arts, Design & Architecture.

ARTIST STATEMENT
My artistic practice draws on research into the computational, infrastructural and energetic entanglements between cultural memory, environment and the contemporary. The future as a delayed present, and the planetary condition in all its post-anthropogenic messiness, are both the object and subject of my work. My practice thus involves the investigation of machine futurisms, planetary infrastructures, and oppressed geologies. I use multi-sensorial methods including film, performance, installation, combined with digital media and artificial intelligence, to unravel multiple materialities, networks and bodies. As research probes and poetic vignettes, my artworks embody alternative infrastructures within which unfold the imaginaries of hidden, contested and lost topographies.

INVITED TALKS [2011-2019]

-Aalto ARTS Building Design Studio, 12 February 2019: Invited Lecture: From Architecture to Infrastructure: The Design of the New Museum.
-Aalto HELDIG (Helsinki Centre for Digital Humanities) Seminar, 6 February 2019: Invited Talk: Grooves to Bits: The Energetic Materialities of Sound Archives.
-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'

PUBLICATIONS [2013-2019]

2019 Samir Bhowmik and J. Parikka, “Memory Machines: Infrastructural Performance as an Art Method,” Leonardo, MIT Press (Forthcoming).
2019 Samir Bhowmik and J. Parikka, “Infrascapes for Media Archaeographers,” in Archaeographies:Aspects of Radical Media Archaeology, eds. Moritz Hiller & Stefan Höltgen, Schwabe Verlag, Berlin.
2019 Samir Bhowmik, “Thermocultures of Memory,” Culture Machine, Vol. 17, 2019.
2019 Samir Bhowmik, “The Battery is the Message,” Communication + 1 Journal, Vol. 7 (2), 2019. 2016 Samir Bhowmik, Deep Time of the Museum / The Materiality of Media Infrastructures,
Doctoral Thesis, Aalto University Books.
2016 Samir Bhowmik and L. Diaz, “Hot Stones and Cool Digitals,” International Journal of
Intangible Cultural Heritage, vol.11. 2016: 162-171.
2013 Samir Bhowmik, K.Acharya, & L. Diaz, “Light is History: A Community Participated Museum
Installation in Helsinki.” The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum 6-1:145-157.