Shomit
Barua
Shomit Barua - Artist
photo by Rembrandt Quilballo
Shomit Barua is an intermedia artist specializing in ecoacoustics, responsive environments, and emergent narratives. His work is rooted in poetry and architecture, and reflects the shared tenets of contained space, economy of materials, and movement that is both physical and emotional. Combining everyday technologies with esoteric programming languages, he blurs the line between installation and performance, weaving together sound, object, and image. Digital and analog techniques are fused to investigate his core subject: the presence of the mind and body in a physical space.
Having collaborated with sculptors, dancers, musicians, architects, and visual artists, he believes that exploration of a motif is amplified - made "robust" and "thick" - through dialogue between disciplines. He holds an MFA in Poetry from Bennington College and teaches writing at Arizona State University while completing his doctoral research at ASU’s School of Arts, Media, and Engineering.
IG@shomijah
Past, Current and Upcoming Work
Exhibitions, Performances and Installations:
2023 Entrainment718, Grant Street Studios, Phoenix, AZ
2023 Entrainment718, Mesa Immersive Experience Center, Mesa, AZ
2022 SCATR.irl: [on_network_performativity], Artlink Juried Exhibition (Grand Prize winner), Phoenix, AZ
2022 _IRL: [on_network_performativity], Currents New Media Festival, Sante Fe, NM
2022 Degrees of Granularity, Currents New Media Festival, Form&Concept Gallery, Sante Fe, NM
2022 FOMO:DIPTYCH, Queens, NY
2022 Hello World! National Sawdust, Brooklyn, NY
2022 Hello World! IDEA Children’s Museum, Mesa, AZ
2022 HyperWilding, Art d’Core Gala, Phoenix, AZ
2021 Knowing Water, Canal Convergence, Scottsdale, AZ
2021 _IRL: [on_network_performativity], Found:re Contemporary, Phoenix, AZ
A Room Unfolding, Found:re Contemporary, Phoenix, AZ
2021 _IRL: [on_network_performativity], the Mood Room, Phoenix, AZ
2021 Digital Alchemies, DesignSpace: Lightswitch, Tempe, AZ
Dissonant Waters, DesignSpace: Lightswitch,Tempe, AZ
Dancing into Starstuff, DesignSpace: Lightswitch, Tempe, AZ
2021 Degrees of Granularity, (collaboration with artist Christine Cassano), Tempe Center for the Arts, AZ
2020 A Path Unfolding, (site-specific), Tempe Canal, AZ
2019 Mermaid Soup, Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, AZ
2019 Murmurations, (SquidSoup sound design), Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Arts, AZ
2019 Zigmagora, Emerge Festival, Tempe, AZ
2018 Ancient Passages: Echoes of Luna City 2150, Emerge Festival, Tempe, AZ
Presentations, Workshops and Artist Talks:
2023 In Defense of Two Dimensions, Society for Social Studies of the Sciences (4S), Honolulu, HI
2023 Tension | Disorientation / Imbalance __ , Westchester University, Westchester, PA
2023 Tension | Disorientation / Imbalance __ , SIGGRAPH Sparks, Los Angeles, CA
2021 Knowing Water – Community Water Literacy Workshops, ASU, Phoenix, AZ
2021 Creative Coding: Exercises in Circumnavigation, Music HackSpace, Berlin/London/NY/LA
2020 Connectivity Café, International Symposium on Electronic Arts (ISEA), Montreal, Canada
Ancient Passages: Echoes of Luna City 2150, (ISEA)
2020 Connectivity Café, European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST), Prague, CZ
Ancient Passages: Echoes of Luna City 2150, Society for Social Studies of the Sciences (4S), Prague, CZ
2018 Engaging the Charter: Student Mobilization, ASU, Tempe, AZ
Honors, Scholarships and Awards:
2022 Top Prize - 22nd Annual Artlink Juried Exhibition
2021 National Science Foundation Research Fellowship (EGS/FLAGSHIP)
2021 Earth System Science for the Anthropocene (ESSA) Interdisciplinary Collaboration Grant
2020 University Graduate Fellowship
2020 Emerge Artist Production Grant - Connectivity Cafe
2018 Emerge Artist Production Grant - Ancient Passages
2016 Instructional Design Scholarship - Engage the Charter
2008 John Woods Scholarship - Prague Poetry Seminars