Terra-Performing

Research Description

Extractivism driven by automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) threatens to automate environmental damage and in turn accelerate climate change. Multiple and successive historical enclosures, starting from the conquest of common lands to the enslavement of the human to the harnessing of skills and knowledge have fueled industrial extraction across the globe. Operationalized by 20th century mechanization – labor, culture and techniques of extraction are today swallowed into datasets and propelled by automation. Extractivism fuels digital culture and becomes explicitly present in the arena of intelligent performance that utilizes automation and AI. Terra-Performing engages with this emerging discourse through three inter-disciplinary studies examining inclusivity, sustainability and participation in intelligent performance to address Extractivism. Its main objective is to introduce a sustainable framework by incorporating global performative traditions dealing with Extractivism along with energy and environmental impacts into artistic performance practices. The project broadly spans the discourses and disciplines of Critical Artificial Intelligence, Environmental Media, and Performance Studies.

The project’s main International Collaborator: “Design and Aesthetics for Environmental Data” School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, Denmark.

Publications

Bhowmik, S., Nguyen, M. A., Touliatou, L., Powell, A., & Rajan, V. V. (2025). “Heat work: choreography as an ecological enquiry of machine learning and extractivism.” International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 1–15.

Bhowmik, S., Touliatou, L., Nguyen, M. A. “Mudra Machines: Choreography with AI against Extractivism,” in Leonardo, MIT Press (In peer-review)

Bhowmik, S. and Parikka, J., “Introduction: Contamination as a Method”, in Parikka and Bhowmik, eds. Environment, Data, Contamination, Art Theoretical Writings from the Academy of Fine Arts, 17, 2023: 7-20.

Bhowmik, S. “Performing Care in Extractive Landscapes: Reclaimed Land.” Collateral Journal, Collision 81, September 2022; “Performing Care in Extractive Landscapes: Waste Landfills.”, Collision 76, April 2022.

Dissemination

Bhowmik, S., Touliatou, L., Nguyen, M. A., “Choreographies of Discard”, Contestations AI Symposium, 23 October 2024, Aalto University and Helsinki University. (Collaborative project, Role: Concept, Script, Direction).

Bhowmik, Samir, “Heat Work”, Just-AI, London School of Economics, Funded by Ada Lovelace Foundation & AHRC, UK., 2022-23. (Collaborative project, Role: Research, Concept, Direction, Production).

Bhowmik, Samir, “Heat Work: Performance against Extractivism.” Aarhus University, Aesthetic Seminar, 6 November 2023, Design & Aesthetics for Environmental Data, Aarhus University, Denmark.

Bhowmik, Samir, “Heat Work: Performance against Extractivism”, Arts & Humanities Shaping the AI Future, Lecture-Workshop, London, 27 January 2023, Funded by the AHRC, UK, Hosted by Bristol Robotics Laboratory, UWE Bristol, UK.

Teaching

2024 – present, Rare Earths: Field Studies in the Extractive North, Spring, 5 credits, KUNO Network with NTNU, Norway and Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm.

2021 – present, Ecological Thinking Seminar, Autumn & Spring, 6 Credits, Doctoral Program, Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki. The seminar deals with discourses and practices in the visual and performing arts related to ecology and environmental change.

Principal Investigator (PI)

Dr. Samir Bhowmik is a Helsinki-based multi-disciplinary artist, architect and scholar. He is currently an Academy Research Fellow at the Academy of Fine Arts (Uniarts Helsinki) where he explores extractivism & ecology through film, installation and performance. Samir received a Doctor of Arts (2016) (Art & Design) from Aalto University, Finland, and a Master of Architecture (2003) from the University of Maryland, United States. His recent performative project ‘Lost Islands’ examined the entnaglemnts of nature and infrastrcuture as part of the Helsinki Biennial 2021. In 2020, Bhowmik collaborated with American artist Lenore Malen in the performance film “Where From Here” that explored virtuality and ecology in the time of pandemic. For the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021, he collaborated with Dr. Jussi Parikka for ‘Paperwork of Energy’ in the Turkish Pavilion (Architecture as Measure). Recently, Samir also led a lecture -workshop on ‘Media Cultures of Extraction’ as part of an Art-Science-Ecology course commissioned by IHME Helsinki 2021. Samir teaches the “Ecological Thinking” seminar in the Doctoral Program at the Academy of Fine Arts, and mentors Masters and Doctoral students in the areas of new media, artistic research and the environment. Since 2019, Samir serves on the Editorial Board of Journal of Media Art Study and Theory at the State University of New York. He has published articles on media, ecology, art and performance in several international journals (including Leonardo – MIT Press).