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.

Past, Current and Upcoming Work

Exhibitions, Performances and Installations:

2025 Entrainment718, International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Boston, MA

2025 As Above So Below, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ

2025 Standing Wave, Phoenix Arts & Culture + Bloomberg Philanthropies, Phoenix, AZ

2024 HyperWilding, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ

Entrainment718+Beyond, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ

2024 Entrainment718+Beyond, Chaos Theory 24 – Legend City Studios, Phoenix, AZ

2024 Entrainment718, Roadside Attraction – Practical Art, Phoenix, AZ

2024 4Shades Reprised, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ

2024 Live-Coded, Arizona Center, Phoenix, AZ

2024 Entrainment718, Arizona Center, Phoenix, AZ

2023 Entrainment718, Phoenix Forge, Phoenix, AZ

2023 Slow Light, Chaos Theory 23 – Legend Cit Studios, Phoenix, AZ

2023 4 Shades, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ

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:

2025 HyperWilding: Environment Kinship and Urban Acupuncture, New Instruments for Musical Expression

(NIME), Canberra, Australia

2025 Entrainment718, International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Boston, MA

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:

2024 SOMBRA! Public Art Grant - Bloomberg Philanthropies + City of Phoenix Arts & Culture

2024 Artists to Work Grant - City of Phoenix Arts & Culture

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