Birk Schmithuesen
Birk Schmithüsen is a media artist and producer. In his artistic research, he interprets complex phenomena such as machine learning (AI) and big data as artistic materials. The research results are staged in performances or presented in immersive media installations.
His approach is to make complex systems tangible through audiovisual interpretation and thus stimulate discourse. With data sonification and visualization, the repurposing of new technologies and speculative concepts, he creates systems with life-like behaviour and opens up new perspectives on current topics.
Birk Schmithüsen has a degree in fine arts and has received an EMAP scholarship, among others. His work has been shown internationally at major media art festivals in France, the Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Germany, Serbia and Brazil, including FILE Festival, Ars Electronica Festival and ZKM.
Education
2018 Diploma Fine Arts (Media Art) at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (HGB)
2014 – 2018 Studied at the HGB Leipzig, most recently with Prof. Clemens von Wedemeyer
Grants and Residencies
2021 production grant, Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen (DE)
2021 production grant, Stiftung Kunstfonds (DE)
2020 conception grant, Fonds Darstellende Künste (DE)
2020 production grant of the city of Leipzig (cultural office)
2020 research grant “Denkzeit”, Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen (DE)
2019 EMAP/EMARE residency, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón (ES)
Academic Conferences and Artist Talks
2020 Experimenta 2020, Biennale Arts Science, Grenoble (FR)
2019 WinterLab, LABoral, Gijon (ES)
Chaos Communication Congress 36C3, Leipzig
2018 Computation Communication Aesthetics & X, xCoAx, Madrid (ES)
2017 TOA Satellite: Hybrid Music Lab, Holzmarkt, Berlin
Publications
2018 „Speculative Artificial Intelligence“, page 160-163, in xCoAx 2018 Proceedings of the Sixth Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X.
Workshops and Teaching
2020 projection mapping, Academy of Fine Arts HGB Leipzig (DE)
2016 sound design, ArtCamp, Kulturkosmos Lärz (DE)
2015 music band coaching, ArtCamp, Kulturkosmos Lärz (DE)
2014 projection mapping, ArtCamp, Kulturkosmos Lärz (DE)
since 2012 Performance collective „ArtesMobiles“ [co-founder, co-producer]
since 2016 Galeria Iluzja, Garbicz Festival [co-curator], (PL)
since 2016 Art&Play, ChaosCommunicationCongress [co-curator]
2018 Asphalt Piloten, nuitblanche, Brussels [video projection] (BE)
2015 Theater Titanick, 1000 Jahre Leipzig – Lipsias Löwen, Leipzig [video installation]
2015 Compagnie HORIZON, Escape from Flatland, Ulm [interactive video projection]
2015 Leipziger Tanztheater (LTT), Ich bin. Aber ich habe mich noch nicht [video projection]