Erkki Huhtamo

Born 1958 in Helsinki. Media archaeologist, writer and exhibition curator. At D|MA his area is media history and theory. Professor Huhtamo holds a Ph. D. in Cultural History. He has written extensively on media archaeology and the media arts. Media archaeology is an emerging critical approach Professor Huhtamo has pioneered (together with a few other scholars) since the early 1990's. It excavates forgotten, neglected and suppressed media-cultural phenomena, helping us to penetrate beyond canonized accounts about media culture. Huhtamo pays particular attention to the "life" of topoi, or clichéd elements that emerge over and over again in media history and provide "molds" for experiences. What may seem new often proves to be just new packaging of ideas repeated during hundreds and even thousands of years. In recent years, Professor Huhtamo has applied this approach to phenomena like peep media, the notion of the screen, games and mobile media. He has also written about the ways in which media artists like Paul deMarinis, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Bernie Lubell have integrated media-archaeological elements into their work. Professor Huhtamo has just finished a book on the history of the moving panorama and the diorama, tentatively titled Illusions in Motion (California University Press, forthcoming 2009). With Dr. Jussi Parikka (Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK) he is preparing a collection of writings on media archaeology, also for California University Press (forthcoming 2009).

As a curator Professor Huhtamo has created many media art exhibitions, for example the major project Alien Intelligence (KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, 2000). He has served in many art exhibition and festival juries worldwide, including Siggraph, Ars Electronica and the Interactive Media Festival. He has lectured very widely in Europe, the US, Japan, and elsewhere. He has also written and directed television programs about media culture, for example the series Archaeology of the Moving Image (YLE, The Finnish Broadcasting Corporation, 1995-96). In 2005-06 Professor Huhtamo created with the acclaimed media artists Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman (Tmema) a multi-media performance titled Musings on Hands. It was performed in Tokyo at Waseda University's Ono Memorial Hall and the Ars Electronica 2006 festival in Linz, Austria. Professor Huhtamo also gives magic lanterns shows with an authentic late 19th century biunial magic lantern and original hand-painted slides. He has an extensive collection of antique optical viewing devices, such as magic lanterns, peep show boxes, camera obscuras, praxinoscopes, kinoras, etc., which he often demonstrates to the students.

Books

• Illusions in Motion (California University Press, forthcoming 2009)
• Huhtamo, Jussi Parikka (eds.), a collection of writings on media archaeology, California University Press (forthcoming 2009)

Articles

• Huhtamo, "Introduction", in: Archeology of Media Art [1]
• Interview with Erkki Huhtamo on Alien Intelligence exhibition. 2000. http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0002/msg00155.html

http://www.design.ucla.edu/people/faculty.php?ID=9