Daniel Birnbaum
Curating the Virtual
Course Detail
DescriptionCould today’s immersive technologies, such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), change and expand the ways we experience art? As digital artworks have regularly been included in exhibitions in a way that obeys old institutional structures, could one instead imagine immersive experiences distributed across geographies in novel ways? In this course, one of the most celebrated curators and art critics of his generation, Daniel Birnbaum looks at influential art and technology conversations ranging from 20th-century investigations such as the legendary Experiments in Art and Technology to contemporary artistic VR practices.Meet the PresenterDaniel BirnbaumDaniel Birnbaum is the director of London’s Acute Art, a laboratory exploring art and technology. He is a professor of philosophy at the Städelschule in Frankfurt and the author of numerous books on art and philosophy. From 2000 to 2010, he was the rector of the Städelschule in Frankfurt and director of its Portikus gallery. He has been a member of the board of directors of Frankfurt’s Institut für Sozialforschung as well as of Nobel Media, which organizes all events and productions surrounding the Nobel prizes. Between 2010 and 2018, he was the director of Moderna Museet in Stockholm. He was co-curator of the 50th Venice Biennale (2003), the 1st Moscow Biennial (2005), Airs de Paris (with Christine Macel) at the Centre Pompidou (2007), and the 2nd Yokohama Triennial (2008). He organized 50 Moons of Saturn in Torino (2008), and Zero (with Tijs Visser) at Martin Gropius Bau (2015). In 2009, he served as the director of the 53rd Venice Biennial. He is a contributing editor to Artforum. Among his most recent projects are the VR exhibition Electric (Frieze New York, 2019) and the AR exhibitions Mirage (2020) at Beijing’s UCCA and The Looking Glass (with Emma Enderby) at New York’s The Shed and The High Line (2021).