Daniel Birnbaum, faculty at large, is director of Acute Art, a VR research hub and curatorial laboratory in London. He is former director of Moderna Museet in Stockholm. He served as director of the Swedish International Artists Studio Program (IASPIS) until 2001, after receiving his PhD at Stockholm University. Between 2001 and 2010, Birnbaum held the position of rector at the Städelschule fine arts academy in Frankfurt am Main in Germany. During that time, he also served as director of Portikus, an exhibition space at the Staedelschule. He was the artistic director of 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009, co-curator of the Triennial of Yokohama (2008), curator of the 2nd Triennial of Turin (2008), co-curator of the 1st Biennial of Moscow (2005), and co-curator of the international section of the 50th Venice Biennale (2003). In 2007 Birnbaum published Teaching Art: Staedelschule Frankfurt am Main and has subsequently written on Olafur Eliasson, Pierre Huyghe, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Wolfgang Tillmans, Cerith Wyn Evans, and Paul Chan, among many others. In addition to articles published in magazines such as Artforum and Frieze, Birnbaum has published several books, including Hospitality of Presence: Problems of Otherness in Husserl’s Phenomenology, Almqvist & Wicksell (1998) and Chronology, Sternberg Press (2005).