Claudia Westermann

Senior Associate Professorat Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

Suzhou,

China

Focus area: AI (Machine Learning, Neural Networks, Deep Fakes), Analog, Architecture, Art History, Art Theory, Critical Theory, Augmented Reality, Biology, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, Neuroaesthetics, Computer Science, Engineering, Cultural Practices, Social Practice, Design, Digital Art, New Media, Digital Culture, Digital Humanities, Ecology, Environment, Environmental Art, Eco Art, Land Art, Generative Practices, Generative Art, Materials, Textiles Engineering, Net Art, Performance Art, Theater Studies, Psychology, Cognitive Studies, Public Art, Public Health, Science Theory, Philosophy, Sculpture, Spacial, Site Specific, Place Making, Social Media, Social Networks, Sociology, Sound, Acoustics, STEAM, Pedagogy, Education, Systems, Urban Planning, Built Environment, Video, Film, Virtual Reality, Visual Culture, Visual Studies, Wearables,Connected self, Writing, Literature, Poetry

Claudia Westermann is Senior Associate Professor in Architecture at Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University (XJTLU), licensed as a practising architect with the German Chamber of Architects. She holds postgraduate degrees in Architecture and Media Art from the University of Karlsruhe (KIT) and the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG) at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Germany respectively, obtaining a PhD from the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in Integrative Arts (CAiiA), Planetary Collegium, University of Plymouth, UK, for her research on a poetics of architecture entitled “An Experimental Research into Inhabitable Theories.” Her PhD was supervised by the renowned pioneer in telematic art Prof. Roy Ascott.

Claudia Westermann worked in architectural practice for several years before founding her own practice, which engaged in trans-disciplinary projects at the threshold of art and architectural design. Her works have been widely exhibited and presented, including at the Venice Biennale (Architecture), the Moscow International Film Festival, ISEA Symposium for the Electronic Arts, the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany. Most recently, the project Seats For Seeing, which she created in collaboration with colleagues at XJTLU, was installed in Fujian, China.

Claudia Westermann’s research is informed by second-order cybernetics, actualising in inter-disciplinary projects concerned with the ecologies, poetics, and philosophies of art and architectural design. In recent years, her research has also increasingly engaged with Asian/Chinese positions.

The research aims to advance the understanding of Architectural Design as a performative process that creates limits rather than limitations and, is, therefore, a discipline of radical communication that always seeks to extend itself towards an Other – the unknown – addressing it without pre-quantifying it to render it scientifically verifiable.

Since August 2020, Claudia Westermann is a member of the Editorial Organism of the ESCI listed journal Technoetic Arts, founded by Prof. Roy Ascott. The first issues edited by the new team will be published in 2021. She was elected to the Executive Board of the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC) as Member-at-Large for the 01.2021-12.2023 three year term.

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