Irina Kaldrack is Full Professor for Media Studies at Foreign Studies College of Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China. She was Visting Professor for „Cultures of Knowledge in the Digital Age“ at the Braunschweig University of Fine Arts (2015-2021). She studied mathematics (diploma) and theater studies (minor) in Mainz and Berlin, and received her Ph.D. degree from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany.
Her research interests include theory and history of digital media cultures in Europe and China, media and knowledge history of human body movement, the design and designability of digital cultures in the context of social transformations and sustainability, and methods of media studies at the intersection of design processes, artistic practice, and media studies research. Her research has been funded by the State of Berlin (2003-2005) and the Denkmalschmiede Höfgen/International Studios (2008), as well as by the Volkswagen Foundation (2017-2019).
Irina Kaldrack has published many papers in major journals on digital media technology and practice in Germany. She is the author of Imaginierte Wirksamkeit. Zwischen Performance und Bewegungserkennung (2011). She is coeditor of 8 books, including „Preferable Futures – Trans-Formation Design in Digital Cultures (2022, forthcoming), Throwing Gestures (2021) and the 21st issue of Zeitschrift für Medienwisseschaft about artificial intelligence (2019).