Biography
Desiree Foerster studies new media arts and design from a process-relational and critical phenomenology perspective. She is a Senior Research Associate in the Cinema and Media Studies department at the University of Chicago and the director of the Gray Co-Laboratory for the Arts and Science. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor for Digital Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. She completed her PhD at the Institute for Arts and Media at the University of Potsdam with her dissertation “Aesthetic Experience of Metabolic Processes,” and holds additional degrees in Media Culture Analysis from Düsseldorf (MA) and Comparative Literature and Philosophy (BA) from Bochum.
Desiree is currently working on her second book, which examines illness and disability narratives in virtual reality. Alongside this research, she collaborates with students on artistic projects exploring the same themes. She also regularly collaborates with colleagues from the arts and sciences on projects of research-creation and speculative design. Her research interests include phenomenology of media, media ecologies, affect, process philosophy, speculative design, sensory studies, and immersive technologies. See more on her website: https://dfoerster.org/
Recent Publications
Representing Mental Images and Immaterial Processes in VR. A New Materialist Reading of Manic VR and Ayahuasca – Kosmik Journey. Multimodality & Society: 2026
Sensing a Heartbeat: A New Perspective on Self-Tracking Technologies through the Integration of Interoception. Body & Society: 2024
New phenomenologies of pain and the re-conceptualization of health in the digital arts. The Senses and Society: 2023
Teaching Experience
Winter Quarter 2025
CMST 27522 Experimental Futures
Spring Quarter 2025
CMST 27931 Re-Imagining Health in Immersive Media Environments
Winter Quarter 2026
MADD 14400/BPRO 24400 Living the Body Through Technology
Spring Quarter 2026
CMST 2/37931 Re-Imagining Health in Immersive Media Environments