Brett Biermann, Ph.D.

BC Biermann holds a PhD from the Universiteit van Amsterdam where his work focused on the intersection of technology, semiotics. He is a futurist and digital artist whose interdisciplinary work explores the intersection of emerging technologies (AR, VR, AI) and semiotics, with a sharp focus on their ethical implications. He is an internationally recognized digital artist specializing in mixed reality and has pioneered innovative digital interactive art experiences. BC has also served as Senior Civic Media Fellow at the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab and Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Missouri - St. Louis. BC's work has been exhibited internationally in cities including Geneva, San Francisco, New York, Miami, San Diego, Tokyo, Brussels, St. Louis, Perth, and Moscow. His work has garnered coverage in prominent outlets such as Fast Company, Juxtapoz, Hi-Fructose, IEEE Spectrum, Creator’s Project, PC World, C|Net, The Atlantic, and Interior Design magazine. BC is a thought leader in converging technologies, serving on the IEEE Mixed Reality and Artificial Intelligence Group as part of the Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in the Design of Autonomous Systems. He also contributes to broader civic and cultural initiatives, serving on the boards of CityKids Foundation (NYC) and the Board of the HSE Global Cities Cultural Index at HSE University Institute for Statistical Studies in Moscow. BC is a frequent public speaker since the early 2000s, delivering informal, participatory, and provocative keynotes and talks on augmented/mixed reality in public spaces, interactive street art, tech ethics, and emerging technologies' societal impacts.

Innovations in Design
Motion Design
Mixed Reality
3D Concepts
Visual Design
UI/UX

AI Ethics
Digital Art
Public Space Augmented Reality
Converging Technologies (AR, VR, AI) and the Humanities

University of Missouri - St. Louis
St. Louis University
Fontbonne University
Florida Gulf Coast University

ART INSTALLATIONS (COMMERCIAL)
2025 SD Surf “Holy Waves and Broken Bones” (San Diego, CA)
2020 JW Marriott “Shimay” (Anaheim, CA)
2017 Google I/O “Shape Interactions” (Mountain View, CA)
2015 Staples Center (LA Clippers & LA Kings) “Picture Me” (Los Angeles, CA)
2015 USC Annenberg “Tangible Storytelling” (Los Angeles, CA)
2014 IEEE “Standards and The City” (Piscataway, NJ)
2014 HGTV “Santa HQ” (New York, NY)
2013 IEEE + SXSW Interactive “Driskill Hotel Takeover” (Austin, TX)

ART INSTALLATIONS (COMMISSIONED)
2025 Paris Arts Commission “Inside Out” (Paris, France)
2025 Laguna Beach “Sessions” (Laguna Beach, CA)
2022 Miami Beach Art Week “Because Liberty is Broken” (Miami, FL)
2022 Deloitte Greenhouse “80Hz” (Houston, TX)
2021 Infinity Festival “Digital Neuron” (Los Angeles, CA)
2019 Thrival @ Carnegie Museum of Art “MHTH II” (Pittsburgh, PA)
2019 Siggraph “Squaring Circles” (Los Angeles, CA)
2019 Venice Design “Venice x Venice” (Venice, Italy)
2018 Moscow Urban Forum & Arts Festival “More Human Than Human” (Moscow, Russia)
2017 San Francisco Design Week “Parabola” (San Francisco, CA)
2017 University of Geneva “Digital Neuron” (Geneva, Switzerland)
2016 Art in Public Places “Lapse” (Ivan Depena collaboration) (Miami, FL)
2015 Qualcomm “My Truism Here” (Jenny Holzer collaboration) (San Diego, CA)
2015 ISMAR “Consumption Cycle” (Fukuoka, Japan)
2014 Qualcomm “Evolution of an Idea” (Jordan Seiler collaboration) (San Diego, CA)
2015 Austin Museum of Digital Art “Productive Consumption” (Austin, TX)
2014 FORM “Productive Consumption” (Jordan Seiler collaboration) (Perth, Australia))
2014 SXSW Interactive “Consumption Cycle” (Jordan Seiler collaboration) (Austin, TX)
2014 SKYLINE: Architecture, Art, and Technology “Silicon Mirage” (Los Angeles, CA)
2013 Grand Center | Arts & Life Alliance “Moto Wall” (MOMO collaboration) (St. Louis, MO)
2013 ICT & Art Connect (European Union Commission) “Grand Place Interactive” (Brussels, Belgium)
2012 Wynwood Walls “Interactive Murals @ Wynwood Walls” (Jordan Seiler collaboration) (Miami, FL)
2012 Grandel Theater “Real Life” (St. Louis, MO)
2012 NuArt “Mural Resurrections” (Jordan Seiler collaboration) (Stavanger, Norway)
2012 Williamsburg Art & Design Building “Augmented Architecture” (MOMO collaboration) (New York, NY)
2011 Times Square & Goldman Properties “AR | AD Takeover” (Jordan Seiler collaboration) (New York, NY)

INVITED TALKS
2025 International Public Art Research Exchange “Holy Waves and Broken Bones: The Cult(ure) of Surf and Skate” (New York, NY)
2025 7th Moscow Interior and Design Week "Flipping Interior Design: Bringing the Outside In” (Moscow, Russia)
2024 Moscow Interior and Design Week “Outside In: Street Art + Interior Design” (Moscow, Russia)
2024 Intl Conf. on Interior Design “Transcending Boundaries: Integrating Urban Vibrancy with Interior Design (Lisbon, Portugal)
2023 CAVAD Forum “Aristotelian Balance: Academia, Professional Work and Maintaining Sanity” (Riverside, CA)
2022 Miami Beach Art Week “Art, Design, & Process” (Miami, FL)
2021 Infinity Festival “Future of Immersive Experiences” (Los Angeles, CA)
2020 CodaWorx Summit “Blurred Boundaries” (Madison, WI)
2020 AWE “Confessions of an Augmented Mind” (Santa Clara, CA)
2019 Giants of Interior Design - “Read / Write Spaces” (Denver, CO)
2019 Carnegie Museum of Art - Thrival “Confessions of an Augmented Mind” [Keynote] (Pittsburgh, PA)
2019 Carnegie Museum of Art - Thrival “The Read / Write City” (Pittsburgh, PA)
2019 Siggraph “Space as Interface – Interactive Street Art Workshop” (Los Angeles, CA)
2018 Moscow Urban Forum and Arts Festival “Space as Interface – Interactive Street Art” [Keynote] (Moscow, Russia)
2018 Moscow Urban Forum and Arts Festival “Space as Interface – Augmented Reality Enabled Street Art” (Moscow, Russia)
2017 AWE “AI, MR, and Ethics - A Dystopian Nirvana?” (Santa Clara, CA)
2016 USC Annenberg “Augmented Reality, Art, and Social Commentary” (Los Angeles, CA)
2016 AWE “Illusions of Life” [Keynote] (Santa Clara, CA)
2016 IEEE IoT “IoT is the New Body and AI is the New Brain [Webinar] (Los Angeles, CA)
2016 USC Interactive Media Lab “Augmented Reality, Art and Disruption” (Los Angeles, CA)
2016 CalArts “Digital Public Art and Emerging Technologies” (Pasadena, CA)
2016 USC Roski School of Fine Art “Interactive Digital Art in Public Spaces” (Los Angeles, CA)
2016 USC Cinema School “Animation in Emerging Technologies” (Los Angeles, CA)
2015 USC Interactive Media Lab “Digital Art in Urban Spaces” (Los Angeles, CA)
2014 SXSW Next Stage “AR and Re+Imagining Public Space (Austin, TX)
2013 European Union Parliament “Public Social Media and New European Narratives” (Brussels, Belgium)
2013 TEDx @ Contemporary Art Museum “Digitally Re+Imagining Public Space” (St. Louis, MO)
2012 ISMAR “Re+Public: Augmented Architecture w/ Natural Feature Tracking” (Atlanta, GA)
2012 AWE “Re+Public: Re+Imagining Public Space” (Santa Clara, CA)
2011 Metaio “Augmented Reality: Social Commentary and ARt” (San Francisco, CA)

PANELS
2022 Miami Beach Art Week “Blockchain and the Arts for Good” (Miami, FL)
2021 AWE “Audio Reactive AR Experiences” (Santa Clara, CA)
2019 IEEE Standards “Tech Ethics: Actual Reality vs. Augmented Reality: At the Crossroads: (Piscataway, NJ)
2019 Siggraph “Art as Social Engagement” (Los Angeles, CA)
2018 Global Cultural Districts Network “Beyond the Physical in Public Space – Innovations in VR and AR” (Dubai, UAE)
2018 Siggraph “Augmented Reality, Art, and Public Space” (Vancouver, British Columbia)
2018 Moscow Urban Forum and Arts Festival “Space as Interface - AR and Re-Imagining the Future City” (Moscow, Russia)
2018 AWE “Immersive Experiences, Applications, and Non-technical Impacts (Santa Clara, CA)
2018 Immersive Hollywood “The Future of Entertainment: VR/AR Story Architects and Experience Designers (Los Angeles, CA)
2018 University of California - Irvine “Digital Media IP” (Irvine, CA)
2017 Digital Hollywood “VR/AR as Change Agent: Social, News, Documentary and Political Media (Los Angeles, CA)
2017 Fast Company LA at USC Annenberg “The Future City (Los Angeles, CA)
2017 SXSW Interactive “Artificial Intelligence and the Suburbanization of the Mind (Austin, TX)
2017 CES “AI, Mixed Reality and Ethics” (Las Vegas, NV)
2016 Digital Hollywood “The Power of VR-AR: A New Language of Artistry” (Los Angeles, CA)
2016 USC Annenberg [Novus Think Tank] “Innovation in Virtual and Augmented Reality” (Los Angeles, CA)
2015 ISMAR “Experiencing AR in Public Environments” (Fukuoka, Japan)
2015 University of California - Irvine “Digital Media” (Irvine, CA)
2015 UCLA Cinema School “Hip Deep in Knowledge: Virtual Museums and Immersive Journalism (Westwood, CA)
2015 SXSW Interactive “Mixed Reality Habitats: The New Wired Frontier” (Austin, TX)
2013 AWE “AR for Urban and Architecture (Santa Clara, CA)
2013 SXSW Interactive “Omnipresent: When Virtual Meets Reality” (Austin, TX)
2012 Vox 4D “Re-Imagining Public Space: The City Canvas and a New Semiotics” (Long Beach, CA)

AWARDS
2023 Top 50 Public Artists (US) CodaWorx (Minneapolis, MN)
2021 Best Visual Experience Design Program (US). Intelligent.com (Seattle, WA)
2020 Top 100 Design (Parabola). CodaWorx (Minneapolis, MN)
2019 Top 100 Design (Digital Neuron). CodaWorx (Minneapolis, MN)
2019 Design in Education (Digital Neuron). CodaWorx (Minneapolis, MN)
2017 Best Augmented Reality Art Video (Auggie). Augmented World Expo (Santa Clara, CA)
2015 Best Augmented Reality Art Video (Auggie). Augmented World Expo (Santa Clara, CA)
2012 Creative Design Award. University of Missouri College of Fine Arts & Communications Research. (St. Louis, MO)
2009 Prison Book Program Fundraising Award. Prison Book Program. (Boston, MA)
2006 Most Outstanding Work in the Department. Knox Institute. (Ft. Lauderdale, FL)

GRANTS
2025 Cooperation AI: “Generative AI and Interaction” Cooperation AI (London, UK)
2019 CAVAD Microgrant. “Aesthetics of Representation: New Modes of Data Visualization.” College of Architecture, Visual Arts &
Design. (Riverside, CA)
2017 CAVAD Scholarship Grant. “Visual Genome: Augmented Reality + Artificial Intelligence.” College of Architecture, Visual Arts &
Design. (Riverside, CA)
2004 William A. Swets Memorial Grant. “History of Ideas.” Knox Institute. (Ft. Lauderdale, FL)


PUBLICATIONS
Biermann, B. (2025, August). Augmented reality, art, and public space. Retrieved Jan 10, 2026.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3214745.3214747
Biermann, B. (2020, July 10). “The Arts” in Extended Reality in A/IS as a part of The IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and
Intelligent Systems. Retrieved Aug. 12, 2020,
https://standards.ieee.org/content/dam/ieee-standards/standards/web/documents/other/ead/EAD1e_extended_reality.pdf
Biermann, B. (2018). Augmented reality, art, and public space. ACM SIGGRAPH 2018 Talks on - SIGGRAPH 18.
doi:10.1145/3214745.3214747
Biermann, B. (2018). AR and Ethics. In What is Augmented Reality. Joni Binstock (ed). New York, NY: Amazon Kindle.
Biermann, B. (2017). Ethically Aligned Design [From the Editor]. IEEE Control Systems, 38(3), 3-4. doi:10.1109/mcs.2018.2810458
Biermann, B. (2016). AR, Art, and Public Space. In Augmented Reality: Innovative Perspectives across Art, Industry, and Academia. Sean
Morey (ed), John Tinnell (ed). Anderson, SC: Parlor Press.
Biermann, B. (2013). Re Public: Re Imagining Public Space. AR[t]: AR, Art, and Technology, 1(3), 7-15.
Biermann, B. (2006). Travelling Philosophy: From Literature to Film (doctoral dissertation). Proefschrift Universiteit van Amsterdam.

PAPERS
Biermann, B. (2025) Holy Waves and Broken Bones: The Cult(ure) of Surf and Skate Rebellion in SoCal. New York: International Public Art
Research Exchange.
Biermann, B. (2012). AR | AD Takeover: Augmented Reality in Public Space. Frankfurt: Sixth International Conference of Critical
Geography.
Biermann, B. (2011). The Battle of L.A. Part II: Graffiti, Self and the Reappropriation of Semiotic Space. Terre Haute: International Crime,
Media & Popular Culture Conference.
Biermann, B. (2010). The Battle of Los Angeles: Graffiti and the Reappropriation of Semiotic Space. St. Louis: International Pop
Culture Association Conference.
Biermann, B. (2009). The Long Road Home: Metanarrative, Structural Realism and the Self. Riverside: Western Regional CCL
Conference.
Biermann, B. (2008).“Spatial Distributions of Power: Illegal Billboards as Graffiti in L.A. Terre Haute: International Crime, Media &
Popular Culture Conference.
Biermann, B. (2004).“Diegetic | Non-diegetic Sound: Spatial & Temporal Markers in Solaris. Amsterdam: Amsterdam School for Cultural
Analysis Theory Seminar.

Friends Church - Yorba Linda

Surfrider Foundation

Surfing
UTV
Mountain climbing

“Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.”
― Hunter S. Thompson