David Claerbout was born in 1969 in Kortrijk, Belgium. He studied at the national Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and at the Rijksakademie of Visual Arts in Amsterdam. He lives and works in Antwerp and Berlin. 

In 2007, David Claerbout was awarded the Will-Grohmann-Preis of the Berin Akademie der Kűnste, and in 2010, he received the Peill-Preis of the Gűnther-Peill-Stiftung. He participated in the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program from 2002 to 2003.

Originally trained in painting and drawing, David Claerbout is known for his works using photography, video, digital technology and sound. His practice revolves around the concepts of temporality and duration, images suspended in a tension between stillness and movement, as well as the experience of dilated time and memory. David Claerbout says that he “sculpts in duration. The definition of duration is different from that of time: duration is not an independent state-like time, but an in-between state. “With his large-scale video-based installations, the artist makes the viewer a part of the work: whether by establishing a connection between the projected images on the screen and the audience, or by creating a spatial relationship between the screen itself and the exhibition space, or simply, by allowing a process by which “a single scene can develop into another by the presence of the spectator and a bit of time”.