Joachim Sauter


Joachim Sauter was a German media artist, designer and technology entrepreneur. He was appointed Professor for New Media Art and Design at the Universität der Künste Berlin, UdK in 1991, and in 1993 he created Terravision (computer program), before pursuing a lawsuit against Google for infringing the patent. He became an adjunct professor at UCLA, Los Angeles in 2001.

Early life and education

Sauter studied design at the UdK Berlin, and direction and camera at the German Academy for Film and Television, Berlin. He was using computers both as a tool and as a medium since the early stages of his work. A pioneer of new media, he developed and shaped the field from the early 1980s on.

Career

In 1988, he founded the new media design studio ART+COM with other designers, architects, technologists, and other artists and scientists. Their goal was to research the new medium in the realms of art and design, emphasizing the translation of information into physical spaces, offering a more communal, reality-grounded experience than could be achieved with computer monitors alone. As Head of Design at ART+COM, Sauter led the interdisciplinary group’s innovative experiments, using new technologies to convey complex topics while exploring their potential for spatial communication and art.

Personal life and death

Sauter was married and had a son. He died on 10 July 2021 following a serious illness.

Projects with ART+COM (partial)

Art:
  • 2018 "" – kinetic installation
  • 2018 "" – kinetic installation
  • 2017 "" – kinetic installation
  • 2013 "Symphonie Cinétique – The Poetry of Motion" – exhibition and performance in collaboration with Ólafur Arnalds
  • 2013 "Ink Drops to the Origin" — interactive installation
  • 2012 "Kinetic Rain" – kinetic installation
  • 2008 "Kinetic Sculpture" – kinetic sculpture
  • 2007 "Duality" – interactive environmental installation, Tokyo
  • 2002 "Behind the Lines" – interactive installation
  • 1999–2002 "" – medial stage
  • 1995–2008 "The Invisible Shapes of Things Past" – architectural sculptures made of films
  • 1992 "De-Viewer" – interactive installation
Design:
  • 2008 "Spheres" – mediatecture
  • 2005 "documenta mobil" – mobile exhibition
  • 2004 "floating.numbers" – interactive table installation
  • 2004 "Austrian Flag" – interactive flag
  • 1995– ? "timescope" – low-tech augmented reality device
  • 1994 "Terravision" – interactive installation showing a virtual representation of the Earth using satellite imagery, commissioned in 1994 by Deutsche Telekom

Exhibitions (partial)