Joachim Sauter

Joachim Sauter (16 May 1959 – 10 July 2021) was a German media artist, designer and technology entrepreneur.

A pioneer of new media, he developed and shaped the field from the early 1980s on.

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 (easily transmissible via new media) 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.

Sauter was married and had a son.

He died on 10 July 2021 following a serious illness.

Art:

Design:

He was appointed Professor for New Media Art and Design at the Universität der Künste Berlin, UdK (Berlin University of the Arts) 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.

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.