Hi, I'm Sara, a creative technologist working at the intersection of computer science, perception, and spatial experience. I specialize in building bridges between disciplines and thrive in fast-paced, collaborative environments where ideas are pressure-tested through making — especially in hackathons and entrepreneurship.

When I am not building, or learning about newest trends at 2x speed in podcasts or youtube you can find me recharging my batteries in the mountains, strolling around in exhibitions, running, or swimming.

Projects

ArtTech Hack

art tech community building zurich

noteworthy

community events zurich

Algaeia

Augmented Reality Spatial audio

Failtopia

Virtual Reality Unity Blender C#

eXistenZ

Virtual Reality Unity Blender C#

Writing

• On balance – On presence and Absence

  2023 | Essay

  How I learned to „take my time" again after losing a parent early on.

  There is a common saying that one should „take one's time". Everything that you want to become good at takes a lot of time and dedication. I am walking around with a camera for most of my life so far. As a kid I was always deeply fascinated, when I joined my mom on a frequent basis to pick up the developed photographs at the local photography store that doesn't exist anymore.

  To me even though a photograph is 2 dimensional, it was like the perfect imitation of reality. Looking at a developed photograph seemed like a moment in time was magically frozen within a photograph.

  When I was around fourteen years old I started to take learning photography seriously. After learning the basic mechanics of a camera, it took a lot of practice and time to learn how to use light in a good way and to figure out what I want to focus on and what I wanted to have in the frame.

  By the time I entered art school when I was around eighteen years old my photography professor told me that I don't really need this course. Which was in my opinion not completely true, since I learned how to handle the gradient curve in photoshop and therefore minimized the adjustments/postproduction on photographs. Before art school my photoshop workflow was an unnecessary complicated mess.

  

  Even tough I extended my skills towards photogrammetry and LIDAR scanning, because I became more and more interested in the illusion of depth on screen and switched from a professional camera back to iphone photography in the meantime, my interest for „learning how to see" the world through different lenses is something I will never get bored with. In the end it's never really about the camera you have. The camera is just a tool that helps you to see in a different way: A tool that makes you reflect about what is in the focus, in the spotlight and what is left out of the frame. What remains blurry out of focus.

  The process of learning how to photograph, how to see, is something that you can not really show, it is work happening out of the spotlight. At some point people started to tell me things like „You are very talented". Whereas I agree that for example certain traits like being hypersensitive help me to naturally notice a lot by default, a lot of what gets labeled as „talent" is simply a lot of practice, time and energy investment.

  My fascination for „vision", more precisely „perception" led me later on towards a fascination for Computer Vision and since an early age I am fascinated by constructed worlds on screen whether it is in Computer Generated movies or Games. To this day I am a fan of certain Pixar movies like Toy story or the short animation story Geri's Game. Extending my skills in those fields took a lot of additional practice. Learning a lot about linear algebra, matrices and questioning whether I can really learn this (And the answer is yes, never give up when you don't get a concept the first time you read about it).

  This brings me back to the topic of taking ones time. Since November 2018 I was sort of in a rush. I felt like I was running out of time. I was 21 and a half at that time. Those who know me in person know what happened in November 2018, those who don't can read about it now.

  There are moments in everyones life that divide ones life in a before and after. They turn ones inner world upside down and put one on a roller coaster that doesn't seem to slow down. These moments are the most challenging one will ever encounter, making one aware with all their intensity that the only resource everyone of us on earth has the same amount of 24hours per day is limited. It's not that I haven't experienced grief before, yet in November 2018 I was faced with the most intense grief possible: The grief caused by the sudden loss of a parent.

  When I was faced with that reality I had to accept it. I had to say yes to my new life, since I didn't have a choice. The absence of a choice is hard to handle, yet I decided to accept the challenge.

  My father was always incredibly aware of the fact that time is a limited resource. He often said „Doing this would be a waste of ones lifetime" or „one only has a limited amount of kilometers in ones life". He once told me that he only replied to emails at work when the sender stated clearly in the header what the emails purpose is about.

  When people learn about the fact that my father is no longer alive: I often hear people saying things like: „but dying in your mid sixties is quite early." As if how long you live tells anything about the quality of your life.

  As a little anecdote: When I was fourteen years old, stuck in Gymnasium I once went to the career counseling, because all I wanted is to go to art school and I was looking for possible paths. And this career advice guy whom I really couldn't stand. He asked me to take an online test to figure out what job would be fitting for me: I told him I want to go to art school, he insisted on me taking the test and surprise surprise the result was artist or computer scientist. A third result was Baker (I mean there was a question in the survey whether I enjoy baking cakes or not, I mean who doesn't…). Well at some point during the conversation he was like „you have all the time in the world" (additionally he clearly had zero sense for art) and said nowadays humans die on average at the age of 85. What is the point of turning 85, if most of your lifetime is wasted?

  The day my father died I became painfully aware of the fact that my time is limited, too. I started to live a bit in a rush since then. And only recently I came back to a state of relaxation, relearning to enjoy the here and now again and to go with the flow at my speed.

  Ever since I was a kid I joined my dad for sessions at the Driving Range once in a while. Even though Golf never became a sport, which I was actively pursuing I remember something important that he once said, when I was in a rush to use up the golf balls as fast as possible: „Take your time, focus and slow down." I decided to apply what he said to every aspect in my life.

  In January 2023 I have flown to the States to participate in the MIT Reality Hack, which was held under the motto of „presence". And I have to say I learned to be present again in the recent times. I learned to be balanced again: My flight from Boston back to Zurich was not booked out and the pilot announced at the beginning that everyone should please sit down on the place indicated on ones ticket to keep the weight distribution balanced as calculated in advance. And balance is what I comes down to in the end.

  Over the course of 2022 I learned to take my time with certain complex topics in Computer Science and implement resting sessions, such as going for walks, bouldering and Swimming to implement a healthy balance. Swimming has always been a passion of mine. I like the moment when you dive below the surface, or being in this flow state surrounded by water in genreal. Being surrounded by water has healing energy. I found a strategy over the years to handle the day of the year that he died, I try to be at the sea and stare at the water, while walking along a coastline. The sea has a way of letting you know that the earth keeps spinning and that you are just a small puzzle piece in the universe and like waves show after downs there are ups again.

• My journey into Hackathons

  2023 | Essay

  When the pandemic was taking place, I once checked my emails and read about an art and tech Hackathon in a newsletter. I questioned whether I could participate in this or not, yet my curiosity is always stronger than my self-doubts and shyness. I scrolled through the list of participants and found a neuroscientist, who immediately sparked my interest. Over the course of the next weeks we collected our thoughts in a miro board and meet across continents and time zones on hour long Zoom meetings. We did not end up handing in a project, since it was not fully developed and difficult to assemble under the conditions of the pandemic.

  Nevertheless this led me on a wonderful journey of Hackathons that I keep on exploring with a lot of heart blood and dedication for the time being…

  In September 2022 I applied for a week long in-person "Hackathon in Residency" taking place in Germany. Even though I luckily got accepted, I unfortunately couldn't attend since I was in Linz attending the Festival University at the same time.

  But another chance was around the corner to join my first in-person Hackathon: In October 2022 „Girls in Tech Switzerland" hosted a Hackathon at On Labs in Zurich. When I applied for the Hackathon I wasn't expecting to get in, since I listed that my educational background was in Fine Arts. To my surprise I was being accepted and additionally was also accepted for the challenge I most wanted to explore. We could either choose between the Esri, Meta or Digitec challenge and Esri was my first choice. During the course of the Hackathon I got to know a lot of amazing women working in tech and noticed that similar to myself, many had a non linear path that led them to this Hackathon. I knew that I was in a good place when I heard everyone's story and that the backgrounds of the participants ranged from archeology to architecture.

  

  I was a few weeks into my Bachelor of Computer Science when I realized that I needed to use this semester to adapt and adjust my life to build a healthy balance. Sometimes is better to take a break to reflect and regain energy. It became sort of a running joke that I was mostly spotted at talks and events happening at university and not in the lecture halls. But this was my way of finding out what I wanted.

  For example I attended a talk of one of my heroes in the rubric of animation: Ed Catmull (the recording of the talk is available here). At the end of Catmulls talk Markus Gross told an anecdote: He said that when he started his time at ETH as a professor he ran into the Turing award winner Niklaus Wirth at the cafeteria and he asked him what he was doing. He told Wirth: "Computer Graphics". And Wirth replied that he didn't know that this is part of Computer Science. The school system is always very slow at adapting and similarly animation or 3D modeling was not part of my curriculum when I studied Arts in Zurich.

  This talk very much inspired me to trust my gut and continue my journey into more Hackathons. Besides being a great opportunity to gain experience about something you have not previously explored, meeting cool people, test out state of the art technology, Hackathons are wonderful chance to leave your comfort zone. In November 2022 I saw that a Blockchain Hackathon was taking place in Berlin. A mixture of curiosity about the current state of Crypto and me missing Berlin led to the decision to take the next train to Berlin. I figured quickly that this is not the type of Hackathon that I enjoy, but I went Bouldering with my teammate afterwards and started to continue Bouldering to this day.

  A few days later I took the train to Rotterdam, since the VRdays Europe were hosting a XR Hackathon. This definitely was my type of Hackathon. And my team was the perfect mix of skills. A wonderful moment during the course of the Hackathon was, when once a man who visited the VRdays exhibition entered the room, where the Hackathon was taking place and asked my team what we were doing here and we said: „A Hackathon". He replied a bit surprised: "What that's amazing! I see so many women in this room."

  

  Then in December 2022 I did another online Hackathon. (DODO Hackathon), since a former Festival University student sent me the info.

  

  My last Hackathon that took place recently in January 2023 was very intense, yet my absolute highlight. Those who know me in person know that visiting MIT was one of my biggest dreams since a very long time. So many people I look up to have studied or taught there, or are currently doing research in the Media Lab (Joseph Weizenbaum, Joy Buolamwini just to name a few). And I can still remember vividly, when I checked my emails and saw that I was accepted to attend the MIT Reality Hack.

  

  It felt surreal, until I entered the MIT Media Lab and picked up my badge at the early bird registration the day before the Hackathon started. The next day at the opening ceremony of the Hackathon I found myself in a lecture hall of MIT surrounded by 300+ people from all over the world who share my passion. I still find it hard to put this Hackathon into words, but I give it a try: The Hackathon was held under the motto of "presence" and having attended both online, as well as offline Hackathons in the past I must admit that I prefer in-person Hackathons, since you stumble upon so many nice people that you wouldn't in an online Hackathon, where you are just talking to your teammates in a video chat. My goals for this Hackathon were to have a nice team and build something cool. To my surprise my team not only managed to be on the same wave length, but we also took home the Grand Prize. Like many others who attended the MIT Reality Hack this year, I feel like I found my community.

  

  If this article raised your curiosity and you want to attend a Hackathon (or a Game Jam), but struggle to find a Hackathon that fits you, feel free to drop me a direct message… happy to help you navigate the endless possible routes you can take.

  PS: A good way to find new Hackathons, is to post about Hackathons you attended on Instagram, since Instagram will start to show you advertisements for more Hackathons every once in a while, when you use the word „Hackathon" in images or in image descriptions.

• An Architectural History of Collective Virtual Spaces in Games

  2022 | Publication | meta.space, published by Distanz Verlag · S.394

  Essay for the publication meta.space, exploring the architectural history of virtual game spaces.

  View publication

Inspiration

Bits & bytes that shaped me along the way curated with 💙

About

Hi, I'm Sara, a creative technologist working at the intersection of computer science, perception, and spatial experience. I specialize in building bridges between disciplines and thrive in fast-paced, collaborative environments where ideas are pressure-tested through making — especially in hackathons and entrepreneurship. When I am not building, or learning about newest trends at 2x speed in podcasts or youtube you can find me recharging my batteries in the mountains, strolling around in exhibitions, running, or swimming.