Photo: jeanbaptisteparis / CC BY-SA 2.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Joachim Sauter deserves to be a household name, and I am a little frustrated that he is not. A German media artist, designer and professor at the Berlin University of the Arts, he built Terravision in 1993, a program that let you fly around a digital globe years before Google Earth, and later took Google to court over the underlying patent. That blend of art and engineering, of seeing the future before the rest of us, is precisely what I love. Sauter died in 2021, but the work of people who glimpse tomorrow early tends to keep glowing quietly in the world they left behind.
Overview
Joachim Sauter (16 May 1959 – 10 July 2021) 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 (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.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Joachim Sauter
- Name (Japanese)
- ヨアヒム・ザウター
- Reading
- よあひむ・ざうたー
- Born
- January 1, 1959 – July 10, 2021
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Capricorn / Boar
- Origin
- Schwäbisch Gmünd, Stuttgart Government Region, Germany
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- artist / designer / sculptor / university teacher / light artist
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Berlin University of the Arts
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Artist — see all → · Designer — see all → · More people from Germany →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.