2025 was a year where several strands of my work started to connect more clearly.
From curating large-scale conferences to building new artistic formats with VR Dance Club, from advocating for digital culture to starting a new chapter in coaching and mentoring — the overall picture of what I am working towards is slowly emerging
gamescom congress
In terms of scale, gamescom congress was by far the largest project of the year: almost 180 speakers, 9 stages, and around 1,000 visitors from culture, business, technology, and society coming together around the broader potential of games. Once again, it was a blast to collaborate with the team, Koelnmesse, game – the German Games Industry Association, and our partners Nerdstar and FischerAppelt.
But VR Dance Club was no less active.
From receiving a major research stipend from Kunststiftung NRW for “WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER”, our research into artistic ways of involving remote audiences, to creating and premiering “THE FUTURE IS US”, to building our own engine for multichannel audio performances, and launching the lab performance series “PRESS X TO PUSH DANCERS OFF STAGE” — 2025 was a year of experimentation, momentum, and countless small and big steps forward.
Another important strand of my work in 2025 was the continued mission for cultural recognition of digital creative practice, especially through The Art of Coding and the demoscene.
The demoscene, which I have been part of for more than three decades, reached another important milestone as it was officially recognized as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in France. I also had the pleasure of speaking about the history and cultural relevance of the demoscene in interviews on Deutschlandfunk, and contributed articles to Politik & Kultur, published by the German Cultural Council, as well as to the Handbuch Gameskultur, where I reflected on subversive examples in games and the demoscene as a form of digital cultural practice.
The fourth pillar of my work — and one that is particularly dear to me — is my work as a licensed systemic coach.
In 2025, this also began to take on a more visible form. I was invited to lead workshops on motivation, team communication, and working under pressure as part of the PRESS START program by Stiftung Digitale Spielekultur. Since December, I have also been coaching the mentees on a weekly basis every Monday.
At the moment, I am overhauling the structure of my website and communication channels to make these different strands of work more visible: experience design through curation, performative arts, digital culture, and personal conversations.
The focus in 2026 will be to further elaborate these connections, and to explore more deeply how conferences and festivals, artistic production in performances and exhibitions, and personal formats such as speaking, moderation, mentoring, and coaching can come together as one broader field of experience design — creating spaces for new perspectives, new connections, and meaningful exchange.
I am very excited about what lies ahead. Stay tuned.
