About Sahar

Sahar Sajadieh is a digital performance/media artivist (artist+activist) and scholar, interaction designer, and computer scientist, born and raised in Iran. Sahar obtained her Ph.D. in Media Arts and Technology (MAT) Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She recently completed her American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) postdoctoral fellowship in Comparative Media Analysis and Practice (CMAP) Program at Vanderbilt University. She graduated with a dual BA–BSc degree in Theatre and Computer Science from The University of British Columbia and received her Master’s Degree from the Performance Studies Program at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. 

Sahar’s research and practice lie at the intersection of computational performance, media arts, interrogative design, performance/media theory, artificial intelligence, and human-computer interaction. She is interested in the application of digitally-mediated interactivity, extended reality, machine learning, and virtual & robotic embodiments in live performances and public spheres as means of storytelling, poetic expression, and socio-political intervention. For Sahar, digital media practice is a form of activism, a way to challenge the public’s comfort zone and provoke dialogues about difficult, unspoken issues in our communities. Her research focuses on what constitutes liveness in live performances and interactions and how it can be replicated with technology.

As a theater artist, she has written, directed, performed, and worked as a dramaturge in several theatrical performances in New York, Vancouver, and Santa Barbara. Her digital artworks and interactive performances were exhibited in various countries, both in digital/electronic art festivals and interactive arts exhibitions at computer science conferences. Her recent media artwork was an interactive robotic performance, “Come Hither to Me,” exhibited at CHI Interactivity 2019, at Glasgow, Scotland, in May 2019.