Oscar Ström

Since 2024 I have designed and built software and websites for a documentary film studio, a dance theatre, an artist collective and a cultural association: sales tools, a streaming platform, a website, and a program that turns dancers' movement into sound. I also hold a master's degree in Media Technology, and my thesis became a paper at ACM Creativity and Cognition 2026.

1. 1.1March to September 2026Operations Manager, Film and Tell, StockholmOperations, partnerships, and the internal tools the sales work ran on.Stockholm

   I joined in March 2026 to work on partnerships and sales, and became Operations Manager in May. Nobody at the company had a technical background, so I built the tools we needed: programs that collect contact information from public event programmes and match them against the company's Salesforce data, turning them into internal lead lists that the sales team could work from.

   Over two months I booked 34 first meetings from cold contacts, and 30 of them took place. I also ran two policy roundtables at Almedalen 2026, which also functioned as sales events for one of the company's initiatives.

   Read moreInternal business outreach tools
2. 1.2November 2025 to presentFullstack Engineer, Leštnice, Stockholm and MařížThe streaming platform and research archive of a collective participating in the programme of České Budějovice, European Capital of Culture 2028.Stockholm and Maříž

   Since November 2025 I have been paid to build the collective's new self-hosted website, streaming platform and archive, which are currently under construction. In this project I am responsible for full stack development, working with the designers who are in charge of the visual identity and graphic design.

   Read moreCommunity
3. 1.3November 2025 to April 2026Software Engineer, Moderna Dansteatern, StockholmA program that turns dancers' movement into sound, for Lisa Janbell's piece Deep Leap.Stockholm

   A macOS app that reads the dancers' hands from a live camera and plays sound in Ableton Live. In the performances it was run by someone who is not a programmer, so how it behaved when something went wrong mattered as much as the tracking. I tuned it with the dancers and the sound designer in rehearsals.

   Read moreDeep Leap
4. 1.4September 2025 to presentFront-end Developer and Designer, Sentieri di Stelle, Stockholm and Loreto AprutinoThe website of an agricultural company and cultural association in Loreto Aprutino, Italy.Stockholm and Loreto Aprutino

   I designed and built the site from the ground up, then handed the editing over to the owners, who now keep the site up to date themselves. The website will be expanded in the coming months, and I will be part of this continued development.

   Read moresentieri.co case study
5. 1.5April to November 2024Web Design and Development, Freelance, Stockholm and HelsinkiWebsite and user research for INY.ry and scientifyRESEARCH.Stockholm and Helsinki

   For INY.ry I built a new website, on a platform they could run themselves after handover. For scientifyRESEARCH, which is a platform for research funding, I ran a ten week user research project on what stopped visitors from signing up, and delivered a report with detailed suggestions on how to improve their user sign up flow.

6. 1.6September 2022 to August 2023B2B Sales Associate, Teleperformance Greece, AthensSelling Apple and then Microsoft hardware to the Swedish and Finnish markets, a year abroad.Athens

   Teleperformance is one of the companies that large technology firms hire to run their sales for them. I did not work for Apple or Microsoft directly. I sold their hardware, first Apple's and then Microsoft's, at first to consumers and later to businesses. I answered incoming requests by email and phone from the Swedish market, in Swedish and English, and later also from the Finnish market, in Finnish.

7. 1.7May to September 2022Harbour Master and Social Media Manager, Elisaari, InkooA summer season at a guest harbour and recreation island in the Finnish archipelago.Inkoo

   Elisaari is owned by the City of Helsinki. I ran the bar and restaurant at the harbour, collected the mooring fees and provided the visiting boats with electricity. I also made the photographs and videos for the island's Instagram account, elisaari.fi.

8. 1.8September 2021 to April 2022Salesman and Lab Technician, Fotoyks, HelsinkiSales, film development and studio photography in a photo shop.Helsinki

   I sold the shop's products and services, and developed, scanned and printed customers' film in the lab. In the in-house studio I took passport and visa photographs daily, and sometimes graduation and family photographs, both on my own and assisting.

9. 1.9June 2020 to June 2021Photographer and Graphic Designer, Finnish Defence Forces, TammisaariMilitary service, photographing the brigade's events and exercises and laying out its magazine.Tammisaari

   I completed my military service as a photographer and graphic designer in the Marines. My duties included documenting all important events, from portraits of, among others, the Minister of Defence and admirals to action shots during exercises. My biggest project was to design and lay out two issues of Fanbäraren, the brigade's magazine, which is published four times a year: 4/2020 and 1/2021. Issue 1/2021 was 40 pages in 3,000 copies, with my photograph on the cover.

1. 2.12023 to 2025Master of Science, Media Technology, Södertörn University, StockholmThe programme in User Experience and Interactive Media Design. Dissertation graded A.Stockholm

   Two years of full time study, taught mainly in English. The courses covered interactive media design, user experience and user research, design theory and design research, critical design, game design research, AI and machine learning for user experience design, and advanced visualisation methods. My thesis, rawTemp, is an instrument that lets you play Sweden's temperature from 1900 to 2023. I built it, and then studied how ten people who had never worked with data visualisation read meaning into it. This project was further developed and showcased at the ACM conference Creativity & Cognition 2026 in London.

   Read morerawTemp
2. 2.22017 to 2020Bachelor of Arts, Cultural Sciences, Lund University, LundWith a specialisation in Digital Cultures, and an exchange semester at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.Lund

   The courses covered theories of digital culture, research methods, project management, and production in image, sound and online publishing, with three project courses and a work placement. On exchange in Hong Kong I studied social media data analytics, advertising and sales. My thesis examined how the subreddit r/coronavirus worked to stop misinformation during the first spring of the Covid-19 pandemic. I compared its rules with how six regular Reddit users judged the quality of information, through interviews and observation of the forum.

1. 3.12026Multisensory climate communication: meaning-making through interactive audiovisual atmospheresStröm, O. and Lundmark, S. Demo, ACM Creativity and Cognition 2026, London.
   DOI 10.1145/3803784.3816880
2. 3.2January 2026Guest lecture on using AI in research workTo master's students in Interactive Media Design at Södertörn University.

1. 4.1AI, automation and data analysisPrograms that collect, match and sort information, with a person checking the step that matters.
   Tools

   Python, web scraping, matching names across lists, the Anthropic API, Claude Code every day

   Shown inInternal business outreach toolsjobFinder
2. 4.2UX/UI designWorking out what a screen should show and do for the person using it, from the first sketch to a working prototype.
   Tools

   Figma, wireframes, prototypes in code

   Shown inDeep LeapjobFindersentieri.co case study
3. 4.3ResearchFinding out how people actually read and use a thing, by watching and asking them.
   Tools

   Interviews, think aloud sessions, usability tests, thematic analysis

   Shown inrawTemp
4. 4.4Sound and image in real timeInstruments and systems that respond as you play them, on a screen or on a stage.
   Tools

   Swift, Metal, the Apple Vision framework, OSC, Ableton Live, Max for Live, p5.js

   Shown inrawTempDeep LeapAudio-visual work
5. 4.5WebsitesFrom the design to a site the owners can edit themselves.
   Tools

   Next.js, React, TypeScript, Sanity, Figma

   Shown insentieri.co case study
6. 4.6Servers and self-hostingSetting up and running my own servers, when a hosted service would cost too much or keep the archive for itself.
   Tools

   Linux, Docker, a VPS, DNS

   Shown inCommunity
7. 4.7Graphic designIdentities, covers and two issues of a magazine, mostly for people I was already working with.
   Tools

   Figma, editorial layout, typography