[hn_throw65965]

That's really a non-linear path, but I'll try to tell the most important waypoints anyway: I have a background in Physics and had already around 5 years of professional tech experience under my belt. Being frustrated with corporate life I moved to Berlin in 2013, decided to co-found again and minimized my recurring expenses, finding a cheap place with an old friend.

That co-founding didn't go well and I started visiting really a lot of Meetups (too bad that's not an option right now, hopefully soon again!). So eventually I ended up working at a co-working space. Many people there worked with freelancing, had a design background and my supervisor actually was working as freelance artist on the side.

So I was getting involved in as many projects as I could. Eventually I was attending a Hackathon that I really liked. It was quite a high-effort project, unfinished but me and a friend decided to continue it after the Hackathon. At that point I was also frequenting another more artistic Hackerspace and the owner asked if we wanted to exhibit the project. Being unfinished, one requirement was to give it an artsy touch. Of course me and the other guy still being in the project agreed. He also has a design background.

This way I ended up having a project exhibited in a science art place and I also realized that my project list at that time mostly consisted of highly experimental projects. At that point I wasn't really putting that much effort in anymore. Eventually I also decided to sort out my life and went for a regular job again. But the irony is, things were going by themselves and it was already more effort to "go out" than to stay in that space.

FWIW, I noticed that there are quite a few literature/writing Meetups. Maybe that's a nice way to get your hands dirty. I mean you can just visit and join the projects whenever those come up...