Exploring different sides of technologies, their social effects as well as the ways they influence our daily lives, is a trade-mark for Studio Moniker. You can hear their talk at Playgrounds Blend.
Moniker is an Amsterdam based interaction and media design studio created by Luna Maurer & Roel Wouters. With Moniker, they explore characteristics of technology, how people use it and how it influences people’s daily lives. Often, the audience is asked to take part in the development of their projects.
Together with Edo Paulus, Moniker authored Conditional Design. Conditional Design is a manifesto and experimental playground based on the notion that designing a logic-based environment within which results take shape are more interesting and fruitful than a directly designed object. These notions were put to the test during weekly workshops, which were then posted online. In 2013 the Conditional Design Workbook, including several articles and
many workshops, was published by Valiz.
Moniker has won several awards, including a British Music Video Award, two Dutch Design Awards and the Amsterdamprijs voor de Kunst.
They have taught media courses at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, the Sandberg Institute, Royal Academy of Art, The Hague and at Yale University School of Art. On a regular basis they give workshops and lectures at universities, symposia and art festivals around the globe like SPAN Google Design, ECAL, After School Club, CCA, Resonate, Walker Art Center, TYPO and the International Graphic Design Biennale Brno.
Among their most well known and loved projects there are Do Not Touch, Dance Tonite, Puff Up Club and Red Follows Yellow Follows Blue Follows Red
They often work across various media for a diverse range of clients ranging from those in the cultural field to commercial companies. They specialize in interactive, print, video, physical installation and performance work. They have worked with Het Klokhuis, Mozilla, Radio Garden and Het Nieuwe Instituut, among others.
Moniker’s breakthrough project and one of their most loved works remains the DoNotTouch music video, an interactive crowd-source ode to the mouse cursor. The innovative cutting-edge promo won a series of distinctions including a Lovie, a UK Musiv Video Award, a Dutch Design Award and even a Playgrounds Award!