Living in a Digital World
Mouna Andraos will be taking her ideas about how people and technology negotiate urban space to Berlin next spring, courtesy of the Phyllis Lambert Design Montreal Grant.
Andraos, a part-time lecturer in Concordia's Department of Design and Computation Arts, earned the city’s $10 000 grant with her design partner Melissa Mongiat. The pair will develop a research creation project that expands their ideas about space, technology, communication and community. They will also work with the Open Design City Lab in Berlin.
The jury that granted the prize is made up of design practitioners from the city, museums and the creative community. All members were impressed with “the recipients’ generosity: the idea of getting passersby directly involved with the facilities is an excellent way of democratizing design and sharing it with the general public.”
Andraos has been teaching at Concordia for two years since returning from her graduate studies in New York City. She introduces her students to her own preoccupations about “how our world is evolving though technology and the internet.”
Many of her projects involve engaging the public. Several years ago, she developed Power Cart, a mobile recharging station powered by a solar panel, hand crank, “and parts available in a hardware store.” Wheeling the Power Cart through the city, she encouraged people to recharge their phones and MP3 players, “and started a conversation about our relationship to energy.”
More recently, she and Mongiat produced Bloc Jam for Mutek, Montréal’s summer music festival. Passersby could control projections and musical tracks on a large public screen through their phones. The spontaneous opportunity to become a DJ was available to anyone with a phone within range. “We were giving people control of their environment,” Adraos says.
Although she earned her undergraduate degree at Concordia in Liberal Arts and a film specialization in Communication Studies, Andraos quickly turned to Web design after she finished school. She shifted from projection to computer screen, “because it felt like the media of the future.”
Establishing a place for herself in the emerging field meant “people paid me to do something while I learned.” Eventually she became creative director at BlueSponge, responsible for the development of dozens of websites, many award-winning. She continues to expand her design practice while teaching.
Related links:
• City of Montreal press release
• Bloc Jam
• Ville UNESCO