ARTS
Montreal design studio Daily Tous Les Jours creates charmingly bonkers installations, which use technology to help people have fun, sing, talk and make music. Co-founder, Mouna Andraos, talks to Kath Hudson
What is your career background? Originally I studied fi lm and liberal arts and then interactive on the web. It was quite exciting to engage the public with different types of narratives online. After doing that for a few years, I did a Masters degree at New York University, looking at new technologies in comput- ing and touchpoint interfaces.
How did you and DTLJ co-founder Melissa Mongiat meet? We met about three years ago. We had both come back to Montreal after a few years abroad – Melissa had been working in London – and were look- ing for collaborators. A mutual friend put us in touch with each other, as our backgrounds were complementary. Pretty much the fi rst time we sat down to talk we thought it would be interesting to work together.
So what is the aim of Daily Tous Les Jours? Our aim is to create projects that inspire people to reinvent a little bit of their everyday world. We use the tools
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of design and technology in order to engage with the public and to get them to expand their imaginations.
What was the biggest challenge in getting the company off the ground? Everything! We were lucky to have good support and some clients lined up, but we didn’t have an offi ce or a name for the fi rst six months.
The biggest challenge came after about a year, when we were trying to fi gure out what we really do, what we are all about and how could we build that into a more sustainable company. This process is ongoing.
What are your roles?
Melissa and I are both creative direc- tors of the company.
How big is the company now? We have six people working full time in Montreal, and we go back and forth to the US. We also use lots of inde- pendent freelancers, with specialist expertise, on a project by project basis.
Read Leisure Management online
leisuremanagement.co.uk/digital
As your projects require people to interact, are they supervised, to get them involved? Usually we leave people to do it on their own. I like to tell the story of the Giant Sing Along at the Minnesota State Fayre [a fi eld of microphones was placed to encourage a giant kara- oke style sing-song]. This is a fayre where everything has been the same for years, so it was diffi cult for a new- comer. At 8am we were all set up and no one was there. Fifteen minutes later one guy took a microphone and started singing, so I stood next to him and sang along to show there was room for more people. After about 15 minutes they got it and never stopped. We try to make the interactions very clear and design different levels of engagement, from being a spectator to leading the troops.
Where do the ideas come from? They are very simple ideas. Everything has been done before, it’s just a case of treating the idea differently so it becomes something else. The ideas
ISSUE 3 2013 © cybertrek 2013
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