Luna Maurer on Designing Friction

In December 2024, I was at the Iterations conference in s’Hertogenbosch (Netherlands) and there she was: Luna Maurer! I’ve known Luna’s work for many years, together with Roel Wouters and Jonathan Puckey she co-founded the famous Studio Moniker, which pushed and explored the boundaries of web technologies. After the studio was dissolved, she is now going her own way as a performance and media artist. On the conference I’ve had the pleasure to see her performance “Emoticons don’t have wrinkles”, which is a powerful rant against big tech and an ode to “friction”.

We met digitally after the conference to talk about a whole range of exciting topics: From her work as a designer for interactive applications at Moniker, to her Designing Friction Manifesto, to the big and important question of how technology affects our times today and if and how we as designers can do to steer it all in a good direction. And surprisingly, it was also about an author we both love very much, Hartmut Rosa.

In the end I also found clear words to explain why creative coding courses at academic institutions are so difficult under the wrong conditions.

Tune in and enjoy the conversation!

Related Links

• lunamaurer.com
• studiomoniker.com
  • lunamaurer.com
  • roelwouters.com
  • puckey.studio
• eude.nl
• iterations.online
• designingfriction.com
• Emoticons don’t have wrinkles
  • lunamaurer.com/emoticons-don-t-have-wrinkles
  • Printed publication
• Hartmut Rosa
  • Resonanz
  • Resonance (EN)
  • Unverfügbarkeit
  • The Uncontrollability of the World
• Peter Sloterdijk
  • Wer noch kein Grau gedacht hat. Eine Farbenlehre.
• Miranda July
  • somebodyapp.com