Recent Research Projects

Automated Photography at the Maison Franco-Japonsaie

PHOTOGRAPHY

Automated Photography at the Maison Franco-Japonsaie

Research project with Milo Keller, Clément Lambelet

From February 3 to 19, 2023, on the occasion of Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions in Tokyo, ECAL is exporting the exhibition resulting from the Automated Photography research project, which explores the aesthetic and conceptual potential of automated photography.

ECAL in Seoul : exhibition Automated Photography

PHOTOGRAPHY

ECAL in Seoul : exhibition Automated Photography

Research project with Milo Keller

Following the success of the exhibition resulting from the Automated Photography research project at Paris Photo in 2021 and then at the Galerie l'elac in 2022, the ECAL is exporting this project to Plateform-L in Seoul from 17 September to 8 October 2022, through an immersive audiovisual exhibition.

HOW SOON IS NOW? HISTORIES AND FIGURES OF YOUTH

FINE ARTS

HOW SOON IS NOW? HISTORIES AND FIGURES OF YOUTH

Research project

Symposium : HOW SOON IS NOW? HISTORIES AND FIGURES OF YOUTH This symposium is the first stage of the research project How Soon Is Now? Histories and Figures of Youth. It questions “youth” as a conceptual, aesthetic, andpolitical figure born with modernity in the visual arts, popular culture, and the humanities. At the same time, this project proposes to examine the implications ofthe problematic category of "youth" in contemporary art and thought. By exploring the processes in which youth is constituted through its forms of representation, thisproject intends to render intelligible the aesthetic and political dimensions of youth, and to grasp it as a historical allegory allowing for a reconsideration of thecontemporary in the light of its most lively site. What image(s) does the notion of youth carry with it? What idea does it have of itself? How can we talk about it beyond ingrained ideas and the fantasies that society projects on it (at least in Western culture), making it simultaneously a force, a market, an age, a culture, a piece of a history which which we only began writing inthe twentieth-century, and which today has reached its critical stage? In recent history, the notion of youth has so often been conflated with “bringing down the house” that we now expect everything from it: to reinvent us, to shake us up, to carry us, to succeed in what others have failed at (establishing the most open communities possible), to build bridges for the future, to be radical, to be uncompromising where anyone outside of youth has already given up, to be desirable where others are overwhelmed. But with what means? If not those that young people make themselves, for themselves, with elements that they alone will have chosen? With their culture, their places, their clandestinity. Because that which is not yet over happens in the shadows of the world. Youth is a secret. “How Soon Is Now?”, The Smiths once asked. When is it, now?

The Sources of Jan Tschichold’s The New Typography

The Sources of Jan Tschichold’s The New Typography

Research project with Davide Fornari, Matthieu Cortat

Jan Tschichold’s essay Die neue Typographie (The New Typography, 1928) is a game-changing book, acclaimed as the curtain raiser of modern graphic design. While it takes the form of a critical essay and an operative manual, its sources have been understudied because of their difficult identification. This project aims to reconstruct the body of sources that Tschichold drew on to understand the broader cultural context of the book, through an international conference on its impact and a travelling exhibition.

(Re-)Viewing Paik

(Re-)Viewing Paik

Research project

(Re-)Viewing Paik is a joint research initiative between Switzerland and South-Korea that involves Prof. Patrick Keller from ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne (HES-SO), Dr. Sang Ae Park from the Nam June Paik Art Center and archives (NJPAC) in South Korea, and Dr. Christian Babski from fabric | ch, an architecture and information technology collective based in Lausanne. The main long-term objective of this joint and interdisciplinary research, based on the archives of Korean artist Nam June Paik (1932–2006), is to establish novel types of online exhibition curating and design, which must take shape digitally at any viewer's (visitor's) place or housing, and to virtually populate it, in an autonomous way. The results of this initial joint work, which will take the form of a functional "demo" (proof of concept), will be used in parallel to formulate a more detailed research project which will then be submitted to a national funding agency.

Swiss Graphic Design and Typography Revisited

Swiss Graphic Design and Typography Revisited

Research project with Davide Fornari, Jonas Berthod

The research project Swiss Graphic Design and Typography Revisited is divided into three sub-projects: ‘Principles of Education’, ‘Networks of Practice’ and ‘Strategies of Dissemination’. This three-year project is the biggest research collaboration established in the design field since the SNSF began its activities.

AIZI / AI字 / 爱字

AIZI / AI字 / 爱字

Research project

Artificial Intelligence-Aided Type Design AIZI research projects is a collaboration between ECAL and EPFL Computer Vision Laboratory. Its aim is to develop an artificial intelligence tool to help the creation of hanzi. The idea is to train an AI to generate glyphs from a small number of ‘seed’ characters, using Generative Adversarial Network (GAN): two algorithms fighting each other, endlessly attempting to outperform one another. Chinese script is rich of thousands of hanzi, but their construction is, on many point, very logical and systematic. It processes by assembling a limited number of radicals in order to produce new signs. For the designer, a major difficulty is that depending of the surrounding components, the design of the radicals changes, always self-adapting to the context, in order to achieve harmonious forms.

Words form language – Typography forms meaning

Words form language – Typography forms meaning

Research project

This research focusses on ways explored in typography to use letters as means of expression in order to emphasize the semantic, phonetic or visual qualities of language.

Phantom Power

Phantom Power

Research project

Phantom Power questions the social configurations of the non-audible narratives of aural practices in performances and public sound installations.

The Emergence of Video Art in Europe (1960–1980): history, theory, sources and archives.

The Emergence of Video Art in Europe (1960–1980): history, theory, sources and archives.

Research project

To date, there is no European-wide history of video art. It is this gap that the present research programme proposes to fill. Firstly by gathering data on the artists, the works and the events that enabled the emergence of this new artistic practice in the 1960s, or that were important in its development in the following years in Europe, and by bringing to light specific national conditions of production and distribution.

Automated Photography

Automated Photography

Research project

The Automated Photography research project (2019–2021) is conducted by Milo Keller in the framework of the MA in Photography at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne. It is a continuation of the research project Augmented Photography, equally conducted at ECAL (2016–2017), which aimed to question the mutability of the digital image, transformed both in its physical materiality and in its virtual expression.

Furniture under pressure

Furniture under pressure

Research project

The potential of shape memory materials in furniture design.

Applied Research Projects

Automated Photography at the Maison Franco-Japonsaie

PHOTOGRAPHY

Automated Photography at the Maison Franco-Japonsaie

Research project with Milo Keller, Clément Lambelet

From February 3 to 19, 2023, on the occasion of Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions in Tokyo, ECAL is exporting the exhibition resulting from the Automated Photography research project, which explores the aesthetic and conceptual potential of automated photography.

ECAL in Seoul : exhibition Automated Photography

PHOTOGRAPHY

ECAL in Seoul : exhibition Automated Photography

Research project with Milo Keller

Following the success of the exhibition resulting from the Automated Photography research project at Paris Photo in 2021 and then at the Galerie l'elac in 2022, the ECAL is exporting this project to Plateform-L in Seoul from 17 September to 8 October 2022, through an immersive audiovisual exhibition.

HOW SOON IS NOW? HISTORIES AND FIGURES OF YOUTH

FINE ARTS

HOW SOON IS NOW? HISTORIES AND FIGURES OF YOUTH

Research project

Symposium : HOW SOON IS NOW? HISTORIES AND FIGURES OF YOUTH This symposium is the first stage of the research project How Soon Is Now? Histories and Figures of Youth. It questions “youth” as a conceptual, aesthetic, andpolitical figure born with modernity in the visual arts, popular culture, and the humanities. At the same time, this project proposes to examine the implications ofthe problematic category of "youth" in contemporary art and thought. By exploring the processes in which youth is constituted through its forms of representation, thisproject intends to render intelligible the aesthetic and political dimensions of youth, and to grasp it as a historical allegory allowing for a reconsideration of thecontemporary in the light of its most lively site. What image(s) does the notion of youth carry with it? What idea does it have of itself? How can we talk about it beyond ingrained ideas and the fantasies that society projects on it (at least in Western culture), making it simultaneously a force, a market, an age, a culture, a piece of a history which which we only began writing inthe twentieth-century, and which today has reached its critical stage? In recent history, the notion of youth has so often been conflated with “bringing down the house” that we now expect everything from it: to reinvent us, to shake us up, to carry us, to succeed in what others have failed at (establishing the most open communities possible), to build bridges for the future, to be radical, to be uncompromising where anyone outside of youth has already given up, to be desirable where others are overwhelmed. But with what means? If not those that young people make themselves, for themselves, with elements that they alone will have chosen? With their culture, their places, their clandestinity. Because that which is not yet over happens in the shadows of the world. Youth is a secret. “How Soon Is Now?”, The Smiths once asked. When is it, now?

The Sources of Jan Tschichold’s The New Typography

The Sources of Jan Tschichold’s The New Typography

Research project with Davide Fornari, Matthieu Cortat

Jan Tschichold’s essay Die neue Typographie (The New Typography, 1928) is a game-changing book, acclaimed as the curtain raiser of modern graphic design. While it takes the form of a critical essay and an operative manual, its sources have been understudied because of their difficult identification. This project aims to reconstruct the body of sources that Tschichold drew on to understand the broader cultural context of the book, through an international conference on its impact and a travelling exhibition.

(Re-)Viewing Paik

(Re-)Viewing Paik

Research project

(Re-)Viewing Paik is a joint research initiative between Switzerland and South-Korea that involves Prof. Patrick Keller from ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne (HES-SO), Dr. Sang Ae Park from the Nam June Paik Art Center and archives (NJPAC) in South Korea, and Dr. Christian Babski from fabric | ch, an architecture and information technology collective based in Lausanne. The main long-term objective of this joint and interdisciplinary research, based on the archives of Korean artist Nam June Paik (1932–2006), is to establish novel types of online exhibition curating and design, which must take shape digitally at any viewer's (visitor's) place or housing, and to virtually populate it, in an autonomous way. The results of this initial joint work, which will take the form of a functional "demo" (proof of concept), will be used in parallel to formulate a more detailed research project which will then be submitted to a national funding agency.

Swiss Graphic Design and Typography Revisited

Swiss Graphic Design and Typography Revisited

Research project with Davide Fornari, Jonas Berthod

The research project Swiss Graphic Design and Typography Revisited is divided into three sub-projects: ‘Principles of Education’, ‘Networks of Practice’ and ‘Strategies of Dissemination’. This three-year project is the biggest research collaboration established in the design field since the SNSF began its activities.

AIZI / AI字 / 爱字

AIZI / AI字 / 爱字

Research project

Artificial Intelligence-Aided Type Design AIZI research projects is a collaboration between ECAL and EPFL Computer Vision Laboratory. Its aim is to develop an artificial intelligence tool to help the creation of hanzi. The idea is to train an AI to generate glyphs from a small number of ‘seed’ characters, using Generative Adversarial Network (GAN): two algorithms fighting each other, endlessly attempting to outperform one another. Chinese script is rich of thousands of hanzi, but their construction is, on many point, very logical and systematic. It processes by assembling a limited number of radicals in order to produce new signs. For the designer, a major difficulty is that depending of the surrounding components, the design of the radicals changes, always self-adapting to the context, in order to achieve harmonious forms.

Words form language – Typography forms meaning

Words form language – Typography forms meaning

Research project

This research focusses on ways explored in typography to use letters as means of expression in order to emphasize the semantic, phonetic or visual qualities of language.

Phantom Power

Phantom Power

Research project

Phantom Power questions the social configurations of the non-audible narratives of aural practices in performances and public sound installations.

The Emergence of Video Art in Europe (1960–1980): history, theory, sources and archives.

The Emergence of Video Art in Europe (1960–1980): history, theory, sources and archives.

Research project

To date, there is no European-wide history of video art. It is this gap that the present research programme proposes to fill. Firstly by gathering data on the artists, the works and the events that enabled the emergence of this new artistic practice in the 1960s, or that were important in its development in the following years in Europe, and by bringing to light specific national conditions of production and distribution.

Automated Photography

Automated Photography

Research project

The Automated Photography research project (2019–2021) is conducted by Milo Keller in the framework of the MA in Photography at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne. It is a continuation of the research project Augmented Photography, equally conducted at ECAL (2016–2017), which aimed to question the mutability of the digital image, transformed both in its physical materiality and in its virtual expression.

Furniture under pressure

Furniture under pressure

Research project

The potential of shape memory materials in furniture design.

Creation Research Projects

Automated Photography at the Maison Franco-Japonsaie

PHOTOGRAPHY

Automated Photography at the Maison Franco-Japonsaie

Research project with Milo Keller, Clément Lambelet

From February 3 to 19, 2023, on the occasion of Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions in Tokyo, ECAL is exporting the exhibition resulting from the Automated Photography research project, which explores the aesthetic and conceptual potential of automated photography.

ECAL in Seoul : exhibition Automated Photography

PHOTOGRAPHY

ECAL in Seoul : exhibition Automated Photography

Research project with Milo Keller

Following the success of the exhibition resulting from the Automated Photography research project at Paris Photo in 2021 and then at the Galerie l'elac in 2022, the ECAL is exporting this project to Plateform-L in Seoul from 17 September to 8 October 2022, through an immersive audiovisual exhibition.

HOW SOON IS NOW? HISTORIES AND FIGURES OF YOUTH

FINE ARTS

HOW SOON IS NOW? HISTORIES AND FIGURES OF YOUTH

Research project

Symposium : HOW SOON IS NOW? HISTORIES AND FIGURES OF YOUTH This symposium is the first stage of the research project How Soon Is Now? Histories and Figures of Youth. It questions “youth” as a conceptual, aesthetic, andpolitical figure born with modernity in the visual arts, popular culture, and the humanities. At the same time, this project proposes to examine the implications ofthe problematic category of "youth" in contemporary art and thought. By exploring the processes in which youth is constituted through its forms of representation, thisproject intends to render intelligible the aesthetic and political dimensions of youth, and to grasp it as a historical allegory allowing for a reconsideration of thecontemporary in the light of its most lively site. What image(s) does the notion of youth carry with it? What idea does it have of itself? How can we talk about it beyond ingrained ideas and the fantasies that society projects on it (at least in Western culture), making it simultaneously a force, a market, an age, a culture, a piece of a history which which we only began writing inthe twentieth-century, and which today has reached its critical stage? In recent history, the notion of youth has so often been conflated with “bringing down the house” that we now expect everything from it: to reinvent us, to shake us up, to carry us, to succeed in what others have failed at (establishing the most open communities possible), to build bridges for the future, to be radical, to be uncompromising where anyone outside of youth has already given up, to be desirable where others are overwhelmed. But with what means? If not those that young people make themselves, for themselves, with elements that they alone will have chosen? With their culture, their places, their clandestinity. Because that which is not yet over happens in the shadows of the world. Youth is a secret. “How Soon Is Now?”, The Smiths once asked. When is it, now?

The Sources of Jan Tschichold’s The New Typography

The Sources of Jan Tschichold’s The New Typography

Research project with Davide Fornari, Matthieu Cortat

Jan Tschichold’s essay Die neue Typographie (The New Typography, 1928) is a game-changing book, acclaimed as the curtain raiser of modern graphic design. While it takes the form of a critical essay and an operative manual, its sources have been understudied because of their difficult identification. This project aims to reconstruct the body of sources that Tschichold drew on to understand the broader cultural context of the book, through an international conference on its impact and a travelling exhibition.

(Re-)Viewing Paik

(Re-)Viewing Paik

Research project

(Re-)Viewing Paik is a joint research initiative between Switzerland and South-Korea that involves Prof. Patrick Keller from ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne (HES-SO), Dr. Sang Ae Park from the Nam June Paik Art Center and archives (NJPAC) in South Korea, and Dr. Christian Babski from fabric | ch, an architecture and information technology collective based in Lausanne. The main long-term objective of this joint and interdisciplinary research, based on the archives of Korean artist Nam June Paik (1932–2006), is to establish novel types of online exhibition curating and design, which must take shape digitally at any viewer's (visitor's) place or housing, and to virtually populate it, in an autonomous way. The results of this initial joint work, which will take the form of a functional "demo" (proof of concept), will be used in parallel to formulate a more detailed research project which will then be submitted to a national funding agency.

Swiss Graphic Design and Typography Revisited

Swiss Graphic Design and Typography Revisited

Research project with Davide Fornari, Jonas Berthod

The research project Swiss Graphic Design and Typography Revisited is divided into three sub-projects: ‘Principles of Education’, ‘Networks of Practice’ and ‘Strategies of Dissemination’. This three-year project is the biggest research collaboration established in the design field since the SNSF began its activities.

AIZI / AI字 / 爱字

AIZI / AI字 / 爱字

Research project

Artificial Intelligence-Aided Type Design AIZI research projects is a collaboration between ECAL and EPFL Computer Vision Laboratory. Its aim is to develop an artificial intelligence tool to help the creation of hanzi. The idea is to train an AI to generate glyphs from a small number of ‘seed’ characters, using Generative Adversarial Network (GAN): two algorithms fighting each other, endlessly attempting to outperform one another. Chinese script is rich of thousands of hanzi, but their construction is, on many point, very logical and systematic. It processes by assembling a limited number of radicals in order to produce new signs. For the designer, a major difficulty is that depending of the surrounding components, the design of the radicals changes, always self-adapting to the context, in order to achieve harmonious forms.

Words form language – Typography forms meaning

Words form language – Typography forms meaning

Research project

This research focusses on ways explored in typography to use letters as means of expression in order to emphasize the semantic, phonetic or visual qualities of language.

Phantom Power

Phantom Power

Research project

Phantom Power questions the social configurations of the non-audible narratives of aural practices in performances and public sound installations.

The Emergence of Video Art in Europe (1960–1980): history, theory, sources and archives.

The Emergence of Video Art in Europe (1960–1980): history, theory, sources and archives.

Research project

To date, there is no European-wide history of video art. It is this gap that the present research programme proposes to fill. Firstly by gathering data on the artists, the works and the events that enabled the emergence of this new artistic practice in the 1960s, or that were important in its development in the following years in Europe, and by bringing to light specific national conditions of production and distribution.

Automated Photography

Automated Photography

Research project

The Automated Photography research project (2019–2021) is conducted by Milo Keller in the framework of the MA in Photography at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne. It is a continuation of the research project Augmented Photography, equally conducted at ECAL (2016–2017), which aimed to question the mutability of the digital image, transformed both in its physical materiality and in its virtual expression.

Furniture under pressure

Furniture under pressure

Research project

The potential of shape memory materials in furniture design.