Master Photography

Presentation

At the start of the 2016 academic year, ECAL is proud to have introduced its Master’s degree in Photography. Relying on massive use of photographic images – a key element in today’s visual communication – this two-year program, unique in Switzerland, gives students with a related Bachelor’s degree an opportunity to develop projects in the long term. It especially pushes the boundaries of applied research in contemporary photography with an emphasis on digital, web and network manipulation, new forms of books, shaping images on various media, interactive exhibition design, up to and including the moving image.

Taking advantage of ECAL’s numerous collaborations with economic, industrial or cultural stakeholders, this training allows students to regularly rub shoulders with influential figures in fine art photography and commissioned work. Structured around practical lessons and workshop weeks, the programme fosters privileged encounters. As for theory, visual analyses and text productions also guide students towards the clarification and disclosure of project concepts. Finally, workshops, labs, studios and the availability of a state-of-the-art print shop ensure that the projects initiated are given concrete professional form.

The skills acquired and research conducted during the course give students the necessary tools to produce a wide-ranging innovative project, with significant opportunities in terms of dissemination and visibility. Through its pragmatic, artistic and applied nature, ECAL's Master in Photography ensures that each graduate, based on their specific strengths and inclinations, finds a place in the top networks of contemporary photography.

Language: English

Qualification issued: Master of Arts HES-SO in Design, major in Photography

Yearly fees (materials included): Fees detail

Length: 4 semesters

Credits: 120 ECTS

Useful links

Admissions

Contact

Equipments & infrastructures

Open space MA Photography

Digital Printshop

Technology Center

Photo Studio

Editing/Scanning Room

Research Projects

automated-photography.ch

augmented-photography.ch

Learning Objectives

First year

1/4

Develop a personal project during one semester which may possibly extend over the whole duration of the studies and up to graduation.
Collaborate with a brand, magazine or media in the fields of fashion and design; understand the issues at stake in applied photography for art direction, styling and production.
Understand still life studio photography with advanced skills in lighting and HD digital photography.
Create and produce a personal photographic book (editing, sequencing, printing, binding, etc.) that could be presented at international fairs (Offprint Paris and London); know the photographic publishing market (financing, production, distribution).
Learn about 3D software (computer generated imaging) in relation to its photographic simulations.
Acquire critical thinking and skills to develop projects with AI-based tools, photogrammetry and digital face filters.
Participate in research programmes with practical experiments related to image technologies.
Broaden your referential skills, structure your discourse and acquire curatorial skills in contemporary photography.
Benefit from lectures with curators from major institutions and international artists.
Take part in weeks of workshops supervised by practitioners from all over the world with the aim of carrying out collective or personal projects.

Second year

1/3

Continue the development of a personal project and define your photographic writing in view of the graduation work.
Materialise photography in installations and sculptures with construction, moulding and printing techniques (UV Printing, 3D printing, CNC).
Learn about the concept of “Soft Photography” (emotional properties in CGI and AI, networked images, algorithmic forms of image-making).
Participate in group trips for field projects and international exhibitions.
Follow studio visits with practitioners from all over the world.
Participate in research programmes with practical experiments in relation to image technologies.
Immerse yourself in workshops constantly adapted to the latest technological and cultural trends led by professionals from all over the world in order to carry out collective or personal projects by learning a new technology/approach.
Benefit from portfolio reviews with curators and artists from all over the world.
Participate in a writing workshop and write your Master’s thesis based on the knowledge acquired during the course.
Put into practice the know-how acquired in a graduation work and a portfolio, which will serve as a business card to integrate into the labour market quickly.

Projects

This section contains a selection of emblematic or recent projects related to the disciplines taught in the Master's degree.

See all projects

Workshops/Exhibitions/Publications

all workshops

PHOTOGRAPHY

ECAL x AREA OF WORK - CO-EXISTENCE

with Area Of Work, Milo Keller

ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne has teamed up with Paris-based studio Area of Work at Paris Photo to present CO-EXISTENCE, a monumental immersive installation in the heart of Paris’s 11th arrondissement, from 7 to 9 November 2024. In a large metropolis, a small, seemingly empty apartment reveals discreet traces of human presence. On another scale, a conquering population manifests itself. Wings flap, slime trails, antennae shivers... In the industrial setting of the former Garage République in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, CO-EXISTENCE showcases a living cohabitation through a sequence of artificial images created using Computer Generated Imagery (CGI). These spectacular yet intimate photo-realistic projections highlight the imperceptible, the infra- thin, and the invisible, blurring the scales between micro and macro. Developed during three series of workshops conducted from 2023 to autumn 2024 by Area of Work, CO- EXISTENCE bears witness to the technical and artistic skills that are honed within the ECAL MA Photography. These workshops enabled students to transpose their photographic skills into the virtual space of 3D graphics to understand the temporal, artistic, and commercial issues involved in creating CGI. ‘This collaboration offered ECAL students an introduction to the tools and possibilities of 3D graphics, exploring their integration into the processes of creating photorealistic and hyper-realistic images, while highlighting the importance of the artistic and cinematographic dimensions that are at the heart of our identity.’ – Amine Ghorab & Scott Renau, Area of Work, Paris. Founded in Paris in 2018 by artists and directors Amine Ghorab and Scott Renau, Area of Work is known for its distinctive contemporary visual narratives, blending graphic framing and rigorous photographic direction. Specialising in fashion, luxury, and technology, the creative studio has become a major player in contemporary visual storytelling..

PHOTOGRAPHY

Workshop - Charlie Engman

with Charlie Engman, Milo Keller, Clément Lambelet

"Treatment, Synthesis, and Art Direction" Charlie Engman is an artist, photographer, writer, and art director based in Brooklyn, New York.He works across a range of media and disciplines from gen-AI art, photography, video, and fashion, and balances artistic, commercial, and pedagogical practices. He is the art director of the sustainable fashion brand, Collina Strada, where he is responsible for print design, branding, and runway show design. This workshop will investigate the ways in which media, aesthetics, and culture are interwoven and overlapping and are driven in large part by the accessibility of popular technology. It will also investigate the ways in which creativity is a collaborative and iterative process that bleeds across genre and category. There will be a key focus on the intersection of photography, AI tools, and videogaming / user-driven media.In this workshop, participants are expected to explore and challenge the ways they integrate and synthesize both professional and vernacular registers and new and traditional techniques. This will also serve as an introduction to developing art direction and making “ treatments ” for commissioned projects, and practical experience concepting and executing assignments that can bridge between a distinctive artistic practice and preexisting modes of making and sharing.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Frontiere di Sabbia - DRONE WORKSHOP

with Milo Keller, Clément Lambelet

"Frontiere di Sabbia" is an exhibition of the students of the Master of Photography at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne, in collaboration with the Biennale dell’Immagine di Chiasso.The collection of projects you will see has been created with drones: aircraft originally developed for warfare that have been transformed into civilian and popular forms. In just a few years, these devices have undergone a dizzying technological evolution and achieved considerable commercial success. Used for a variety of purposes - recreational and professional, political and subversive - these “unmanned aerial vehi- cles” can be easily purchased and controlled remotely, like in a video game. The opportunities offered by civilian drones combine with multiple negative con- sequences: the confusion between reality and simu- lation, privacy violations, and the use for illegal and violent actions. From a photographic perspective, drones offer infinite viewpoints for exceptional, vertical, and total vision. Equipped with all-round sensors, they fly autonomou- sly on programmed routes and are able to monitor the territory and its inhabitants. The “Frontiere di Sabbia” exhibition, presented in the Ex Saceba building, a ce- ment factory located a few kilometers from the bor- der, recalls the past of these places where materials were produced to build houses, bridges, and highways, but also walls and barriers. By diverting from prede- termined and automated paths, a new generation of image creators questions us about our perception of our limits: human, political, and technological.

PHOTOGRAPHY

MAP Books 2023

with Bruno Ceschel

These publications are special editions produced within the framework of the Master in Photography at ECAL in 2023 for Bruno Ceschell's Photobook class. This curated selection was later showcased at Offprint during Paris Photo, providing a prestigious platform to exhibit and share the emerging talent in the field of photography.

PHOTOGRAPHY

WORKSHOP - CGI WITH AREA OF WORK

with Area Of Work

This workshop is an introduction to 3D creation software that allows you to create images with photographic qualities that are not photographs.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Tokyo summer university

with Milo Keller, MAP

In Summer 2019, thirteen students of ECAL Master in Photography supervised by Milo Keller, traveled to Japan to develop thirteen personal projects in collaboration with Taisuke Koyama and TOKYO PHOTOGRAPHIC RESEARCH. From still and moving images to computer-generated photographic visuals, students’ artworks explore a wide variety of aspects of the Japanese megalopolis which is, once again, undergoing major transformations in preparation for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games. Some projects focus on concrete aspects of the city, from the destruction of small residential houses to the construction of the gigantic Olympic village and the conquest of new territories by the sea. Other works investigate particularities of Japanese culture such as food in a family setting, the desire to generate humanoid robots, the confusion of child and adult worlds in manga, Pichinko Gambling , the reinvention of Ikebana and the rising stars among young girls. Finally, works seek to visualise more abstract concepts such as loneline

PHOTOGRAPHY

Guardare l’utopia

with Milo Keller, MAP

Utopia is invisible; only utopians can see it. A class of 12 students from the Photography Master at the ECAL/University of Art and Design of Lausanne, in residence at Casa Corti in Pellio, Val d’Intelvi (Italy), elaborated the concepts of utopia and community. Identifying the malaise of a generation trapped in social networks, confused between reality and the virtual sphere, and in need of establishing new values, the group developed a range of different strategies: morning meditation sessions, walks to Monte Generoso, shared meals and discussions to produce photographs and videos which, while gradually shifting away from reality, reach imaginary dimensions that oscillate between utopia and dystopia, figuration and abstraction. --- Students Emidio Battipaglia Robin Bervini Jasmine Deporta Anja Karolina Furrer Alessia Gunawan Christian Harker Johanna Hullár Philipp Klak Doruk Kumkumoglu Jelly Luise Igor Pjörrt Gedvile Tamosiunaite Curator Milo Keller Assistants Florian Amoser Calum Douglas Graphic Design Nicolas Polli biennaleimmagine.ch https://casacorti.org/

PHOTOGRAPHY

Mirage Club

with Golgotha, MAP

Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) is everywhere. More real than reality, the images created by 3D software are mainly used in the advertising and entertainment industries. The photorealism of these photographic visuals blurs the boundaries between the real and the virtual. Guided by Golgotha studio, students from the Photography Master’s at ECAL have explored potential advantages and drawbacks of these particular processes by investigating their illusionary powers. During Paris Photo, an immersive installation will guide visitors through a labyrinthine space, a physical translation of the complexity of our relationship to photographic media. https://vimeo.com/302879066

PHOTOGRAPHY

Global Market

What does a global city look like? Over the course of one week, thirteen students of the newly-launched Master in Photography program at ECAL/ University of Art and Design of Lausanne, Switzerland were invited by Lorenzo Vitturi to explore London. The city’s diversity makes it unique as a global capital of the arts, economics, scientific and technological research and developments. 37% of the city’s inhabitants were born outsidethe UK, the highest foreign-born population of any city in the world with over 300 languages spoken. London is the contemporary Babel. Each student was assigned a different area of London in orderto engage with, observe and discover the diversity and specificities of various different cultures, contexts and realities. The work presented here is the result of three intensive days of shooting, one night of editing, one day of printing, endingwith a performative presentation during Offprint at Tate Modern, where the images are combined and sequenced in order to reveal a new vision of London. During Offprint, our thirteen students transform into merchants,lowering their prices as the evening approaches to aid in a successful sale, advising their customers not to combine still-lifes with portraits, or not to place studio-lighting next to natural light etc.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Workshop in Berlin

To celebrate the launch of a new master’s degree in photography at ECAL in 2016, the first year students worked together with Taiyo Onorato and Milo Keller (Head of Photography at ECAL) in Berlin for one week to produce a book about the city’s architecture in turmoil. Using the wide streets of Berlin as a blank canvas, the students were encouraged to interpret rather than document the spaces of the vast metropolis and build their own story of its distinctive character. The picturesdepict the shift that Berlin has undergone in the past, from the perspective of unexpected encounters, vacant spaces, countless construction sites and shared revelations. The book was printed and bound at Helmut Newton Foundation during the C/O Berlin Book Days, 29.9 – 2.10.2016. Participants: Johannes Bauer, Vilhelm Björndahl, Senta Simond, Nicolas Toulotte, Laura Zoccarato, Marc Asekhame, Calum Douglas, Bastien Gomez, Karla Hiraldo Voleau, Yuliya Khan, Stéphane Mocan, Eunwook Nam, Shin Young Park, Robert Swierczynski, Maria Tasula, Justinas Vilutis, Maria Grazia Grasso The book has been produced in collaboration with C/O Berlin for the Book Days 2016.

Diplomas

All Diplomas

PHOTOGRAPHY

Tanguy Morvan – We All Walk On Empty Staircases

by Tanguy Morvan

We All Walk On Empty Staircases reflects the deep scars of the artist's childhood traumas. Growing up in a violent and tormented environment left permanent marks on his mind. At the age of seven, he found refuge in the game World of Warcraft, where he immersed himself for sixteen years, creating an idealized version of himself. In recent years, his grandfather introduced him to the Masonic world, which deepened his fascination with rituals. For the past six months, he has been transforming his body through tattooing, a process that has allowed him to regain control over both his mind and body while staying connected to past memories. His project invites reflection on the impact of domestic violence and the healing power of rituals.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Isabella Madrid – Buena, Bonita, y Barata

by Isabella Madrid

As a Latin American woman, I have grown up with very specific expectations of the kind of woman I should be. In my project, I am reversing the codes that have been forced onto me and immersing myself in the different symbols of how Colombian women exist and have been represented through photographic self portraits. I am taking these symbols and subverting them, enacting them, letting them hold a weight on me, holding my own weight on them, playing with them, letting them define me and simultaneously redefining their power and meaning. I am showcasing not only the everlasting colonial violence Colombian female bodies have always been subjected to but simultaneously reappropriating the narrative around them, playing the muse, model, photographer, stylist, makeup artist, and art director.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Benjamin Freedman – Positive Illusions

by Benjamin Freedman

Positive Illusions is a photobook that depicts a series of childhood memories constructed using CGI. The resulting uncanny still lives, imagined from the perspective of a child, evoke a strange family presence in photo-realistic environments. Inspired by the nature of memory and simulation, I have based my scenes on what I could remember and used a phenomenological approach to fill in the blanks. Revisiting the past using CGI technology to re-stage events creates a unique flattening of the past and present – a process of pseudo visual archaeology. Some images in the series are repeated but with slight alterations, revealing the surrealist process of fabricating them and underscoring the phenomenon of distortion that is inherent to memory.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Amandine Kuhlmann – Cash Me Online

by Amandine Kuhlmann

Cash Me Online is a video project where I stage myself, combining performance with found footage. With the goal of achieving viral fame, I embrace delusion and despair in this exploration, which delves into the impact of cameras in the era of social media. Through a hyper-feminine digital alter ego based on my own algorithm, I perform in virtual and physical realms, fulfilling desires and aspirations. The project questions self-representation and the female gaze in the presence of empowered women on screen. The project examines tensions between toxic feminine tropes and how women reclaim them for empowerment. Found footage combined with a deepfake of my own face serves as a visual album, revealing content diversity and standardisation, introducing ambiguity in notions of dysmorphia.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Yumo Wu – The Room and the Photographs

by Yumo Wu

The Room and the Photographs investigates the intertwined relationship between perception, space and photography. Initially, observers were placed inside a room to witness the raw essence of photography in the camera obscura. The digital evolution has reshaped the ontology of the medium and provided an entirely metamorphosed experience – observing photography with a detachment from reality. As in painting, I assemble a meticulous collection of physical photographs and computer-generated imagery. These domestic spaces lose their inherent perspective. They are familiar yet strange, fractured yet imbalanced. My photographic constructions, part memories, part materiality, attempt to reveal the complexity of perception in the realm of photography.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Carla Rossi – Bellissima

by Carla Rossi

Bellissima follows the story of Rebecca, whom the photographer met on the stages of a popular Italian beauty pageant. ‘‘I was looking for a young girl who wasn’t necessarily a professional model, but who hoped to become one”. The project reflects on the photographic medium as a dream factory. The photographer shifts perspectives to highlight the construction of images and the model. The symbiosis between model, photographer and viewer reveals how images influence the dreams and aspirations of young girls. The work aims to criticise photography as a stage for the representation of beauty and to challenge the idea of the latter as a cult achieved through the attention of the camera. Would beauty still have meaning if no one could look at it?

PHOTOGRAPHY

Augustin Lignier – Container

by Augustin Lignier

Container is a project about alienation. From the camera, the machine, space, images, the medium, and from an idea. Through the medium of photography and performance, I build rules to experience the relationship with the apparatus. By seeking to push my body to the limits, I experiment on the camera and the body like a black box in a white cube. The rules are inputs and the images the output. Attempting to understand the reaction of a repetitive action on the videos. Focusing on the obsession of pressing the shutter button on the images. Using this action as a solution. To see the pictures, the viewer has to perform the same action as the performer. The experiments give the power to the machine. Producing images, performing, recording and exhibiting are one thing.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Clemens Fischer – Sticks and Wires

by Clemens Fischer

Designed as a laboratory, this work consists of camera installations that speculate on a future where imagery is created and consumed without us being present. The camera becomes an independent actor that will have to learn to work, fail and interpret by itself. Equipped with minimal gear and tasks, the machines created are thrown into existence to find out their purpose and connection to the world around them. Clumsy, naive but at the same time heavily charged with our nostalgic heritage, these installations invite us to reflect on a temporary, improvised state of photography and our own importance as its creators.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Mahalia Taje Giotto – Existential Boner

by Mahalia Taje Giotto

existential boner is a book about obsessions. Obsessions linked to the body, gender identity, sexuality and desire. Mahalia Taje Giotto, born in 1992, was assigned female at birth. Going through several phases of physical transformation - from writing on their skin as a child to tattoos as an adult and eating disorders as an adolescent - Taje began their transition in 2020. This identity journey is at the heart of their work, which expresses the incessant thoughts that drive them through a play of superimpositions. The daily observation of physical changes is transcribed in images and texts, somewhere between abstract and concrete. The result is an articulated chaos that reflects the way in which taje is experiencing their transformation, with a sculptural approach to the book as a reflection of the changes in her body. The artist explores their desires and fluid identity, while giving visibility to the transgender community from which they come.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Olivia Wünsche – New State of Equilibrium

by Olivia Wünsche

New State of Equilibrium is a visual interpretation of my years-long spiritual quest and psychedelic adventures. Inner peace, a sense of deep connectedness, unbounded love for the natural world and longing for transcendence are central themes I tried to visualise throughout this project. Both the book and the installation attempt to question and investigate the mechanisms and limitations of our cognitive and sensory perception. By emphasising the simultaneous presence of the visible and the invisible, I seek to challenge the secular, materialistic worldview that still seems to prevail in our Western culture.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Robin Bervini – Until I Stop Trying to Get Out of My Skin

by Robin Bervini

Mention Excellent Prix Elinchrom “Until I Stop Trying to Get Out of My Skin” is a spatial and virtual reality installation that depicts the artist’s personal struggle in seeking his identity as a mixed-race man in Southern Switzerland. Surrounded by white family and friends and knowing only local culture, the artist identified as white, but the continuous questioning of his origins and prejudices made him doubt his belonging. The installation puts the viewer in the artist’s shoes: by embodying his avatars, the viewer meets the artist’s alter-egos which are the embodiment of his ideal selves at various stages of his life.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Alina Frieske – Abglanz

by Alina Frieske

Abglanz is a German word used to describe a ‘pale reflection’ or a ‘distant echo’. The project investigates the value and accessibility of personal visual information online. Fragments of images taken from social media platforms are reconstructed into a new scenario. Thereby, the original meaning of the images is put into another context. The work becomes an allegory of display, questioning how we are reflected and recognized behind the screen. It is presented in a panoramic view in order to guide the attention through the collection at large.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Karla Hiraldo Voleau – HOLA MI AMOL

by Karla Hiraldo Voleau

As long as I can remember there has been a running joke in my family: one should never date a Dominican. My interactions with Dominican men have been anyway always limited, since I was treated as an outsider, as a tourist on the island. Eventually, family prohibitions and prejudices only pushed me to gain my own insight into the Dominican culture. Engaging into a performative process, I went on to pursue an immersive investigation as a tourist that travels in search for love. www.khiraldovoleau.com

PHOTOGRAPHY

Moritz Jekat – Wetlands of Pharmacology

by Moritz Jekat

Exterior virtual organs that enter our bodies and transform our brains surround us. These pharmaca multiply in wetlands between online and real life. In a desire for healing and reconnecting, a group of humanoid aliens inhabit this space and come together in a caring pile of thoughts, emotions and dreams. They share with you, thanks to subconscious writing and wetland tools. A waterbed in space invites you to relax. In the concept of adoption of pharmacology, in contrast to adaptation to the super-fast, consumption-based virtual spheres that are transforming social habits, Wetlands of Pharmacology experiments with a slow coming together and exchange of emotional and physical knowledge of five artists in a computer game engine.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Alessia Gunawan – Counter Faith

with Simone Niquille, François Zajega

“Counter Faith” addresses a personal narrative with the aim of understanding the driver behind the construction of gated communities in Indonesia, while the violent events of 1998 remain unresolved in the nation’s damaged belief system. Single-channel video, 10'34"

PHOTOGRAPHY

Igor Pjörrt – Apartamento

with Bruno Ceschel

Growing up between apartments in the same complex, a familiar feeling would remain in the empty homes, encouraging transformation. Such is the experience of inhabiting a body, fluctuating from one state into another. In “Apartamento”, this oscillation takes place in potential constellations around gender binarity. The male/female dichotomy is replaced by a dichotomy between gender and its negation. This renunciation however, is a perpetual shift, a gathering of questions rather than answers, a set of daily contemplations in the face of psychic constructs.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Sara Bastai – RAM_1.0

by Sara Bastai

RAM 1.0 is a collaborative project between myself and Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is a fictional account of my life, based on my personal visual archive, but constructed and mediated by AI. The project explores the concept of memories and the importance of the construction of an archive in the digital realm. Focused on the interaction between images and text, I let AI analyse my memories and then reinterpret the captions to create new images. New memories are created in the form of five different books and five slide shows on a modular installation. Floating between human and non-human, the dialogue between myself and the machine comes into being and enables you to immerse yourself in a new data set of my memories through the gaze of technology.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Justinas Vilutis – Body without Organs

by Justinas Vilutis

«Body without organs» revolves around an encounter between the functionality of the surface and delving inside the producing body that operates entirely by respiration, evaporation and fluid transmis-sions. By drawing parallels between the chaos and shapelessness of objects that seem to be losing outlines and melting into one terrain – residing in a state of becoming organs, as well as images of bodies in a state of pain, discomfort and extasy, the project explores the becoming of the organism itself.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Philipp Klak – wasserturm()

by Philipp Klak

Mention Bien Randomness is a crucial quality in artistic practice. This project addresses the issue of the extent to which machines can help further enhance and overcome the human aspect by programming an image and randomly generating unlimited variations of the same scene and the same type of object. During my time at ECAL I developed an interest in studying hidden processes and structures. For this project, and in reference to the history of photography and in particular to the Bechers’ typologies, I randomly generated images with the help of a fully automated system.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Johanna Hullar – If I Could Only Be Sure

with Charles Negre

Inspired by the human capacity for emotional transformation and the examination of the still life genre, the project merges a series of still life videos of characterised everyday objects and organic material, creating a collage of different recurring moments and processes in time. The emphasis is on exploring the concept of entropy, making time tangible and capturing the transformation of a moment into its material representation. The project is presented on a 12x2m half-circular projection screen, thus surrounding the viewer with the imagery and allowing for a more visceral experience.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Nikolai Frerichs – Carrie Ann

by Nikolai Frerichs

The movie Carrie Ann questions the concept of standardisation. Individuality and losing control seem impossible to achieve in digital environments. Nevertheless software developers are constantly trying to build new tools and possibilities to simulate our world as realistically as possible. However, when we take a closer look, we recognise that these tools and representations are full of stereotypes. Is it possible to speak about love in a controlled and unnatural synthetic world? Is our Idea of love just another readymade asset in our mind, formed by the ideals and clichés of the society we live in, or can love resist it? Is it truly something bigger or just a projection of our imagination? Does it have the power to save us from the standardisation of everything?

Semester Projects

Tous les projet en lien

PHOTOGRAPHY

self-Initiated Project - Spring 2024 - MAP1

with Bruno Ceschel

This module assists the students to develop into a finalized work a project that further expands their interests and research. The module gives the opportunity to take some of the ideas, skills and themes explores in the first semester and make into a brand new work that can take any possible form: a book, an installation, an online project, a performance.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Materialized Photography - Spring 2024

with Victoria Pidust

This course led by Victoria Pidust explored the creation and invention of visual languages for lens-based photographic objects and focused on the transformation of images into materialised forms. Students explored the practices of contemporary artists such as Katja Novitskova, Thomas Ruff, Seth Price and others and learnt how technologies such as CGI and photogrammetry have influenced artistic expression. The students explored the interplay between digital and physical spaces and developed unique approaches to creating photographic objects. The course focused on understanding historical and contemporary trends, analysing artists' case studies and creating materialised works, including single images, 3D objects, installations and immersive media such as AR and VR. Through research and practice, students conceptualised and materialised projects and presented their work as physical installations or objects. They developed the ability to articulate the meaning behind their creations, critique and collaborate with colleagues to expand their artistic practice.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Applied Photography - Spring 2024

with David Luraschi

This course focused on location photography. Students were asked to step outside the studio into the real world and amplify what they discover. Each student did develop one or several bodies of work around the theme of water. The water was their studio. Taking account of what has been done in different mediums in the past (cinema, literature, theater, fashion) - students were encouraged to build a visual dynamic with a strong point of view. A big part of the course was motivated by the idea of finding elements (people, places, things) and turning them into a story. A central emphasis was on collaborating with people: models, actors, dancers, strangers and building their story with them. Casting and creating a growing dialog with their models, finding a common interest and expanding a playful territory to photograph was a recurring exercise.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Applied Photography - Fall 2023

with Charles Negre

STILL LIFE PAPER - This course focuses on the ability to answer a commission within its own artistic practice and leading the students through a better understanding of studio photography, challenges of constructed images and their processes. This applied photography course has an emphasis on still life photography, our aim is to sharpen the students sensitivity to photographing and interpreting objects. For this semester, the group of students will develop their own printed magazine focusing on the practice of still life.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Materialized Photography - Spring 2023

with Rachel de Joode

This course, taught by Rachel de Joode explores sculptural photography. Through a combination of material experimentation, research, and collaboration, students explore the visual and physical dimensions of photography, sculpture, and installation. The course focuses on ways of seeing and thinking differently about materials, surroundings, and oneself. The curriculum includes a mix of reading and discussion as well as focused individual critique, all taught through the lens of the instructor’s practice.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Applied Photography - Spring 2023

with Cactus Digitale

The Applied Photography course will look into the concept of photorealism in all its means. Cactus Magazine has always worked on new visual languages through all sorts of techniques; classic photography, graphic design, video, CGI, VR, Sound design. The only feature that has always guided this research was to seek for a photorealistic result that could ensure a sophisticated and luxurious feeling to the final outcome. In the past 4 years Cactus Magazine has been exploring the CGI technique and always tried to emulate the classic photographic style applied in the 3D realm. This had been done by the means of lights, textures, modeling and also camera techniques. After doing a lot of CGI work we got interested in merging the IRL world in a seamless way with the CGI world. Using XR techniques or VFX. But always looking to have a perfect photorealistic result. With the emergence of Ai powered software for image generating, creating HD images of almost everything seems to be everyone’s finger tip. Nowadays people consume more CGI imagery than IRL imagery, just think of Instagram filters.

PHOTOGRAPHY

self-Initiated Project - Spring 2023 - MAP1

with Bruno Ceschel

This module assists the students to develop into a finalized work a project that further expands their interests and research. The module gives the opportunity to take some of the ideas, skills and themes explores in the first semester and make into a brand new work that can take any possible form: a book, an installation, an online project, a performance.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photobook - Fall 2022

with Bruno Ceschel

The photobook module introduces students to the history of photobooks and artists’ books and leads them to consider different strategies and approaches to contemporary book-making. In the first term students individually conceptualised a publication that have been designed, printed and distributed.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Self-Initiated Project - Fall 2022 - MAP2

by Gina Bolle, Mattia Dagani Rio, Benjamin Freedman, Aniket Godbole, Moritz Jekat, Amandine Kuhlmann, Gabriela Marciniak, Fumi Omori, Carla Rossi, Luísa Tormenta, Mykolas Valantinas, Yuji Wang, Yumo Wu

The second-year students worked on projects that they themselves had initiated, under the direction of Elisa Medde.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Automated Photography - Autumn 2021

with Marco De Mutiis

2nd year Automated Photography course tutored by Marco De Mutiis.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Materialized Photography - Spring 2021

with Rachel de Joode

First-year students have been tutored artist Rachel de Joode into using a more plastic approach in the way they conceive and display physical images.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Self-Initiated Project - Spring 2021 - MAP1

with Bruno Ceschel, MAP

First-year course with Bruno Ceschel

Collaborations

all collaborations

PHOTOGRAPHY

ON 2040 - MASTER PHOTOGRAPHY

with Maxime Guyon

Following a collaboration with the Swiss avant-garde brand On, ECAL is proud to present the interdisciplinary work carried out jointly by the 2nd year students of the Product Design, Photography and Type Design Masters.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Grand Palais Éphémère - Palais Augmenté

with Robin Bervini, Milo Keller, Kylan Luginbühl, Pauline Saglio

Co-produced by Fisheye and the Réunion des Musées Nationaux - Grand Palais, the Palais Augmenté festival takes place inside the Grand Palais Éphémère. Exceptionally, in partnership with ECAL, augmented reality projects will be accessible from this point, on the façade of the Grand Palais Éphémère on 19 and 20 June 2021.

PHOTOGRAPHY

citizenM commission

with MAP, Charles Negre

For the applied photography course, first year students were challenged with a commission for citizenM hotels. The students created several images following the client's guidelines. A selection of pictures was then printed as postcards and on plexiglas support to decorate the hotel's rooms. Students: Sara Bastai, Maeva Bosko, Sally Jo, Natalie Maximova, Joanna Wierzbicka, Olivia Wünsche, Manqin Zhang.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Collaboration with HYT

with MAP, Charles Negre

During the first semester of 2016/2017 academic year, the students worked with Charles Negre on the relationship between conceptual projects and applied works and how to appeal to a client’s needs as opposed to developing a project without constraint. The students collaborated with HYT, a luxury watch brand which gave a frame to develop a laboratory of ideas. The correlation between past inventions and avant-garde technology is a key aspect of this project as well as how science can be turned as a visual emotion. The subject focus on still life, however, following the motivations of each student, other photographic forms became relevant. The context of the brand gives the students the oppportunity to develop conceptual and unexpected visions within the realm of the subject, however the end goal is an understanding and realization independent of the brand.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Collaboration with Gourmand Magazine

with MAP, Charles Negre

‘There are many known connections between food and medicine but there is one quirky link which has not yet been explored: the culinary art of medical training. Despite all the fancy technologies available to educate doctors today teachers still turn to the kitchen fridge or pantry to train students in the skills of their profession. Grapes are perfect for practicing fragile skin suturing. Neurosurgeons learn how to measure the pres-sure of a robotic drill on eggshells.‘ We collaborated with The Gourmand, London based magazine initiated by art director David Lane.

Research

all research projects

PHOTOGRAPHY

Automated Photography at Foto/Industria

with Milo Keller, Marco De Mutiis

The MAST Foundation is presenting the seventh edition of Foto/Industria, the world's first biennial event devoted to photography of industry and work, at a number of historic venues in Bologna and at MAST. The 12 exhibitions in Foto/Industria 2023 represent a chronology of points of view on the theme of PLAY, from the end of the 19th century to the present day. They offer an opportunity to observe and delve into the research of a selection of international artists. The ECAL is presenting an exhibition of its research project Automated Photography. An increasing number of images are produced autonomously by machines for machines with a gradual exclusion of any human intervention. Automated Photography is a research project developed by the Master Photography that addresses this situation by examining the technologies of image production and distribution such as: machine learning, CGI, photogrammetry.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Automated Photography at the Maison Franco-Japonsaie

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.

PHOTOGRAPHY

ECAL in Seoul : exhibition Automated Photography

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.

Automated Photography

with Florian Amoser, Claus Gunti, Milo Keller

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.

Augmented Photography

with Milo Keller Maxime Guyon, Joël Vacheron

Program

This section lists the detailed modules and courses for each semester of the programme.

Semester 1 2 3 4

Common modules (ECAL — HEAD)

Training in research I (3 ECTS)
Transversal workshop I (3 ECTS)

Common modules (Photography, Product Design and Type Design)

Cross Lectures I (4 ECTS)
MA Thesis preparation I (5 ECTS)

Modules (Photography)

Applied I (10 ECTS)
Visual Art Photography I (5 ECTS)

Common modules (ECAL — HEAD)

Training in research II (3 ECTS)
Transversal workshop II (3 ECTS)

Common modules (Photography, Product Design and Type Design)

Cross Lectures II (4 ECTS)
MA Thesis preparation II (5 ECTS)

Modules (Photography)

Applied II (5 ECTS)
Visual Art Photography II (10 ECTS)

Common modules (ECAL — HEAD)

Training in research II (3 ECTS)
Transversal workshop II (3 ECTS)

Common modules (Photography, Product Design and Type Design)

Cross Lectures III (3 ECTS)
MA Thesis preparation III (6 ECTS)

Modules (Photography)

Master Project (5 ECTS)
Visual Art Photography III (10 ECTS)

Common modules (ECAL — HEAD)

Master Thesis: Theoretical project
(9 ECTS)
Master Thesis: Practical project
(21 ECTS)

Find all the programme documents below

Alumni stories

Justinas Vilutis

Karla Hiraldo Voleau

Shin Young Park

Alessia Gunawan

Johanna Hullar

Distinguished alumni: Augustin Lignier
Alina Frieske
Alessia Gunawan
Maxime Guyon
Johanna Hullár
David Luraschi
Eunwook Nam
Nicolas Polli
Senta Simond
Justinas Vilutis
Karla Hiraldo Voleau
Shin Young Park
Career opportunities: Photographer of architecture, design, fashion or still life, Documentary photographer, Photo artist, Art director, Photo editor, Director of photography, Teacher, …

Staff

Head

Milo Keller

Coordination

Artistic deputy
Clément Lambelet

Assistants
Tanguy Morvan
Fabienne Watzke

Professors

Claus Gunti
Milo Keller
Anniina Koivu

Lecturers

Alix Marie
Bruno Ceschel
Charles Negre
Clothilde Morette
Katy Hundertmark
Marco de Mutiis

Visiting lecturers

Victoria Pidust
Elisa Medde
David Luraschi
Kim Knoppers
Nora Al-Badri
Area of Work
Mariama Attah
Alain Bieber
Ann-Christin Bertrand
Giulia Bini
Cactus Digitale
Harm van den Dorpel
Cécile B. Evans
Christophe Gaillard
Alessia Glaviano
Golgotha
Ethan Greenbaum
Dominic Hawgood
Joe Hamilton
Felicity Hammond
Lauren Huret
It’s Our Playground
Rachel de Joode
Taisuke Koyama
Jonas Lindstroem
David Luraschi
Lesley Martin
Alix Marie
Mazaccio & Drowilal
Elisa Medde
Lauren Moffatt
Simone C Niquille
Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs
Lonneke van der Palen
Danaé Panchaud
Antje Peters
Nicolas Polli
Marco Roso
Philip Schuette
Ada Sokół
Lucy Soutter
Thomas Traum
Camille Vivier
Anne de Vries
Letha Wilson
Qiu Yang
Francesco Zanot