The ECAL students of the Bachelor
Photography and Master Product Design present a series of
interactive installations showing how mobile phone cameras and
the selfie phenomenon changed the way we look at ourselves.
How can one create objects and installations around the portrait theme
in this digital age? What means are available to disseminate these?
How can one make visitors interact with the exhibits and turn viewers
into the main actors in the exhibition?
Over a semester, 1st year Master Product Design students and 2nd
year Bachelor Photography students from ECAL/University of Art and
Design Lausanne worked on these issues with the aim to present their
findings as part of an exhibition.
Under the watchful eye of Vincent Jacquier, Head of the Visual
Communication Department, of designer Camille Blin and
photographer Nicolas Haeni, the students were able to understand,
using various approaches, how current – material or virtual – technology
alters our traditional relationship with portraits, be they selfies or
pictures of others.
Using modern media as well as more run-of-the-mill devices,
exhibition visitors are invited to directly experiment the processes
imagined by the students, allowing them to discover new interactive
and fun ways of having their picture taken 3.0 style.
Based on this principle, the exhibition stages an installation playing with
the visitor’s shadow; the combination of a mirror and scanner to create
realistic or distorted self-portraits; an image which is altered through
song; a tribute to famous departed designers through a system of
filters placed in front of a smartphone; analogically merged faces; a
180° portrait produced by a range of reflective surfaces; a trompe-l’œil
projection on a mask; a family of objects able to hijack the smartphone
camera function to create original images; a poetic reinterpretation
Instagram; and finally, self-portraits captured by the photo itself.
Video
Images: ECAL/Nicolas Haeni
