FILM STUDIES
Workshop
Study trip of the Master in Film students in Val de Travers, on the footsteps of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, to work on the first stages of the Mandate proposed by the MLR - Maison Rousseau et Littérature, Geneva.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Studio project 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.
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.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Workshop with Samy La Crapule
It is around the theme “Avatars” that we spent this week of workshop with Samy La Crapule. The idea was to learn around the software Daz Studio in order to create a virtual CGI avatar. The results presented here are the result of a week’s work for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd year students. You can find more details about each project on our Instagram @ecal_mid.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Studio project with Gilles Gavillet & Jonathan Hares
PHOTOGRAPHY
Workshop with Mazaccio & Drowilal, MAP
During this one week workshop, the students were challenged every morning with a sculptural challenge and in the afternoon they continued developing their semester projects with the guidance of artist duo Mazaccio & Drowilal.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Workshop with Mario Von Rickenbach
Webtoys coded by 1st year Bachelor students in Media & Interaction Design as part of a week-long workshop given by Mario von Rickenbach.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Workshop with Marco De Mutiis
In this one week intensive workshop, digital curator Marco de Mutiis tasked the students with creating a photographic project through a process of gameification, or with otherwise automated processes.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Workshop with Nicolas Polli
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Workshop with Philippe Malouin
"Form follows function" is an expression attributed to the modernist architect Louis Sullivan. It is a statement that is quite relevant to industrial design. On the other hand, form can sometimes also determine function in a process of reverse exploration. During the workshop with Philippe Malouin, students were encouraged to look for new functions inspired by forms found in a metal recycling center. In this process, random discoveries and associations were made to generate a new and surprising vocabulary of forms.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Workshop with Manuel Krebs (NORM)
Measuring, it seems, is one of the dominant concerns of modern society. We measure ourselves, our weight, our height, our temperature, from head to toe, from collar size to shoe size. We measure what is around us, from tiny to incredibly large. We measure time (from seconds to lifetimes), we measure the familiar (length, weight, volume) and the unusual (sound, radiation, voltage), we have measurement systems for everyday life and for experts. For this workshop, the students of the Bachelor Industrial Design have developed alternative measuring devices.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Collaboration with Nicolas Poillot
PHOTOGRAPHY
Workshop with Paolo Wood
It has been established that photography is a language. With all its limitations and peculiarities, but a language anyway. Photography is often a relatively poor language that constantly repeats the same nouns and verbs. In the documentary tradition, the range of subjects treated is quite limited and recurrent, and for this reason, in order to make photographs, one must learn and master this language: its vocabulary, its grammar and its history.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Workshop with Mårten Lange
Failure is necessary and is part of the artistic development that is articulated by risk taking, luck, ambition, fear and freedom. The aim of the workshop was to successfully photograph, edit and sequence a series of images on the topic of failure. The final results are presented in various forms: editions, simple prints or more complex hangings and videos.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Other with Milo Keller, MAP
In Summer 2019, thirteen students from the ECAL Master’s in Photography programme supervised by Milo Keller travelled to Japan to work on thirteen individual projects in collaboration with Japanese photographer Taisuke Koyama within the framework of the Tokyo Photographic Research project. The students’ artworks range from still and moving images to computer-generated photographic visuals and explore multiple facets of the Japanese megalopolis which is, once again, undergoing major transformation in preparation for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games. Some projects focus on aspects specific to 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 distinctive Japanese culture such as home-cooked food, the appetite for designing humanoid robots, the blending of child and adult worlds in manga, pachinko gambling, the reinvention of ikebana and young girls as ‘rising stars.’ Finally, the works seek to visually represent more abstract concepts such as loneliness, emptiness and intimacy in a city that, due to its density, size and power, offers a challenging, fascinating and extremely stimulating complexity to the eyes of the thirteen photographers. Higurashi has been presented at Espace Commines in Paris in November 2021, inside the exhibition Automated Photography during Paris Photo. Head of Photography Milo Keller Invited Teacher Taisuke Koyama Assistants Florian Amoser Calum Douglas Graphic Design Thomas Le Provost Typefaces Craft by ECAL/Benoit Brun & Raphaël De la Morinerie ITC Garamond Std Head of Culture and Communications Embassy of Switzerland in Japan Jonas Pulver DGES/Summer University Maxline Stettler Photography Students Emidio Battipaglia Robin Bervini Jasmine Deporta Anja Karolina Furrer Alessia Gunawan Christian Harker Jung-Ting Hu Johanna Hullár Philipp Klak Doruk Kumkumoglu Igor Pjörrt Jelly Luise Gedvile Tamosiunaite Publisher ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne higurashi.zone Higurashi is available at ecal-shop.ch .
PHOTOGRAPHY
Workshop with Stéfanie Moshammer
« For this workshop there are no rules but I want you to tell me a story. I prefer to see a few images with a good concept, rather than too many images without any idea. » S.M With this invitation, the students worked on the territory of the city of Renens in search of places, people and traces of a history that is not simply a series of beautiful images.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Workshop with Jaya Pelupessy
At a time when the distribution of images is lightning-fast and virtually infinite, and the distinction between the original and the copy often seems irrelevant, what is left? In this workshop the students were asked to partake in an experiment dissecting and illuminating various aspects of the image and reinterpreting its meaning. Using different reproduction techniques and methods of appropriation, students reflected on the origin and status of the image.
FINE ARTS
Workshop
FINE ARTS
Workshop
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Studio project with Nicole Udry
FINE ARTS
Workshop
TYPE DESIGN
Workshop with Nejc Prah
In October 2021, the Master Type Design welcomed Nejc Prah for a one-week workshop. Being in a masters program is a special time, both personally and professionally. To keep a memory of it, the students were invited to create a Yearbook. First years and second years were assigned into pairs and asked to make a contribution about their partner. Drawings, collages, letterings, doodles, patterns, 3D-modelling, … Experimentations and explorations were encouraged. It resulted into a colourful and joyous publication, displaying a diversity of characters and approaches. After a collaborative effort for the production on the last day, each student got a copy, as a memory.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Workshop with Andreas Gysin
Projects created in the first year Bachelor Media & Interaction during a workshop given by Andreas Gysin.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Studio project with Pauline Saglio, Vincent Jacquier
Fantastic Smartphones – a series of interactive installations developed by students in Bachelor Media & Interaction Design at ECAL, investigating in a critical and offbeat way our relationship with smartphones and the way they influence our daily behavior. See the press room
PHOTOGRAPHY
Diploma project by Marie Noury
Mention Très bien What possible stories can twenty-four by six centimetres trigger? A photography that I hold dear generates a collective conversation. Nous voir ensemble takes the form of an investigation into a familiar and founding archive where words and visions meet. From this vernacular photography, voices narrate, project, and imagine. What story, memory and presence do these shots, on and off-screen, generate? How do words bring back to life a picture that has been worn out over time by the viewer’s gaze ?
PHOTOGRAPHY
Diploma project by Steven Rüthy
Mention Bien. Do we still see everything that happens around us ? Insight is a short film set in an architectural social housing complex in Bümpliz-Bern, which offers a unique perspective of the world as viewed by an elderly couple living in the Holenacker district on the outskirts of the Swiss capital. In this project I confront the viewer with a way of life which for us as visual artists and most likely for many others, is unimaginable. I question the spatial notion of a secure/safe space and how it is used and therefore perceived from an external point of view, my own. Insight therefore consists of stepping into the shoes of someone who has blurred vision, understanding what it is like and how it affects the way you live.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Diploma project by Caroline Perrenoud
There is a space between what we call reality and virtual reality, which by definition is unreal. In this in-between space, full of possibilities, identities are created and emancipated. Sexualities are discovered and avatars are roles that we choose to embody. These roles are manifold and represent the multiplicity of the self. Women in their plurality, dissidents, the in-between space enables us to show ourselves, to observe each other, to make ourselves powerful and claim our place and freedom. Through self-sexualisation, the monetisation of the self-image, sexual or romantic relationships, the avatars evolve seamlessly and transform. They decide, take over the space and meet in an immersive video installation.
FINE ARTS
Diploma project by Clément Pic
Mention Très bien In French, the accountant (comptable) and the story-teller (conteur) share the same etymological root. Through a shift in meaning, the accountant becomes the story-teller. Two sentences strike the time: - “Il est l’heure du bilan” (It’s time to take stock). - “Objectifs non atteints” (Objectives not met).
FINE ARTS
Diploma project by Mara Meier
Mention Excellent Prix du Risque points of contact which divide traces of steps without drawing lines digging a tunnel through the fog of the night echoing the repeated pulses of a turning light
PHOTOGRAPHY
Diploma project by Alizée Quinche
Mention Bien They Blossom at Night explores the vision of a shifting biotechnological intimacy, the opening to an altered state of consciousness towards an undefined space, a moment in time when the connection between bodies becomes fluid(s), a form of sexuality where each partner, each relationship, transforms and helps beings evolve through sharing and emancipation. Featuring an immersive video-sound installation, the project appropriates the symbolic force of procreation. It explores the materiality of non-reproductive sexuality by developing a microbiological creature that represents the transmissions of polyamorous intimacy. The work expresses the cohesion between the organicity of relationships and a form of technology that allows for different social liberations, in reference to medically assisted procreation.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Diploma project by Justine Willa
In the summer of 2021, Asclepios, a scientific association, organised a mission in the Swiss Alps, simulating life on a celestial body other than Earth. Confined for ten days in tunnels 450 metres below the ground, six “astronauts” transformed this hideout into an otherworldly place and modelled their daily life on the rhythm of life in space. This retro-futuristic scenario, seen in scientific circles and science fiction, questions reality, the projection of reality and the resulting image. Based on their mission, my project transcribes the fantasy of space exploration through immersion, mixing the reality of the situation with artificial images, and questions our place in the universe and our role in the future of humanity.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Diploma project with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio
Once upon a time, a few Homo Sapiens allowed humanity to escape the endless cycle of life and death. Together, leaving behind their individuality, they merged into a new form of existence, beyond humanity – as if in this second genesis man had created God in his own image. Data Riot questions the foundations of human individuality through a social science fiction halfway between a video game and a music video. Enter a futuristic world and experience your transplantation into a collective intelligence to the rhythm of the electronic sounds of the collective Curl. Based on your personal data and your decisions, the experience adapts to you and offers a disturbing experience of your own identity.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Diploma project with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio
The barrier of entry to sound synthesis software has historically been kept high by visually abstract, overloaded interfaces and expensive ecosystems like those of Pure Data or MAX. Tone Alembic seeks to make sound experimentation accessible to a beginner audience. It does so by offering a platform consisting of a digital interface that abstracts many of the concepts of synthesis in favour of a more visual approach and a set of MIDI controllers that allow more hands-on interaction with the interface while providing everything one needs to get started creating sounds.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Diploma project with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio
Grappaa is an artist-run exhibition space that I began working on in early 2021. It was built based on makeshift institutional spaces, e.g. art fairs and more recently, mass vaccination centres. The walls and furniture in these mega events become modules in the landscape of barren multipurpose warehouses. For Grappaa, through a process of urban hacking, the car parks become the grid for any spatial configuration. I pay rent by the hour. It’s not cheap.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Diploma project with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio
IFTTA (If This Then Authenticate) is a modular authentication kit that allows users to design passwords to access their digital environment. Nowadays the majority of online services require complex authentication from their users. However, our ability to manage our passwords is becoming time consuming: we forget, make mistakes and retype. By default, we have accepted the present systems in place: double verification, SMS, phone calls, e-mails, etc. What if we tried something different? A more personal approach for example. This kit reflects the way we want to view our relationship with passwords. Each of the proposed modules involves a distinct mnemonic interaction: touch, position in space, hearing and sight. These elements can be added up as well in order to design a personalised authentication system.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Diploma project with Julie Richoz, Maddalena Casadei, Stephane Halmai-Voisard
Fealing is a collection of creative tools whose development is based on the field of art therapy. The project features a therapeutic approach that uses creation as an intermediary, allowing people to express themselves in ways other than with words. In this theme, the creative process, the emotions, the sensations felt, and the personality are paramount. However, behind the artists’ tools lies a level of requirement and expectations that can potentially limit the user’s creativity. I have therefore chosen to offer original tools that allow us to transform this level of requirement into a quest for discovery and to help us express our creativity through different gestures, forms and textures.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Diploma project with Stephane Halmai-Voisard, Julie Richoz, Maddalena Casadei
Nowadays, many people work on electronic devices and this work can be done anywhere, since less physical material is required. Targeting those who work frequently from home and/or small spaces, CaddE becomes a functional bridge between work and daily life. CaddE is a portable and handy storage system with cable management made out of sheet metal. The built-in modular power strip allows users to choose the type of socket to be installed according to their appliances. The tray around the power strip helps to store the cables when not in use. Thanks to the automatic cable reel, the main power cable is quickly stowed away and always available at the right length. This project was developed in close cooperation with Lista Office AG.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Diploma project with Maddalena Casadei, Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard, Julie Richoz
Breathing Wall features raw clay building products developed for Swiss company Terrabloc, which specialises in compressed clay blocks. With excellent properties in terms of mechanical strength, durability and thermal inertia, the raw material comes from soil excavation waste from the French-speaking region of Switzerland, which is recycled into construction products. My approach aims to expand the catalogue of this company by designing two new blocks intended to be integrated into spaces: one for storage walls with multiple configurations and possible uses, the other to divide space while allowing light to pass through.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Diploma project with Stephane Halmai-Voisard, Julie Richoz, Maddalena Casadei
Jiko is an outdoor wood-burning oven. It is inspired by African clay ovens known for their high efficiency in burning wood, which therefore have low CO2 emissions. I wanted to bring this object into our way of life, in our countries. Domestic cooking is getting increasingly poor; I think we have lost the taste for cooking, especially with fire, which I think is the most beautiful and delicious way to cook food. Jiko is more ecological and just as efficient as our high-tech kitchens. Because of its modularity, it is easy to use and allows for a wide variety of cooking methods. In addition, its multi-directional shape allows people to gather together and create a friendly atmosphere.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Diploma project with Stephane Halmai-Voisard, Julie Richoz, Maddalena Casadei
The writing of my dissertation, devised as a creative anthropology of the curtain, drove me to make one myself. As an architectural object, the curtain has different ceiling heights, depending on the space in which it is located. With the support of Elitis, I developed several solutions to tighten, raise, crease or relax the curtain – in short, to adjust it without ever having to cut it. The excess length affects its shape and volume. The system offers a new flexibility of adjustment and suspension.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Diploma project
Mention Très bien. Over the past ten years, thanks to video streaming sites, K-Pop has become a global phenomenon, completely reshaping the relationship between the music industry and the image. K-pop stars, also known as idols, have become symbols of globalisation and the cultural power of South Korea and are asserting themselves as role models for many young people in the West. Can We Always Be This Close paints a complex picture of the links between image, identity, masculinity and fan culture. Through their social networks, young fans construct their identity online. The content produced seems superficial and narcissistic, but highlights essential topics such as gender normativity, social relationships or ethnic issues.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Diploma project with Maddalena Casadei, Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard, Julie Richoz
Hotels generate a lot of waste, especially by offering small bottles of shower gel and soaps that are never really finished. Ephemeral Soap is a complimentary set for hotels including several shampoos, body and hand soaps. What makes them so special? They only last as long as a shower and a hand wash. The ingredients are whipped to incorporate air. When heated, these small air bubbles expand, and the soap becomes six times larger, just like popcorn, with a foamy texture. It is then covered by a thin protective layer of solid soap to avoid packaging. The set also includes reusable bamboo boxes to distribute the soaps in every room.
FILM STUDIES
Diploma project with Josée Deshaies
It is raining in the park. Natacha and her son Eli are looking for a shelter for the night. Walter wanders alone with his guitar.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Diploma project with Stephane Halmai-Voisard, Julie Richoz, Maddalena Casadei
The bike stand is a product that is systematically found in the workshops or garages of people who wish and like to maintain their motorbike at home. U-Lift innovates with a new design of this massive and cumbersome object, which aims to make it practical and compact so it may be taken into the world of motorbike travel. Greasing a chain or checking the oil level are essential maintenance tasks that must be carried out regularly on a motorbike, especially on long trips. These actions are not always easy to do when you do not have the right equipment. This product has been designed and adapted to offer the user the opportunity to carry out maintenance alone, in a simple and safe way.
FILM STUDIES
Diploma project with Gilles Marchand, Marie Monge
On the eve of Y2K, Christine finally introduces her lover, Mina, to her parents. The evening promises to be strange.
DESIGN FOR LUXURY & CRAFTSMANSHIP
Diploma project by Ricardo Beira
My project consists of designing a kinetic art work that captures the fluid movements of ballet dancers and how they interact with one another and in space. Different mechanical systems are carefully combined and animated without electronics or software. Behind its apparent complexity, this object is designed in a minimal way. It echoes the human body in its design without imitating it in its form. Almost alive, the sculpture honours the grace and elegance of human movements in a kinetic ballet.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Diploma project with Stephane Halmai-Voisard, Julie Richoz, Maddalena Casadei
Loop uses heat therapy as a comforting pain-relief solution. Used as a non-invasive way to treat injuries and cramps, external application of heat promotes vasodilation, relaxes tissues and stimulates blood flow to the affected area. Loop consists of a strap with pouch and reusable soy wax packs that can be heated in a microwave or boiling water. Thanks to the thermal properties of soy wax, the packs remain at high temperature as they transition to a solid state, allowing for prolonged use. The strap, which is worn under clothing, ensures that the heat pack remains in contact with the skin, while allowing the user to go on with their daily activities, hands-free.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Diploma project with Maddalena Casadei, Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard, Julie Richoz
The S-Board is a small skateboard made of recycled plastic, designed to be directly produced on a small scale. It is a minimalist means of transport that I have been developing for several years. Perfectly adapted to the urban environment and travel, it has several advantages. It can be stored in a backpack or hand luggage, it takes up very little space on a bus and it allows you to juggle between public transport and pavements. The proximity of the axles makes it possible to rotate within a very small radius in order to slalom easily or dodge an obstacle over a short distance. Its thickness makes it an extremely solid object. Lightweight, it is cost-effective in terms of materials and offers a practical means of transport.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Diploma project by Sofia Papaefthymiou
Mention Bien. Being half-Cypriot half-Swiss, I somehow felt the need to understand my relationship to the territory, borders, exile and my shared origins. Το Ρόδι–The Pomegranate is a short film that has become a tool for exploration and deconstruction, bringing the geopolitical conflicts of my country up to the level of my own conflicts. This project is also a space where I can dream freely of other places, my own island – the reflections of my desires. Unable to reach this homeland, I try to grasp what I do not have, to reproduce the sensations that I experienced there. I collect archives, I commission images. I bring my female body, which I appropriate and re-appropriate through various representations, back to its origin, to find my place and speak up again.
FINE ARTS
Diploma project by Virginie Sistek
Mention Très bien Prix Visarte Vaud + Prix Ernest Manganel A____A |・ㅅ・| |っ ｃ| HI HI HELLO HI | | EACH MISUNDERSTANDING | | IS AN OPEN DOOR TO | | DISRUPTIVE REALITIES | | | | enjoy U￣￣U