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GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

ECAL Night Live

with Vincent Veillon, Paul Walther, Florian Pittet (Sigmasix), Vincent Jacquier, Julien Gurtner

During an intensive week, first-year students from the Visual Communication department at ECAL had the opportunity to create and produce the first edition of ECAL Night Live. The goal was to design a show inspired by satirical television formats. Divided into multidisciplinary teams—including students from the Bachelor programs in Graphic Design, Media & Interaction Design, and Photography—they collaborated to create all the content, set design, and visual identity of the show, delivering a fully homemade project in record time. The main theme revolved around self-mockery, targeting the visual communication professions, students, and the institution itself, with a subtle touch of current events. This project was supervised by Vincent Veillon and Paul Walther, directors of the RTS show 52 Minutes, as well as Florian Pittet, a digital scenography expert who guided the creation of the show's set design.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Fine Art Photography

with Natacha Lesueur

Vulgar First, it is photography that would be considered vulgar: due to its technical mediation (the infamous photographic click-clack), its commercial uses (press, advertising, and fashion), its dissemination, and its reproduction, photographic activity is tainted with vulgarity. A minor art, an art that does nothing more than imitate art?

PHOTOGRAPHY

Fine Art Photography

with Natacha Lesueur

Last minute risk As the students enter their final year of training at the ECAL, and their interests and methods take shape, it's time to take advantage of this last project to question our own rules, achievements and influences, not to be satisfied with them, and to take risks.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Dramatic portraiture

with Louie Banks

Returning to the basics and origins of photography will allow students to focus their energy and ideas meaningfully on their concept and subject.   Louie Banks provided them with three keywords to consider as a way to create photographs with more impact than what is typically expected from today’s editorials and campaigns. The students were free to draw inspiration from one of the following keywords or to try incorporating a bit of each into their project: "Movement," "Costume," "Emotion."

PHOTOGRAPHY

Workshop Photographic chamber

with Matthieu Gafsou

The workshop week 4x5 is both an introduction to the 4x5 technical camera and a way to kickstart a photographic project. Students experience the process of analog shooting, from development to large format inkjet printing. This intense week is highly technical, but also focused on developing a photographic language, allowing for a better understanding of the fundamental workings of photography.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Picture Consequences

with Tamara Janes

The students task is to create their own story, storyline, narrative or sequences based on the existing given images. Using their personal interests, imagination and ideas they link the images together. They can continue the plot of the images, do in-depth research, write fictional stories or tell stories based on personal experiences. The students had the freedom to photograph, generate or film.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Fine Art Photography

with Laurence Bonvin

Liquid Times Produce a project using photography and video on the theme of fluidity, liquid form and water.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Fine Art Photography

with Natacha Lesueur

Documentary, the power of make-believe. Based on projects developed around a common theme, the students develop a personal, in-depth project around the theme of pretense. They build a project that plays with the limits of veracity in photography, using it as an artifice of deception.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographic revelation

with Laurence Bonvin

Endurance In this course, the objectives are to allow students to experiment with new approaches or techniques regarding past, ongoing, or diploma projects. They also have the opportunity to revisit and refine subjects that have not met their satisfaction in terms of concept, form, technique, or execution. This experience aims to expand ideas, refine techniques, continue unfinished work while improving it, or build a more comprehensive body of images. Endurance lies at the heart of this process, whether it's persevering in completing a project, revisiting an idea until it's exhausted, or overcoming obstacles such as lack of time, self-confidence, or courage. This semester thus offers students the opportunity to confront their limits, surpass them, and achieve their best in their endeavors.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Workshop Photographic chamber

with Matthieu Gafsou

The workshop week 4x5 is both an introduction to the 4x5 technical camera and a way to kickstart a photographic project. Students experience the process of analog shooting, from development to large format printing. This intense week is highly technical, but also focused on developing a photographic language, allowing for a better understanding of the fundamental workings of photography.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Staged Photography

with Charlotte Krieger

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the creation and management of a complex photographic project involving sets, characters and lighting. The theme is free.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Workshop Photographic chamber

with Matthieu Gafsou

The workshop week 4x5 is both an introduction to the 4x5 technical camera and a way to kickstart a photographic project. Students experience the process of analog shooting, from development to large format printing. This intense week is highly technical, but also focused on developing a photographic language, allowing for a better understanding of the fundamental workings of photography.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Vampire week

with Jean-Vincent Simonet

During one week, the students developed techniques that transform perception and the relationship with the corpus of images: erasure, displacement, loss of the sensation of reality.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Pop Ups and Masks

with Taiyo Onorato

This workshop focused on staged photography, particularly emphasizing staged portraits. The concentration was on the two essential elements of the portrait: working with the object and manipulating its background. Staged portraits set themselves apart from mere snapshots by actively creating an image, steering clear of reality. Tools like light, background, and pose were employed to craft a deliberate narrative. Individuals were staged, altered in specific ways, adorned with outfits and masks. The workshop delved into the interest in masks as tools for transformation and representation. Throughout the workshop, masks were produced using available means, and they became the central objects of staging. Students photographed and filmed them, capturing the essence of transformation. The second element of the workshop, which focused on the background, pop-up techniques were experimented with. The backdrop, a dynamic part of the narrative, was manipulated using cleverly designed sets and unexpected spatial techniques. The focus was not just on capturing moments but on crafting them, bringing forth stories that transcended the boundaries of reality. The workshop provided a platform for unleashing creativity and experimentation.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Dissolution of genres and austerity in prise de vue

with Geray Mena

The workshop focused on the dissolution of genres within photography: documentary, fashion, still life and portraiture. Students built bridges between commercial and artistic practice.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Afterhuman

with Elizaveta Porodina

For this workshop, Elizaveta Porodina asked the students to explore the theme "AFTERHUMAN". This theme opens up perspectives for capturing futuristic landscapes, representing the potential fusion of technology and humanity. Think about visually depicting the coexistence of artificial intelligence, cybernetics or biotechnology with natural elements. Experiment with innovative techniques to convey a sense of evolution or transcendence. This exploration invites photographers to creatively interpret and visually narrate a future beyond conventional human experience.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Révélation Photographique

with Laurence Bonvin

During the first semester of the third year, this course enables students to take up a project they have already started, which could be continued in the second semester for the diploma. Students are encouraged to take risks in form, technique, production or subject matter.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Création photographique

with Natacha Lesueur

Over the course of a semester, the students develop a project that examines the challenges of auteur photography and develops their personal expression. The project may be continued as a diploma project in the second semester.

FILM STUDIES

Keerthigan Sivakumar – Doosra

with Gilles Marchand, Marie Monge

Vinoth, a refugee, is looking for a volunteer activity to escape his loneliness, but no one is willing to accept his help.

FILM STUDIES

Avril Lehmann – The Heiresses

with Gilles Marchand, Marie Monge

Luna returns to the family home where still lives her younger sister, Diana. Diana has been living alone in this large, dilapidated house since the death of their father.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Paul Fritz – Grappaa

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.

FILM STUDIES

Yael Vallotton – Sleeping Water

with Gilles Marchand, Marie Monge

In the small kitchen of a family home, two women in their fourties are chatting. Out of the blue, one of them kisses the other.

FILM STUDIES

Charlène Girel – Outside (Direction)

with Gilles Marchand, Marie Monge

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.

FILM STUDIES

Sebastián Friedmann – Being a ghost

with Gilles Marchand, Marie Monge

Serge discovers what being a ghost is like but Martial, an old spirit, prevents him from having fun.

FILM STUDIES

Elias Ben Khalifa – We are the others

with Gilles Marchand, Marie Monge

Karim and Adin are childhood friends. They haven't seen each other for a long time and get together for a drink to make up for lost time.

FILM STUDIES

Alexandre Brulé – The new millenium

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.

FILM STUDIES

Matias Carlier – Fever

with Gilles Marchand, Marie Monge

Two young skateboarders decide to go to a party, their evening gets complicated.

FILM STUDIES

Aurel Ganz – Montana 1977 (photography)

with Josée Deshaies

Rey and Moretti are two undercover narc in the middle of a police operation in the Swiss mountains of Valais. It’s during a routine operation that one of them will do a terrible mistake and together they will have to escape from this difficult situation.

FILM STUDIES

Thibault Villard – Those who care to know each other (photography)

with Josée Deshaies

Two figures meet in a pitch black room to make love. Once the lights are on, Lucien and Anton are faced with their differences but are drawn even closer together.

FILM STUDIES

Nikita Merlini – Rondinella

with Laurent Larivière

Staying with her mother after the fire, Sofia dreams of freedom. But the smell of smoke doesn't leave..

FILM STUDIES

Rodrigo Muñoz – Tarmac (direction)

with Laurent Larivière

Wednesdays after school Inès meets Julien on the train. The other passengers watch them.