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MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

GTE: Renens City Stories

with Jack McVeigh

A one week workshop where the first-year students were taught the basics of Blender and how to achieve a similar visual language to that of early era video game graphics. Students were asked to create a looping animation or 'Story' from the perspective of a character in the city of Renens where ECAL is based. These were then packaged into a playable game displayed on a series of CRT monitors controlled using a PS1 controller. The game itself was completely run in Blender using Geometry Nodes & Python.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Emma Grosu – ESC

by Emma Grosu

Video games allow players to escape into narrative worlds where they hold ‘all the power.’ In ESC, the game's character seeks to escape his own reality. This reversal examines the notions of freedom and constraint in video games, ironically highlighting the limits of our existence. What would happen if a character became aware of their situation, realizing that they are not in control of their movements but are, instead, imprisoned by them? ESC allowed me to explore concepts of immersion such as breaking the fourth wall and mise en abyme. Inspired by works like ‘The Truman Show’ and ‘Sword Art Online,’ I illustrated how the perception of freedom can be an illusion, both in video games and in the physical world.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Isaïa Delaplace – Azimut

by Isaïa Delaplace

Azimut is a puzzle game set in a 3D natural environment. The aim is to solve a series of riddles linked to the position of the sun in the sky. Inspired by the theme of Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's book “In Praise of Shadows”, controlling the sun becomes the central element of the gameplay. This action allows players to simply interact with the light that illuminates the Earth, solving puzzles and progressing through the experience. Through this series of increasingly complex puzzles, we can observe and feel the beauty of light and shadow in an increasingly vivid and rich environment.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Alexandre Gambarini – Echoes from the Tales

by Alexandre Gambarini

Whether it's the legend of Joan of Arc, William Tell, Che Guevara or other emblematic figures, our societies and our daily lives are partly punctuated by these tales. Echoes from the Tales is an interactive sequence that traces the life of Vasil Levski, a Bulgarian icon. By listening to his story, punctuated by strong symbolism, the sequence enables us to grasp how these stories can shape individual and collective identity. The aim of this interactive sequence is to analyze how a story can be assimilated and transformed by the individual imagination and then passed on, as well as understanding how age-old narratives such as Vasil Levski's can be hijacked by modern storytelling.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Marius Parisod – Get-Out 4

by Marius Parisod

At the crossroads between video games and board games, Get-Out 4 is an invitation to rediscover the joy of playing together. This puzzle game, designed to be played by two or more players, encourages direct interaction and cooperation. The use of external game pieces invites players to rely on their observation and deduction skills, bringing them together in a shared experience that goes beyond screens. The design of Get-Out 4 is based on a minimalist aesthetic inspired by early video games such as Pong, Pac-Man, and Tetris. This visual simplicity not only evokes nostalgia but is strategically employed to enhance player engagement by focusing on gameplay mechanics. This project, beyond its playful aspect, offers human interaction through the lens of gaming.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

INSTANT TOY FOR MUSICIANS

with Gaël Hugo

Soundtoys coded by 1st year Bachelor students in Media & Interaction Design as part of a semester project led by Gaël Hugo.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Betaverse

with Alain Bellet, Mario Von Rickenbach

Using a mixed reality headset, the students used their surroundings as playground. Through creative gestures, each experiment proposes a way of interacting with the environment.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Elina Crespi – Metamorphoses

by Elina Crespi

Metamorphoses is a video game installation that lets you develop your world by exploring its different dimensions. It is an organic machine that represents a harmony of opposites, a duality between machine and human. There is a balance to be found: should the machine adapt to the human or the human to the machine? Human to human? Machine to machine? By participating in Metamorphoses, players are invited to create connections by plugging in a jack cable to solve enigmas. They actively engage in the narrative and interact with the environment. The organic machine embodies a duality by making natural and technological elements coexist in an interactive and changing environment, thereby prompting introspection about our own world.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Lily Rose Hold – Dotto

by Lily Rose Hold

Dotto is a digital puzzle game that draws inspiration from classic dot-to-dot games. It combines connecting dots with the satisfaction of creating vector graphics. As you navigate through the collection of puzzles, you embark on a journey of discovery. Each connected dot unveils a part of the underlying artwork, gradually bringing it to life with every connection. A blend of satisfying gameplay and the celebration of vector Illustration, Dotto offers an experience for puzzle enthusiasts and those who love graphic illustration alike.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Niki Zaal – Waazo

by Niki Zaal

Waazo is a mobile game that connects unknown participants for a social and friendly experience. It is an experience where virtual reality and reality come together. Today, smartphones and social networks connect us with people far away, but they can also separate us from our physical surroundings. This interactive game uses this hyper-connectivity to reconnect people in a specific location, paradoxically. The game draws inspiration from our childhood games, such as Where’s Waldo? or Cluedo. Using their phone, each participant explores the people around them to discover unknown individuals. Subtle clues like their posture, mood or main accessory will guide the player in this quest for encounters.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Adryan Barrilliet – Will I Exist Within You?

by Adryan Barrilliet

Will I Exist Within You? is an immersive exploration of the human duality between the desire for connection and the fear of suffering from it. The existential journey follows a torn individual, exploring how social interactions contribute to shaping their essence. By delving into profound themes such as the search for meaning, loneliness, fear and love, the experience, which is divided into four parts, questions our relationship with others, individuality and self-construction. Will I Exist Within You? is an extension of a reflection that began with my thesis work on the influence of video games on personal development, specifically the para-social bonds that are established between players and their accompanying characters.

DESIGN FOR LUXURY & CRAFTSMANSHIP

Kiyong Lee – Hangeul Marbles

by Kiyong Lee

Hangeul Marble is an object that is designed based on the principle of Hangeul (Korean alphabet), in which letters are formed as strokes are added, e.g. ㅡ, ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, etc. Using the traditional game of marbles – a game known to and enjoyed by all – as a motif, the object is primarily intended to be used on a table. The rule of the game is to move the glass marble from start to finish using your finger. The object is made from ash wood and natural leather and, when not in use, it can serve as a contemporary decorative object.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Ekaterina Bliznyuk – Photosensitivity warning: following content may cause seizures

with Diego Bontognali, Jonathan Hares

Photosensitive epilepsy is a variant of epilepsy in which the affected person suffers from particular reactions to light and certain static patterns. Due to a lack of awareness of this disorder, our environment contains a large number of visual triggers, which endanger the daily life of photosensitive people. My project reproduces in virtual reality the most harmful locations and elements for photosensitive people, always illustrating two of these variants: the one that is visually accepted and the one that acts as a visual trigger. Being both a graphic designer and a photosensitive person, I sought to highlight the ignorance of this disease, which leads to visual exclusion. This is reinforced by the idea that I myself will never be able to view my own project in its full form.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Realtime Narratives

with Valerio Meschi

During the Realtime Narratives course, second-year students had to create a real-time narrative experience using Unreal Engine software. Based on the theme of "Chrysalis", the students developed the scenario, the graphic assets and the interactions. The aim of the project was to raise students awareness of the use of 3D realtime engines and the various links with other software specific to each stage of development.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Firefly

by Alexine Sierro

Project made by Alexine Sierro during the first year Interactive Graphics course.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Mathematical Sound

with Gaël Hugo

Soundtoys coded by 1st year Bachelor students in Media & Interaction Design as part of a semester project led by Gaël Hugo.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Go Fast

by Valère Zen-Ruffinen

Project made by Valère Zen-Ruffinen during the first year Interactive Graphics course.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Nora Fatehi – Mirror Me-rror

with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio

In an environment where the line between digital and tangible is becoming increasingly thin, having an existence in immaterial spaces implies shaping and maintaining an avatar that is often created in one’s own image. Living in these in-between worlds inevitably leads to the development of a more or less strong connection with one’s own digital representations. This is notably the case of my own avatar, with whom I share more than just a well-defined clothing style. In Mirror Me-rror, she and I become one. By using my physical and digital data to influence her abilities as my “virtual self”, I find myself constantly connected to her. With this project, I question the relationship that each of us nurtures with our digital identities and offer a gamified perspective of our own lives.

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

Alex Nguyen – Potential Objects

with Stephane Halmai-Voisard, Maddalena Casadei

Potential Objects is a project in the form of a video game/digital tool in virtual reality. The game invites users to a fictional world in which they can move and design objects from a library of elements that can be linked together. In order to have varied results regarding the produced objects, people will be able to integrate pieces designed by previous users when creating a new object.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Iris Moine – Twist

with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio

Twist was thought out as part of the upcoming industrial design exhibition at mudac - Musée cantonal de design et d’arts appliqués contemporains. The aim of this project is to engage children’s curiosity about design, for whom the idea of visiting a museum is often not the most exciting. How can we encourage a stimulating visit and discovery of the exhibits? By bringing out an object from the exhibition, the Bold chair by Big-Game studio, this project transforms it into an interactive installation. Guided by a character on screen, children are invited to interact with certain parts of the chair: sitting, pinching, turning, etc. These interactions trigger games, and information is presented in a playful way, thus creating a direct and memorable relationship with the object and raising awareness of design.

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

Hands On

with Adrien Rovero

The 1st year BA Industrial Design was invited by the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich to design wooden toys that were exhibited as part of the retrospective exhibition 'Willy Guhl: thinking with your hands'.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Get Out

with Mario Von Rickenbach

Video game made by Marius Parisod during the first year Interactive Graphics course.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Matches

with Mario Von Rickenbach

Video game made by Viktor Gagné, Charlotte Pralong and Julie Turin during the first year Interactive Graphics course.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

What’s The Prompt?

with Cyril Diagne

During a week workshop given by Cyril Diagne, second year students explored the integration of machine learning tools in their creative process. By limiting the coding step in favour of using the concept of Prompt they experimented with Diffusion Models such as GPT3, Clip or DALL-E to create texts, images and videos. Comparing the way our brain seems to make our dreams and the way some AI models work, Elina Crespi used some Diffusion Model to represent her dreams.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

MATHEMATICAL MUSIC

with Gaël Hugo

Soundtoys coded by 1st year Bachelor students in Media & Interaction Design as part of a semester project led by Gaël Hugo.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Transitions

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.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Malik Sobgoui – Oblique Reasoning

with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio

Nowadays, almost all of us have adopted the unconscious reflex of pulling out our smartphone when we are faced with some form of loneliness or passivity. Hence, it has become difficult for us to cope with waiting without the help of our cell phones. The aim of Oblique Reasoning is to invite users to question notions of attention economy and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) while offering, in the manner of Oblique Strategies, reflections and alternatives. By recording unread notifications and quantifying them in units of time, this portable device offers us the possibility to step back and rethink our relationship with the smartphone.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Rayane Jemaa – Is This the Middle East?

with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio

Is This the Middle East? investigates representation of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in a selection of video games. I am interested in the patterns, repetitive artefacts, locations and texts in games that claim to be set in the MENA region. These objects become archetypes. Are these photo-realistic environments also realistic in the scenes they depict or do they become another backdrop for war-related games? Using photogrammetry to reconstruct these environments, I address the implications of seeing an abundance of often over-simplified images of the Middle East, especially in a world where video games are becoming not only a global phenomenon, but also a means to encounter other cultures.

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

Julie Racaud – Fealing

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.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Sébastien Galera Larios – Data Riot

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

Valerio Meschi – Tone Alembic

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.

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

Elie Eliez – S-Board

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.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

chatOS

with Mario Von Rickenbach

Project made by Adryan Barillet during the first year Interactive Graphics course.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - Mindmaze x ECAL

with Mindmaze, Laura Nieder, Tibor Udvari

“Harder, better, faster, stronger” was a one week workshop in collaboration with Mindmaze exploring playful interactions with medical sensors and devices.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

HERE AND THERE

with Marcelo Coelho, Gaël Hugo, Pauline Saglio

A new educational model for a post-pandemic world

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Collection

with Gaël Hugo

Interactive illustrations created around the theme of the collection. Selection of projects created during Creative Coding course with Gaël Hugo.

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

Jérémy Aberlé – NATT

with Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard, Christian Spiess, Maddalena Casadei

As some great architects of modernism used to say, the issue for major cities is that man is completely disconnected from nature. This is why I decided for my graduation work, to create urban structures at the crossroads of design and architecture that aim to reconnect human beings with nature. These consist of tubular steel elements on which nets are strung for people to rest. These structures are intended to be set up around trees, in parks or schoolyards, where human activity interacts with green spaces.

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

Ralph Ethan Valladares – Bleuboard

with Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard, Christian Spiess, Maddalena Casadei

Across time and cultures, games have always been a great way for all kinds of people to gather and spend time together. “Bleuboard” is a compact, modular board game system. You can setup up to 50 different boards easily thanks to its individual bits of board. Featuring games of alignment, battle, hunting, capture, you name it, “Bleuboard” is jam-packed with a large selection of diverse games featuring many different game mechanisms, which allows its users to choose a game depending on their mood.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Léonard Guyot – Concrete

with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio

Concrete is an immersive experience that offers to discover digital architectures through lights and shadows that reveal the volumes and geometry of these environments. A tangible interface of concrete and electronics controls the parts of these buildings. To access the various structures, each person is invited to solve an enigma based on a pattern of light. With Concrete, I aimed to combine reflection on how we interact with a digital world with brutalist architectural inspirations and a playful experience of virtual reality.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Kylan Luginbühl – FRAME-Lab

with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio

FRAME-Lab offers a series of immersive experiences that provide new ways of interacting with a virtual reality environment. The traditional controller is replaced by a physical frame that enables you to explore various worlds and functionalities. This new interface, both tangible and digital, can thus take the form of a shield, a portal to travel in time and space, or that of a parachute. This interface frame is offered to the community of makers as 3D files available online that anyone can transform and print at home.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Maya Bellier – Strike the Pose

with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio

In performing arts, there is often, by convention, some distance, an invisible screen that separates the audience from the actors in the performance. Yet these respective positions have changed over time. Bauhaus artists actually aimed for total theatre, where the entire venue would be the stage. Strike the Pose is a participatory VR experience that begins from the moment we wait. A re-interpretation of Oskar Schlemmer’s “Triadic Ballet”, this complete and inclusive work invites all participants to enter through their acting into a total composition, both physical and digital.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Satisfaction 2020

with Mario Von Rickenbach

Satisfying webtoys coded by 1st year Bachelor students in Media & Interaction Design as part of a week-long workshop given by Mario von Rickenbach.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Yael Sidler – Lasius Flavus

with Alain Bellet, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo, Laura Nieder, Pauline Saglio

“Lasius Flavus” is an immersive and didactic experience developed in collaboration with the Museum of Zoology. Throughout the tour, visitors discover the world of the yellow ant, its habitat and perception of the world. This interactive VR project offers an interpretation of these various aspects to lead us to reflect on the relationship that each species has with its environment. Moreover, the exercise of thinking on a scale that is not ours can help us question our own future.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Benny in lockdown

with Mario Von Rickenbach

Project made by Elodie Anglade during the first year Interactive Graphics course.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Starfish

with Mario Von Rickenbach

Project made by Soraya Camina during the first year Interactive Graphics course.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Wind Down

with Mario Von Rickenbach

Project made by Loris Briguet during the first year Interactive Graphics course.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Aquarium

with Mario Von Rickenbach

Project made by Nathanaël Vianin during the first year Interactive Graphics course.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Ethical Fighter

with Marc Dubois

Ethical fighter is a mini-game that questions our ethical conscience in the face of reality. At each turn, the player is confronted with two different humanitarian projects, based on real-time data from the website https://www.globalgiving.org/. The player must guess the amount raised by each of the two randomly selected projects. However, the player only has the actual total sum of the two projects added together, so it's up to him to divide them up and guess. Once the player has validated his or her answer, he or she discovers the real sums that each of the two projects has raised, and can click on a link to help finance it or them.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

XY

with Ted Davis

XY - Experiments around the graphical and interactive potential of oscilloscopes. One week workshop given by Ted Davis to the 1st year Bachelor in Media & Interaction Design. Workshop assisted by Sébastien Matos.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Satisfaction 2019

with Mario Von Rickenbach

Satisfying webtoys coded by 1st year Bachelor students in Media & Interaction Design as part of a week-long workshop given by Mario von Rickenbach.

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Type

Course

Know-how

Years

GTE: Renens City Stories

Emma Grosu – ESC

Isaïa Delaplace – Azimut

Alexandre Gambarini – Echoes from the Tales

Marius Parisod – Get-Out 4

INSTANT TOY FOR MUSICIANS

Betaverse

Elina Crespi – Metamorphoses

Lily Rose Hold – Dotto

Niki Zaal – Waazo

Adryan Barrilliet – Will I Exist Within You?

Kiyong Lee – Hangeul Marbles

Ekaterina Bliznyuk – Photosensitivity warning: following content may cause seizures

Realtime Narratives

Firefly

Mathematical Sound

Go Fast

Nora Fatehi – Mirror Me-rror

Alex Nguyen – Potential Objects

Iris Moine – Twist

Hands On

Get Out

Matches

What’s The Prompt?

MATHEMATICAL MUSIC

Transitions

Malik Sobgoui – Oblique Reasoning

Rayane Jemaa – Is This the Middle East?

Julie Racaud – Fealing

Sébastien Galera Larios – Data Riot

Valerio Meschi – Tone Alembic

Elie Eliez – S-Board

chatOS

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - Mindmaze x ECAL

HERE AND THERE

Collection

Jérémy Aberlé – NATT

Ralph Ethan Valladares – Bleuboard

Léonard Guyot – Concrete

Kylan Luginbühl – FRAME-Lab

Maya Bellier – Strike the Pose

Satisfaction 2020

Yael Sidler – Lasius Flavus

Benny in lockdown

Starfish

Wind Down

Aquarium

Ethical Fighter

XY

Satisfaction 2019