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MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Betaverse 2025

with 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.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

ALICE FRANCHETTI WORKSHOP – RICHARD NEUTRA

with Alice Franchetti

During this workshop, each student was tasked with designing a poster inspired by the architectural legacy of Richard Neutra. Drawing from his modernist philosophy and formal principles — clean lines, transparency, strict geometry, and integration with the landscape — each student visually reinterpreted Neutra’s ideas within a 2D graphic format.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Screen Design 2024

with Harry Bloch

Websites developed over a semester according to a book chosen by the students as part of Harry Bloch's Screen Design course, second year Bachelor of Visual Communication.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Altered Ego

with Harriet Davey

Who are you in the digital realm? Your avatar, your videogame skin, your alter ego.  Second-year students, led by Harriet Davey, crafted digital alter egos from scratch. They used Daz, Blender, and VR to explore an alternate personality or expression through the digital self.

PHOTOGRAPHY

The Indecisive Moment

with Jaya Pelupessy

This exhibition presents the outcome of a five-day workshop led by artist Jaya Pelupessy, where students explored the unstable terrain between creation and reproduction. Through hands-on experiments with various duplication methods and strategies of appropriation, the workshop invited a reconsideration of the image—not as a final product, but as a process, a question, a site of continuous transformation. Embracing moments of uncertainty, trial and error, and unexpected discovery, participants focused on what Pelupessy calls The Indecisive Moment: the in-between phase where outcomes are unclear and intention is disrupted by chance. These works reflect a shift from the pursuit of fixed meaning toward an image in flux—unfinished, open, and relational.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Service Design - 2025

with Angelo Benedetto, Vincent Jacquier, Pauline Saglio, Calypso Mahieu

During the Service Design course, the 3rd year of the Graphic Design, Photography and Media & Interaction Design bachelors had to create multi-media projects. A collaboration of the Visual Communication department which had as subject the SDGs (*Sustainable Development Goals). The theme was called "For a good cause, make the SDGs a reality" and its objective was to allow students to develop a cause that is close to their hearts. Each project consists of at least two different media, one primary and one secondary. These projects could take any form that the students deemed relevant, be it a website, editions, posters, a video sequence or virtual reality.

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.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Digital Clean Up Week 2025

with Angelo Benedetto, Vincent Jacquier

From March 10 to 14, ECAL is taking part in Digital Cleanup Week, a worldwide event dedicated to raising awareness and taking action for a more responsible digital world. A week to repair, recycle, clean and think!

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Talk to me 2025

with Alain Bellet

Talk To Me is a series of interactive objects designed by first-year students in the Bachelor Media & Interaction Design program. These creations use dialogue as a playground, drawing inspiration from conversational interfaces to create new forms of interaction.

FOUNDATION YEAR

Foundation year's Workshop

Film Option Christophe M. Saber This workshop aims to give young filmmakers the tools they need to obtain more precise and nuanced performances from their actors. Directing actors, the very heart of a film's success, will be explored from a number of angles: how to make relevant casting choices, work on the rhythm and dynamics of a scene, and communicate effectively with actors to translate an artistic vision into a convincing performance. Media & Interaction design option Floating Point Studio Introduction to 3D through a week-long workshop on the theme of CGI still lifes, designed to familiarise students with this medium. Photography Option Sabina Bösch Free photographic work on the body or bodies from different angles: The body as a physical entity and as a functional system, The body in digital space, Touch as interaction and its dimensions, The body as material and medium, The space of the body and its symbolic significance, Societal significance and the construction of the body. Graphic Design Option Eilean Friis-Lund Based on an unchanging timetable, this workshop provides an introduction to risography and explores a number of technical principles (screen, resolution, file preparation). Visual Arts Option Chloé Delarue In a world saturated with images and simulations, where the real and the virtual are intertwined, Chloé Delarue's aim is to create a world where the real and the virtual are intertwined.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Workshop Jiri Oplatek

with Kushagra Gupta

Third-year students in Media & Interaction Design created posters depicting insects whose appearance is inspired by their evolutionary adaptation to their environment. This week-long workshop was led by artist Kushagra Gupta.

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

Le pavillon de l'élégance

with Chaumont–Zaerpour

Each group was tasked with creating a series of fashion images by appropriating or subverting visual codes from existing images. Everyone approached this exercise with creativity, exploring a variety of references, whether iconic fashion shots, works of art, or visuals from popular culture. Once all the series were completed, they were compiled into a printed and bound magazine. The assembly of the images gave rise to a unique object, where each project found its place within a coherent and visually striking whole. This magazine thus became the tangible trace of this collective exploration of fashion imagery and its multiple reinterpretations.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Workshop - Simon Lehner

with Simon Lehner, Milo Keller, Clément Lambelet

For this workshop, ECAL invited Simon Lehner, a Vienna-based visual artist whose interdisciplinary practice spans photography, 3D rendering, AI-generated imagery, lens-based paintings, and sculptures. Social media algorithms manipulate memory and emotions by trapping users in echo chambers of repetitive imagery and ideas. These visual cycles exploit memory processes, triggering emotional responses—such as fear, envy, or desire—that reinforce behavioral patterns. Corporations leverage photographic images to target insecurities, activating primal instincts to drive consumption and engagement. Before the workshop, students were invited to reflect on their personal echo chambers—encountered on their social media feeds. They were asked to think about the following: •    What trends or niches were suggested to you? •    Which emotions played a role in these trends? •    What emotional responses did they trigger in you? By analyzing these patterns, students gained insight into how photographic images and algorithms influence memory, emotions, and behavior. This critical awareness serveed as a foundation for exploring the broader societal implications of visual media.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Digital Impact

with Nicole Ruggiero

Guided by New-York based 3D arist Nicole Ruggiero, the first year students brought their most impactful digital memories to life. Using Cinema4D, ZBrush, and Substance Painter, they crafted animations exploring how technology has shaped our experiences through nostalgic tributes.

PRODUCT DESIGN

ReGrid

with Thélonious Goupil

During this one-week workshop led by Thélonious Goupil, edits were made to a ‘drop false ceiling’ in Bar Gala Lausanne. By hacking the system, playing with existing elements such as lighting or ventilators, the outdate ceiling was given new life without the need for full renovation.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Beyond the screen

with Angelo Benedetto

Beyond the screen - is a series of interactive machines developed by students in their first year of Bachelor Media & Interaction Design. These systems are inspired by the relationship between instructions and execution within a computer system. These machines create text through a modular typographic system.

PHOTOGRAPHY

We Do The Rest - PERFORMANCE WORKSHOP & EXHIBITION

with Augustin Lignier, Milo Keller, Clément Lambelet

From image capture to distribution, "We do the Rest" explores the notions of effort and bodily constraint in contemporary photographic mechanics. Through a series of spectacular and deceptive per-formances, Master Photography students at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne translate the gestures and the actions of visual fabrication with humor and absurdity. The project, conducted by Augustin Lignier, recalls the radical performances of the 60%, revisited in the digital age, when audiences are mainly virtual, and relationships are reduced to pixels. In search of permanent validation, we evolve in a digital theater governed by cameras, screens, and algorithms. We invite you to dive into these simulations, for real. And it's up to you to press the shutter... "We do the Rest" was created as a workshop during the second semester and was further developed in Italy, where it celebrated its premiere at the Biennale dell'Immagine di Chiasso. The constantly reimagined project was later presented at the Rencontres d'Arles 2024 photography festival, where it found a wide audience. The third and final edition was presented at ECAL in September 2024, closing the circle and illustrating the dynamic development process.

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.

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

Workshop with Lorenzo Vitturi

with Lorenzo Vitturi

The aim of this workshop is to engage students in a multidisciplinary process that combines photography with sculpture and scenography. To emphasize the importance of the creative process, students are encouraged to use primarily collected and recycled materials, which will need to be transformed and integrated into their visual narrative. The work presented at the end of the workshop will reflect this approach, combining visual results with sculptures and ephemeral installations.

FILM STUDIES

Paleo Workshop - Screening at Visions du Réel 2024

by Loris Ciaburri, Jonathan Daza Ospina, Loïs de Goumoëns, Sara Dutch, Fei Fan, Pablo Guscetti, Anna Joos, Saleh Kashefi, Theofanis Papadopoulos, Valentina Parati, Antoine Scalese

Students in the Master Film Studies ECAL/HEAD produced documentary vignettes for the Paléo Festival, which were shown for the first time at Visions du Réel in April 2024.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Magazine - 23/24

with Anouk Schneider Agabekov, Chi-Long Trieu

As part of the publishing course led by Anouk Schneider and Chi-Long Trieu, 2nd year Visual Communication students had the opportunity to design an artist's book during the first semester. This book project stands out for its contemporary approach aimed at creating an editorial object that harmoniously integrates form and content in the current context of the editorial landscape. Students were encouraged to exploit their artistic freedom at all levels of creation, whether in terms of format, choice of paper, binding, layout, illustrations, text or typography. As part of this course, the artist's book can take shape through various illustration modalities, such as photography, reproduction, contextualization, drawing, 3D, etc. The emphasis is on the author's artistic vision and the means implemented to realize it. Students take on multiple roles as editor, curator and architect, covering the responsibilities of artistic director, designer, photographer, stylist, illustrator, typographer, editor-in-chief, and editorial secretary. This course highlights contemporary editorial design by exploring the narrative potential of a sequence of controlled content.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Redesign 23-24 - S2

with Giliane Cachin

As part of the course given by Giliane Cachin, 1st year students are required to produce an edition by examining the different axes that make it up. The course offers a study of various grid systems and the fundamentals of micro-typography. During the semester, students will look for the best way to structure and arrange the content they have chosen (or which has been assigned to them, depending on the semester's data). Some essential rules to know in terms of printing and bindings will be reviewed at the end of the semester, in order to bring the conceptualized object to life.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Service Design - 2024

with Angelo Benedetto, Vincent Jacquier, Pauline Saglio, Calypso Mahieu

During the Service Design course, the 3rd year of the Graphic Design, Photography and Media & Interaction Design bachelors had to create multi-media projects. A collaboration of the Visual Communication department which had as subject the SDGs (*Sustainable Development Goals). The theme was called "For a good cause, make the SDGs a reality" and its objective was to allow students to develop a cause that is close to their hearts. Each project consists of at least two different media, one primary and one secondary. These projects could take any form that the students deemed relevant, be it a website, editions, posters, a video sequence or virtual reality.

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.