Lara Défayes

Lara
Défayes

Head of Master Digital Experience Design

Enseignements

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Olivia Capol – How Do They Know ?

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

We all use ChatGPT. But why? Perhaps because it seems to have an answer to everything. How Do They Know ? is an interactive experience that invites us to follow the path of each question we ask an AI, from the moment it enters the system until a truth is delivered to us. Three guides are available to take us to the heart of language model mechanisms. Their points of view, sometimes opposing, intersect and contradict each other. What if the way algorithms respond to us influences what we believe? Behind each exchange lies our relationship to human knowledge, what we expect from machines, what they learn from us, and what we decide to believe.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Baptiste Godart – L'anarchisme n'est pas une invention des Sex Pistols.

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

The first international anarchist organization appeared in 1871—not in London, but in the Jura Mountains of Switzerland. Who would have thought? If you think anarchism is all about chaos, crust punks, or masked rioters, this web documentary will shatter those stereotypes. You’ll discover how the Jura watchmakers organized to unite their peers across borders and confront the domination of the bourgeois, capitalist class. The Jura Federation is a key chapter in the history of anarchism. The art direction combines the fanzine aesthetic of the late 20th century with a modern interface design. Visual work is a major part of the documentary, with most of the imagery being original creations.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Ayten Gönel – Tied Realities

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

Tied Realities is an interactive virtual reality (VR) experience that questions the relationship between material and immaterial space. In VR, physical space is rarely considered a constraining parameter in the creation of the environment. the project seeks to reverse this logic by integrating a physical constraint at the heart of the virtual experience. Plunged into an oppressive environment, each participant is invited to interact with an device that binds their wrists and restricts their movements. This device acts as a material representation of the discomfort felt by the protagonist in VR, which becomes the central element of the narrative, structuring the environment and interactions. Tied Realities then allows to experience the friction between digital freedom and physical limits.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Emilie Maier – Moji

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

A simple password can be cracked in a matter of seconds. Many people reuse the same password for years, or entrust all their passwords to specialized software, counting on not having to remember them themselves. Moji offers a playful and accessible alternative for strengthening our digital security, without the complexity. Designed for people who are less at ease with these issues, the application accompanies the user step by step, guided by Moji — a little character who simplifies the creation of passwords and makes their memorization more intuitive. The whole experience is designed to be fluid and non-anxious, transforming an often tedious task into a simple, guided and reassuring moment.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Thomas Gaudin – UnBubble

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

Unbubble is an interactive installation in which a robot explores a user’s smartphone to analyze their Instagram usage. This intrusive act highlights a paradox: if it’s rare to hand one’s phone to a machine, we nonetheless do so every day by letting algorithms collect our data. Our online habits shape a tailor-made reality that filters, sorts, suggests, and sometimes limits our horizons. Unbubble questions how our digital traces construct a fragmented image of ourselves — one that is then used to guide our choices, desires, and attention. The installation invites us to become aware of these mechanisms and opens up a space to imagine other narratives, other ways of navigating, and other worlds to explore beyond the paths laid out by algorithms.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Elena Biasi – Magnetic Fragments

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

Before the rise of digital technology and social networks, everyday moments were captured on analog media and watched with family in one uninterrupted flow. These long VHS tapes, composed of successive sequences, gradually disappeared, victims of their obsolescence. Magnetic Fragments offers a way to rediscover these forgotten memories through a three-dimensional web interface, where each bubble represents a memory to explore and comment on. Designed for a private circle, the collaborative platform allows free navigation, revisiting each memory fragments in a dynamic way and breaking with the monotonous structure of past viewings. Magnetic Fragments thus becomes a space for intergenerational transmission, where the past is shared in the present.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Alexine Sierro – Spira Memoriae

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

In a world where ecosystems are dying out and certain smells are evaporating, what is happening to the places and stories that gave them form? Spira Memoriae is an immersive olfactory experience in virtual reality that invites users to journey through a fragmented sensory world. Original fragrances, created in collaboration with perfumer Tennessee Macdougall, extend the reflection through the language of odours. Beacons of an abstract landscape, they reveal rare materials, sometimes extinct, but still present in our collective memory. Spira Memoriae explores the tensions between disappearance and persistence, industry and territory, reality and reconstruction. Smell becomes a vehicle for storytelling, transmission and shared fiction.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Livia Schmid – Trail Sync

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

In remote alpine regions, access to reliable information — such as trail conditions or weather alerts — becomes difficult in the absence of network coverage. Trail Sync addresses this challenge through a participatory and decentralized approach: local information boxes, integrated into hiking infrastructure, are passively updated by hikers using an offline mobile application. Each person passing near a box synchronizes contextual data, leaving a digital trace that benefits those who follow. Reinforcing existing signage without increasing technological dependency, the system is rooted in the mountain values of collective responsibility and solidarity.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Valère Zen-Ruffinen – Memoria

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

“All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” - Roy Batty, Blade Runner (1982). Many of the moments we share with our loved ones fade from memory when nothing brings them back to life. Little by little, they disappear. Memoria is a photo album application that explores the fragility of memory, and how we maintain — or allow to fade — our connections through it. Through a process of gradual disappearance, the people in our photos slowly fade if no new memories shared with them are added. To keep their faces visible, users are invited to regularly enrich their album with new shared moments.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Quentin Kohler – EnhancedCrops

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

“At EnhancedCrops, we aim to create the apple of the future.Thanks to our exclusive technology, which promises to revolutionize the future of agriculture, we are about to develop an apple tree capable of surviving the hottest heatwave as well as the latest spring frost. No matter what parasite clings to it, our Tungsten apple tree will always resist. And that’s not even counting that it will produce the perfect apple, available year-round. Humanity is accelerating climate change? It doesn’t matter! We have the solution. It’s up to us to help it surpass itself. At EnhancedCrops, we’ve made it our mission. Join us, and let’s cultivate a sweeter, ever more fruitful world together.” A story of a failure foretold.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Aryana Noorani – Check-out / Check-in

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

In this point-and-click game, players take on the role of a maid on her first day in a luxury hotel. Each level consists of a messy room left behind by guests. The player must remember the list of tasks and complete them in the correct order to restore the room. The gameplay relies on simple, repetitive actions, where order and memory are key, with no room for error in such meticulous surroundings. Through repetition, the actions become mechanical, but the slightest mistake forces the player to start over. Guided by the overbearing voice of a manager, the experience combines curiosity, frustration and a quiet sense of absurdity in a simple game loop.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Mathias Liniger – Just a game?

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

Just a game? is an interactive project that explores how war video games contribute to the trivialization of violence through their game design. Why are weapons perceived as desirable objects? How do customization, visual and sound effects make the act of killing satisfying? What remains of a body after death in a video game? And what does this say about our relationship to violence? In these games, nothing is left to chance: pleasure, oblivion, hostility — it's all a question of design. Through a series of classic combat scenes, this immersive documentary invites viewers to observe, question and understand the systems that transform war into a playful experience.

Projects

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Lara Défayes – FOMO Survival Kit

with Alain Bellet, Cyril Diagne, Cédric Duchêne, Christophe Guignard, Gaël Hugo

The FOMO is a new word in our dictionnary. But what does it mean ? FOMO stands for “Fear Of Missing Out”. It is a compulsive concern that one might miss an opportunity or satisfying event for example, often aroused by our close relationship with social media websites. Imagine yourself alone in the wild city, going through a well deserved digital detox but yet hungry for new social interactions. Is there any way to find your path to the next event planned in your calendar ? FOMO Survival Kit offer you an urban survival kit that will take you to all the events you intend to go. Through a unique set of three connected object, you will be able to know the essential parameters of any social event, who, when and where.