MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Altered Ego
with Harriet Davey
Second-year students, led by Harriet Davey, crafted digital alter egos from scratch. They used Daz, Blender, and VR to explore identity, gender, and aesthetics in virtual space.
Projects
This section contains a selection of emblematic or recent projects related to the disciplines taught in the Bachelor's degree.
All Projects
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Folklore Fusion
with Pauline Saglio
Folklore Fusion – a CGI character project developed by students in Bachelor Media & Interaction Design at ECAL, exploring the creative collision between Japanese and Swiss folklore through the lens of contemporary visual storytelling.
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.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Tease & Reveal
with Kylan Luginbühl
Video sequences created as part of the 3D Graphics course, led by Kylan Luginbühl. The videos interpret the theme Tease & Reveal. Whether for a movie, a series, a product, or a video game, the teaser sparks our curiosity and invites us to engage with the subject in just a few seconds. Projects created during the 1st year of the Bachelor in Media & Interaction Design.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
It's About Time
with Angelo Benedetto
It’s about time is a series of digital clocks that explore the perception of time through different hierarchies of representation. This selection brings together projects created in the first year of the Bachelor in Media & Interaction, as part of the Dynamic Display course led by Angelo Benedetto.
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.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Wonder Rooms
with Gaël Hugo
During this workshop, second year media & Interaction design students crafted interactive 'wonder-rooms' inspired by curiosity cabinets, blending 3D environments with real-time interactions. A collection of bizarre, imaginative little worlds to be explored.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Countdown (2024)
with Mario Von Rickenbach
The students worked on an interactive countdown in a web environment. Each day, they were tasked with creating a new sketch, culminating in their own collection, which could also be combined with projects from the entire class.
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.
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.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
TOGGLE: Interactively fun buttons
with Sébastien Matos
A collection of interface buttons designed and animated by first-year students of the Bachelor’s program in Media & Interaction Design. Each element includes a standard animation, an exaggerated animation, and an unexpected version.
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.
Workshops
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Altered Ego
with Harriet Davey
Second-year students, led by Harriet Davey, crafted digital alter egos from scratch. They used Daz, Blender, and VR to explore identity, gender, and aesthetics in virtual space.
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.
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.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Countdown (2024)
with Mario Von Rickenbach
The students worked on an interactive countdown in a web environment. Each day, they were tasked with creating a new sketch, culminating in their own collection, which could also be combined with projects from the entire class.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Wonder Rooms
with Gaël Hugo
During this workshop, second year media & Interaction design students crafted interactive 'wonder-rooms' inspired by curiosity cabinets, blending 3D environments with real-time interactions. A collection of bizarre, imaginative little worlds to be explored.
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.
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.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
TOGGLE: Interactively fun buttons
with Sébastien Matos
A collection of interface buttons designed and animated by first-year students of the Bachelor’s program in Media & Interaction Design. Each element includes a standard animation, an exaggerated animation, and an unexpected version.
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.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
PHOTOGRAPHY
SYNC SCREEN
with Charlotte Krieger, Jean-Vincent Simonet, Florian Pittet (Sigmasix), Vincent Jacquier, Julien Gurtner, Matthieu Minguet, Cédric Duchêne, EPFL+ECAL Lab, Giacomo Bastianelli
For a week, the first-year visual communications students worked on an installation consisting of 15 screens, accompanied by a 360° sound system developed by EPFL+ECAL Lab. This chandelier, five metres in diameter and suspended from a height of three metres, served as a support for their experiments. Using music specially composed and spatialised for the occasion, the students explored the dynamics of sound both visually and in movement.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Agents are All You Need
with Matthieu Minguet
Agents Are All You Need is the result of a one-week workshop dedicated to exploring Autonomous Agents and their potential in innovative scenarios. By repurposing existing platforms, students leveraged the reasoning capabilities of multimodal language models to automate complex actions rather than limiting themselves to generating text or images.
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.
Diploma projects
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Gary Sandoz – Reminix
by Gary Sandoz
By delegating our life experiences to digital media processed by algorithms, memory is no longer solely human. Reminix explores the emotional dimension and the future of our fragmented memories through a device that scans and analyzes photographic slides, acting as an ephemeral backup of a past life in the absence of the author's testimony. In a spatial contemplation, the image materialized and rendered in 3D, accompanied by generative narration, reconstitutes an alternative past with each activation. This interactive experience reactivates the memory and creates a bridge between the user and the narrative potential of the image, while questioning the fragility, preservation, trust, and generation of our memories by machines.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Théo Déchanez – Vulcan
by Théo Déchanez
Vulcan is an immersive journey to the heart of telluric powers. It is a tribute to volcanologists and volcanoes, exploring themes such as human smallness and the fascination of the immensity of natural forces. Divided into two parts, the narrative opposes the vision of a volcanologist getting as close as possible to a crater, to that of the god of fire, forges and volcanoes, the eponym of the experience. Vulcan is inspired by the work of Haroun Tazieff and the couple Katia and Maurice Krafft, and is an extension of a reflection begun during my thesis on the reconstruction of myths using digital tools.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Julie Turin – Star's Bags - The Tree Bag
by Julie Turin
Assembly line work and online orders have become the norm, even in craftsmanship. The Star's Bags app is a seamstress's response to this trend, offering an immersive shopping experience to highlight manual labor before the customer receives their bag. "The Tree Bag" is the first collection from this app, which can expand into other themes. Through this experience, the customer participates in every step of the bag's creation over several days: gathering materials, placing patterns, cutting, sewing, pinning, addressing, and shipping. By following this process, the customer appreciates the effort involved and retains a special memory of their purchase, enhancing the value of the product received.
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
Mélanie Martin – Odalys
by Mélanie Martin
Odalys is an artificial intelligence that takes the shape of a glowing doll. She is designed to respond to her owner's every wish at the touch of a button. However, she needs to be setup in a multiple ended narration where the user's choices irreversibly affect the trajectory of their relationship.The intention of the project is to expose the potential consequences of our interactions with generative AIs. The experiment also aims to highlights the over-representation of female shells to sell these products. Odalys is not a woman-object, she is the object of the system to which the user submits her. And she objects it.
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
Charlotte Pralong – Take Part
by Charlotte Pralong
Have you ever wanted to be part of the show at the concert you are attending? This is where the Take Part project comes in, an interactive scenography for a song specially composed by my musical duo with my sister. The phone, often seen as a disturbing intermediary between artists and the audience, is here used as a tool for connection that strengthens bonds and amplifies collective energy. Indeed, each spectator participates in the projection behind the musicians using their phone. The audience follows a character with a naïve style, animated in 2D, who travels through various worlds to recharge before finally sharing this energy, symbolizing the sharing and multiplication of collective joy.
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
Sasha Iatsenia – LittleCubes
by Sasha Iatsenia
Today, 1 in 15 children are affected by a disorder that alters their behaviors, impacting their educational, socialization, and communication skills. LittleCubes were designed as therapeutic toys to help develop these skills through light and play. Using a cube that lights up and responds to natural gestures, therapists can create fun and engaging exercises using an intuitive app. While designing this project, I discovered that I have autistic traits, inspiring me to build a toy I would have loved as a child. My goal is to build bridges between neurotypical and neurodiverse experiences, making the world more inclusive for all. To date, I have tested the cube with more than 15 therapists and 30 children (ASD, motor deficiencies and associated disorders). I hope to continue this project after my diploma. This project is supported by Fondation Dr Combe.
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
Jérémie Kursner – iLand Universe
by Jérémie Kursner
iLand Universe is a project focused on the world of amusement parks where every activity is an allusion to the digital world, whether through its architecture, its scenography, or its references to the overuse of smartphones. Through an "epic" teaser, this project adopts the promotional codes of a traditional amusement park, using video as the main communication tool while playing with the "inspiring" codes of this industry from the United States. The desire to create this fantastic world stems from my passion for this universe, as well as my interest in metaphorizing digital visions into tangible concepts, thus creating mind games that continuously question the digital society in which we live.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Viktor Gagné – Serialized Saplings
by Viktor Gagné
The weight of materials produced by humans is now believed to exceed that of all terrestrial biomass. How will these artifacts integrate into the rest of the environment in a million years? Serialized Saplings is an interactive installation that speculates on a potential form of vegetation to come, heavily altered by the excesses of human production, here crystallized through the symbol of the electrical outlet. By manipulating the connections of several power strips, the participant is invited to program the "genetic code" of hybrid plant species that do not yet exist and whose appearance resembles our industrial standards. This generated vegetation is then classified in the form of a digital herbarium that can be consulted and studied.
Collaborations
GRAPHIC DESIGN
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
LA POSTE × ECAL
with La Poste, Vincent Jacquier, Angelo Benedetto
For the Swiss Post Office, students from ECAL's Bachelor Graphic Design and Bachelor Media & Interaction Design are creating a postage stamp based on artificial intelligence. Thanks to augmented reality, Metascape transports Swiss Post users into an imaginary and poetic universe on the way to a destination that remains elusive.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Palais Augmenté 2022
by Elodie Anglade, Maya Bellier, Soraya Camina, Marine Dang, Basil Dénéréaz, Nora Fatehi, Mélanie Fontaine, Sébastien Galera Larios, Evan Kelly, Jamy Herrmann, Bogdan Nastase, Michael Pica, Jorge Reis, Nathanaël Vianin, Julie Ryser
At the initiative of the Réunion des Musées Nationaux – Grand Palais and Fisheye , the second edition of the Palais Augmenté festival will be held from June 17 to 19, 2022 at the Grand Palais Ephémère in Paris. On this occasion, the Bachelor Media & Interaction Design of ECAL will be represented in several ways.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Alter Ego
with Gaël Hugo, Pauline Saglio
Realized in collaboration with Musée de la Main UNIL-CHUV, Lausanne for the exhibition « Intelligence Artificielle. Nos reflets dans la machine ». By revisiting the shape of the mirror, “Alter Ego” questions the notion of digital reflection. It highlights, in a playful way, image analysis by artificial intelligence. Project lead: Pauline Saglio, Gaël Hugo Development and finalization of projects: Sébastien Matos, Paul Lëon
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Grand Palais Éphémère - Palais Augmenté
with Robin Bervini, Milo Keller, Kylan Luginbühl, Pauline Saglio
Co-produced by Fisheye and the Réunion des Musées Nationaux - Grand Palais, the Palais Augmenté festival takes place inside the Grand Palais Éphémère. Exceptionally, in partnership with ECAL, augmented reality projects will be accessible from this point, on the façade of the Grand Palais Éphémère on 19 and 20 June 2021.
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
Infomesh
with Pauline Saglio, Vincent Jacquier, Laura Nieder
Information Mesh is a web platform celebrating the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web that explores social, technical, cultural and legal facts throughout different interactive timelines. It was initiated in October 2018 during a one week workshop in partnership with swissnex San Francisco, where students visited key partners and began developing the project. The timelines present an overview of Web history, starting with the proposal for hypertext by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in 1989, initially under the name “Information Mesh.” From this start date, users can then explore 30 years of evolution. infomesh.org
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Station Lights
with Angelo Benedetto, Vincent Jacquier, Pauline Saglio
Station Lights is a luminary installation specially made for the opening of the Gare du Châble train station. This project is the result of a course led at ECAL/Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne by Angelo Benedetto, Vincent Jacquier and Pauline Saglio. The technical development and production was entrusted to SIGMASIX, a studio started by ECAL graduates, who produce interactive installations in Switzerland and the rest of the world. The content displayed on the installation was made by students of the 2nd year Media & Interaction Design Bachelor: Antoine Barras, Maya Bellier, Pablo Bellon, Ivan Chestopaloff, Bastien Claessens, Guillaume Giraud, Léonard Guyot, Evan Kelly, Lisa Kishtoo, Kylan Luginbühl, Alice Nimier, Paul Lëon, Aurélien Pellegrini, Yael Sidler and Diane Thouvenin.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Pianeta PUCCI
Pianeta PUCCI, a virtual reality experience realised by Pietro Alberti, proposes a new way of exploring the prints and the colors of the brand. Through the use of virtual reality, the custommer has the opportunity to immerse oneself in a surrealistic interpretation of the Pucci universe - showcasting a deconstructed version of the historic palazzo Pucci, Emilio Pucci heritage headquarters, and its renaissance decor including busts highlighted in the iconic “Emilio Pink”. Elsewhere, elements of the florentine city appear including a “Puccified” duomo. pietroalberti.ch
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Timeline 125
with Angelo Benedetto, Cyril Diagne, Vincent Jacquier
Timeline 125 is an interactive timeline for the 125th anniversary of Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne. The project is developed in collaboration with 1st year students in BA Media & Interaction Design.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Le Salon de Compagnie
by Pietro Alberti
This immersive installation created by Pietro Alberti proposes an innovative way to discover an emblematic room of the musée des Arts Décoratifs et du Design in Bordeaux (madd-bordeaux). Thanks to Virtual Reality, the perception of the 15th century’s architecture, gildings and furnitures are constantly changing, giving the spectator, a completely new vision of the space and its antic masterpieces. The musée des Arts Décoratifs et du Design in Bordeaux (madd-bordeaux) paired with ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne for a collaboration that led to an interactive installation in the museum. This project is the starting point for future collaborations and new digital devices installed in the museum. pietroalberti.ch
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Error is Human
with Cyril Diagne, Alain Bellet
“Error is human and to blame it on a robot is even more so” Mixed media installation with Thymio robots (EPFL/Mobsya), commissioned by Vitra Design Museum. Presented until 14 May in the exhibition “Hello, Robot” at the Vitra Design Museum. design-museum.com
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
Swiss Data
with Cyril Diagne, Vincent Jacquier
A series of interactive data-visualizations around swiss culture and the swissnex activity. Designed by Bachelor Media & Interaction Design students of ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne, the projects were initiated during a one-week trip to San Francisco in March 2016. They present a novel and entertaining way to display various data. Commissioned by swissnex San Francisco.
