Bachelor Media
& Interaction Design

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Valère Zen-Ruffinen – Memoria

by Valère Zen-Ruffinen

“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

Ayten Gönel – Tied Realities

by Ayten Gönel

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

Thomas Gaudin – UnBubble

by Thomas Gaudin

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

Quentin Kohler – EnhancedCrops

by Quentin Kohler

“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

Alexine Sierro – Spira Memoriae

by Alexine Sierro

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

Aryana Noorani – Check-out / Check-in

by Aryana Noorani

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

Elena Biasi – Magnetic Fragments

by Elena Biasi

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

Emilie Maier – Moji

by Emilie Maier

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

Mathias Liniger – Just a game?

by Mathias Liniger

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.

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

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.

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

Valère Zen-Ruffinen – Memoria

by Valère Zen-Ruffinen

“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

Thomas Gaudin – UnBubble

by Thomas Gaudin

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

Ayten Gönel – Tied Realities

by Ayten Gönel

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

Elena Biasi – Magnetic Fragments

by Elena Biasi

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

Emilie Maier – Moji

by Emilie Maier

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

Quentin Kohler – EnhancedCrops

by Quentin Kohler

“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

Alexine Sierro – Spira Memoriae

by Alexine Sierro

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

Aryana Noorani – Check-out / Check-in

by Aryana Noorani

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?

by Mathias Liniger

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.

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, Mika 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 – 2022

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.