BA Media & Interaction Design

We had the pleasure of welcoming Dutch computational designer Vera van de Seyp @veravandeseyp  for a workshop with our first year students and German design studio Liebermann Kiepe Reddemann @liebermannkiepereddemann David Liebermann, Maximilian Kiepe and Jana Reddemann with our second year students as part of last weeks Spring Workshops. Thank you for this inspiring week! Until next time!👋 📸 @marvmerkel #workshop #interactiondesign #webdesign

ECAL AT MAPPING FESTIVAL 2026 From 7 to 17 May 2026 ECAL’s Bachelor Media & Interaction Design will be present at this year’s Mapping Festival in Geneva ( @mappingfestival ). Within the 360 Lab of the festival, several selected projects will be showcased. Alongside further projects featuring: Vision of Self - Matthieu Noël ( @matth.noel ) & Benjamin Vermot ( @benjaminvermot ) Memory Pieces - Arthur Effront ( @arthureffront ), Anaïs Polo ( @anaispolo.ch ) Memory Arc - Marco Boumya ( @moga.raw ), Mathys Mauron Melodica - Léon Bonnet ( @leonbonnet.ch ) & Blendi Mazreku (@blen_di8 ) Dream Landscapes – Léa Verboux ( @leaverboux ) , Brikeld Hoxha ( @brikeldd ) Orbit Trash - Daniel Rocha ( @daniel_fsr ), Yann Müller ( @yannmuller ) Psychemorphosis - Alexandre Carruzzo, Shana Meinecke, Korakot Unasit What Lies Behind - Odran Jobin ( @odd.obj ) Projects led by Sami Benhadj @samibenhadjdjilali during a semester course #mappingfestival #virtualreality #mediainteractiondesign 360Lab

Reverse Diffusion This workshop explores the use of realtime diffusion streams as a medium for transforming. Through live capture or interface based processes, students experimented with different ways of altering images using locally run diffusion models. Worshop led by: Matthieu Minguet (@matthieu_minguet ) Jamy Hermann (@jamy_herrmann )

Talk To Me 2026 By combining code, electronics, and physical prototyping, first-year students design interactive objects within one week that react, respond, and invite interaction, gathered under the title Talk To Me. Using dialogue as playground and inspired by conversational interfaces, the projects transform physical objects into new forms of interaction. CAMILLE is a personal wellbeing assistant mounted on the wall, reminding its user to reflect by asking questions at different moments throughout the day. The index function of the object lets users wander through their past week or month, taking the time to pause and check in with themselves. Project by: Alexander Anhorn ( @shred.34 ) Timoféi Cruz ( @stock.ch ) Workshop led by: Alain Bellet (@notdefineda ) #ECAL #interactiondesign #tangibledesign #electronics

🪜ECAL LIGHTHOUSE 🪜 During a week of collaborative work, first-year Bachelor Photography, Media & Interaction Design and Graphic Design students were given the task of creating a complete audiovisual experience, designing a light and sound architecture based solely on five original musical compositions. Using a central totem-like screen installation and projections on the surrounding walls, enhanced with lasers, they created a visual environment, broadcast in real time, which was presented as a performance at the end of the week. More infos on ecal.ch Project led by: Jean-Vincent Simonet (@jean_vincent.simonet ) Florian Pittet (@florian_sigmasix ) Léonard Guyot (@leonard_guyot ) Vincent Jacquier( @v_jacquier ) Julien Gurtner ( @ju_gurtner ) Matthieu Minguet ( @matthieu_minguet ) 🎥 @ac.hille @ecal_graphic_design @ecal_mid @ecal_photography #ECAL #design #graphicdesign #interactiondesign #photography

🐇 MUCH FASTER / MUCH SLOWER 🐢 In this Interaction Design project, students explored how speed and slowness influence our relationship with digital interfaces. Through mobile app concepts and interactive prototypes created on Figma, they imagined new ways of viewing content, communicating, learning, and playing, questioning our perception of time and attention. Each project offers a specific experience where speed and slowness become central elements of interaction design. Project led by: Alain Bellet (@notdefineda ) Projects: Delay - Benjamin Vermot (@benjaminvermot ) Pulse - Matthieu Noël (@matth.noel ) ColLab - Jade Picard (@beesforaging ) Puzz - Blendi Mazreku (@blen_di8 ) #ECAL #interactiondesign #uxdesign #uidesign #design

Magnetic Fragments - Diploma project by Elena Biasi/ @lenou_piou 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. Tutors: Alain Bellet/ @notdefineda , Gaël Hugo/ @onemorestudio , Lara Dafayes/ @lara__def , Laura Nieder/ @laura__nieder , Christophe Guignard/ @chrstphggnrd , Pauline Saglio/ @pow.sgl Assistants: Martial Grin/ @martialgrin , Théo Déchanez/ @theodechanez , Marius Parisod/ @p.ariu.s , Elodie Anglade/ @elodidthat #ECAL #creativecoding #3D #web #datavisualization

Tied Realities - Diploma project by Ayten Gönel/ @ayt.g 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. Tutors: Alain Bellet/ @notdefineda , Gaël Hugo/ @onemorestudio , Lara Dafayes/ @lara__def , Laura Nieder/ @laura__nieder , Christophe Guignard/ @chrstphggnrd , Pauline Saglio/ @pow.sgl Assistants: Martial Grin/ @martialgrin , Théo Déchanez/ @theodechanez , Marius Parisod/ @p.ariu.s , Elodie Anglade/ @elodidthat #ECAL #virtualreality #3D #tangibleinteraction #interactiondesign

Unbubble - Diploma project by Thomas Gaudin/ @thomas.obj 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. Tutors: Alain Bellet/ @notdefineda , Gaël Hugo/ @onemorestudio , Lara Dafayes/ @lara__def , Laura Nieder/ @laura__nieder , Christophe Guignard/ @chrstphggnrd , Pauline Saglio/ @pow.sgl Assistants: Martial Grin/ @martialgrin , Théo Déchanez/ @theodechanez , Marius Parisod/ @p.ariu.s , Elodie Anglade/ @elodidthat #ECAL #creativecoding #tangibleinteraction #robotics #machinelearning

How Do They Know? - Diploma project by Olivia Capol/ @olivia.capol 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. Tutors: Alain Bellet/ @notdefineda , Gaël Hugo/ @onemorestudio , Lara Dafayes/ @lara__def , Laura Nieder/ @laura__nieder , Christophe Guignard/ @chrstphggnrd , Pauline Saglio/ @pow.sgl Assistants: Martial Grin/ @martialgrin , Théo Déchanez/ @theodechanez , Marius Parisod/ @p.ariu.s , Elodie Anglade/ @elodidthat #ECAL #creativecoding #illustration #web #motiondesign

Last week at the 61st Solothurn Film Festival (@sofilmtage ) four interactive projects from the Bachelor Media & Interaction Design were showcased, challenging how we perceive stories, space, and our digital lives. 🎮 ESC, by Emma Grosu (@hotbergina ), explores the tension between control and constraint in virtual worlds. 🪑What Lies Behind, by Odran Jobin (@odd.obj ), shifts perspectives in VR to navigate between the immense and the minuscule. 📱In UnBubble, Thomas Gaudin (@thomas.obj ) lets a robot explore a user’s Instagram activity, questioning how our digital traces construct a fragmented image of ourselves — one that is then used to guide our choices, desires, and attention. 🌋 Théo Déchanez ’s (@theodechanez ) Vulcan takes visitors into volcanic landscapes, contrasting the close-up work of a volcanologist with the fascination of the immensity of natural forces. Thanks to Sarah Buser (@sophonisbe ) curator of the Andere Erzählformen section ! 📸 @moduleplus & @theodechanez

Trail Sync - Diploma project by Livia Schmid/ @liviamschmid 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. Tutors: Alain Bellet/ @notdefineda , Gaël Hugo/ @onemorestudio , Lara Dafayes/ @lara__def , Laura Nieder/ @laura__nieder , Christophe Guignard/ @chrstphggnrd , Pauline Saglio/ @pow.sgl Assistants: Martial Grin/ @martialgrin , Théo Déchanez/ @theodechanez , Marius Parisod/ @p.ariu.s , Elodie Anglade/ @elodidthat #ECAL #tangibleinteraction #uxui #web #electronics