Technology Centre

The Technology Center is the place to be for deep learning (AI), augmented reality, virtual or mixed reality, the use of medical sensors, motion tracking, photogrammetry, access to the platforms of the leading providers of applications for smartphones and touchscreen tablets, home automation, robotics, projection mapping software and more.

The center occupies a 100m² area accommodated with meeting space, computer space, projection space. It serves as a showplace for new concepts in design, communications systems, and collaborative research. The goal is to ignite a new energy and connectivity within our visual communication departments.

Related programs: BA Graphic Design
BA Media & Interaction Design
BA Photography
Partners: USM, Loterie Romande, Canton de Vaud, EPFL+ECAL Lab

Our mission

To promote and support technology learning through centralized access to the necessary equipment and the presence of experts.
To combine know-how and increase the quality of results while reducing production time for technology-related projects.
To ensure the longevity of achievements by setting up a physical and digital archive in the form of a technology library.

Introduction

The aim of the Technology Center is to become the central location for a set of infrastructures linked to the teaching and practice of technology.

Today's digital age has radically changed the way we work, and the ECAL, in its constant quest for excellence, must always be at the cutting edge.

Over the last few years, we've noticed that all the training courses we offer in our institution make increasing use of a variety of technologies. These sometimes take the form of creative tools, but are also indispensable as support for the projects themselves.

The pedagogical results obtained today are already very promising, but a number of parameters can still considerably enhance the quality of the use of these technologies. We need to gather, promote and perpetuate this know-how.

Today, we also have the opportunity to create more links with innovative industries in our region, and would like to bring together key players from outside the school to conduct applied design research with our students.

Vincent Jacquier , Head of Visual Communication

Services

Innovation From ideation to prototyping, talented young designers will explore your technology/product in order to propose new and innovative applications.
Confidentiality An enclosed space, the ECAL Technology Center allows a high level of confidentiality as well as a productive work environment.
Visibility Logo and name recognition of your organisation as a partner on all ECAL communication materials and channels related to the collaboration.
Accessibility Invitations to various private and public events at ECAL and a private guided tours of ECAL facilities for your organisation.

If you wish to have more information, please get in touch.

We are looking for partner institutions who would like to:
Make their unique technologies/products available to our students, teaching assistants and professors for experimentation and/or use in concrete projects. Explore innovative applications for their proprietary technologies/products through workshop (week-long project) or a semester’s project (2-4 months).

If you wish to be part of this adventure, please get in touch.

Projets

VAUD-O-RAMA – JEUX OLYMPIQUES PARIS 2024

with Julien Gurtner, Vincent Jacquier, Matthieu Minguet, Anthony Guex

As part of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the canton of Vaud has commissioned ECAL to create an original work of art, on view from July 24 to September 8 in the Maison suisse set up for the occasion in the courtyard of the Swiss Embassy in Paris. Comprising some twenty synchronized screens offering a panoramic view of the canton and its major assets, Vaud-o-rama aims to promote the region and forge links with the public, helping them to discover its richness and diversity. Inspired by the diorama museal device, this installation offers a dynamic and immersive showcase for the canton of Vaud, highlighting four key areas: Innovation, Education, Culture and Sport. It presents a varied portrait of the canton and offers a current view of its activities. In this way, the canton of Vaud reveals itself as a center of excellence for research and innovation, a cutting-edge learning ground, a mecca for cultural creation and a sports ecosystem that is unique in the world.

EXHIBITIONS

CHRISTIAN MARCLAY × ECAL– PHOTOMATON,
29.03–02.06.2024,
Photo Elysée

Artist Christian Marclay, invited to delve into the Photo Elysée collections in 2021, has explored the thousands of faces recorded by the museum’s Photomaton. With him, ECAL’s photography students have pored over, scanned and transformed the conserved prints.

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.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Hyperlab

with Vincent Jacquier, Angelo Benedetto, Ali-Eddine Abdelkhalek, Jean-Vincent Simonet, Clément Rouzaud

In collaboration with the HYPEROUEST music festival, ECAL students were given the opportunity to design a visual installation in the room adjacent to the festival's ephemeral club, located on the Veillon wasteland in Crissier. For this project, 1st-year students worked in groups, mixing Bachelors in Graphic Design, Media & Interaction Design and Photography. Their main objective was to create powerful and creative visual sequences around the central theme of "HYPER". At the same time, second-year students in the Graphic Design option enriched this project by developing the exhibition's visual identity. These interdisciplinary collaborations stimulated exchanges and encouraged visual cohesion, connecting the different ideas and reinforcing the "laboratory" and experimental aspect of the project.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

PROJECTIONS XXL

with Sami Benhadj, Vincent Jacquier

An immersive and magnetic visual environment, created by ECAL students, illuminates the facades of the mudac and Photo Elysée building. As part of an interdisciplinary project within the Visual Communication department of ECAL, students in the Photography, Graphic Design and Media & Interaction Design Bachelors programs developed immersive video projects designed to adorn the facades of Photo Elysée.

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.

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

A Third Hand – Creative Applications for Robotics

with Alain Bellet, Andrea Anner, Thibault Brevet, Martin Hertig

Robotic arms have long been a common sight in many industries. They are currently making a rapid entry into art and design studios and practices. Yet, at the same time, difficulties remain in accessing the workflows and work methods demanded by these machines given a clear lack of reference resources suited for this community. The same applies to Art and Design schools, which are increasingly investing in this type of equipment, often without having the resources to run it. This research project uses applied case studies to explore and define a set of exemplary work methods, capable of both informing and inspiring future users.

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.