Lison Christe is an Interaction & Multimedia Designer who graduated from ECAL with a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design and from HEAD with a Master’s degree in Media Design. She passes on her expertise in sound, scenography, lighting, electronics and digital visualization to her students at HEAD and ECAL. Besides, she also works as an independent audiovisual artist. Her productions navigate between the tangible and the digital, taking you by the hand and leading you into a sensitive world, on the lookout for the little stories hidden in our daily lives.

Le bruit des autres is an experience that places a group of spectators in the position of actors, through the use of an audiovisual device. Once the experience begins, you are invited to enter the fictitious compartment of a bus or train and sit down. During the 12-minute demonstration, guided by the narrator’s voice, you will be asked to play yourself or another passenger. The narrator suggests that you move and interact with others. She offers you the opportunity to experience a brief and secret encounter with a stranger. The story is inspired by “À une passante (1855)” by Charles Baudelaire. 

/Lison Christe

Automatise Behaviours is a project conceptualized by third year students of Bachelor media & interaction design at ecal. The objective was to imagine processes questioning our use of smartphones and especially hacking different applications governing our daily life such as: 1. Tinder, 2. A pedometer, 3. Instagram or 4. Telegram, by a mechanical system. My role was to create a concept with the students and then to design the whole project both visually and mechanically with Florian Pittet to create a family of products. 

Image by ECAL/Jimmy Rachez

Inspired by the comics of François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters, “Draw me a garden” is an infinite game. It turns on itself like a hamster wheel. The player, driven by the music of Philip Glass, moves from platform to platform in a city initially deserted. Everywhere he looks, vegetation appears, transforming the city into a flourishing jungle.

Exhibited for Design Days Geneva 2021 in Pavillon Sicli.

Guided by Marie Dommenget and Sabrina Calvo as speakers for this workshop, we decided to transform ourselves into scientists and to dive into Lake Geneva. Assuming that the bottom of the lake had never been explored before, we set up an expedition similar to Wes Anderson’s “La Vie aquatique” to discover its splendors. From the submarine to the data collected and the bestiary observed, everything was carefully elaborated to bring to the surface a series of previously unpublished images. 

/Lison Christe/Maÿlis d’Haultfoeuille

In the context of a work on the Arve River which flows through Geneva, we collected a large number of visual datas around the Leman Express bridge which crosses the river at Carouge. Alfa Wave is an illustration of this collected datas. This installation looks like a campfire around which one gathers to observe for a long time the movement of the hypnotic water. But as near the bridge, the train breaks the dream at a fixed time.

The Lake is game about consent and emancipation from childhood’s fears. This game displays delicate situations and talks about our relationships with others. The Lake takes the form of a visual novel game with choices to be made according to the situation. This project is commissioned by UNAIDS as part of the campaign against AIDS in Kenya. This game is aimed at a female audience from 13 to 25 years old in order to raise awareness. 

The story takes place in Nairobi, Kenya, in Riruta settlement. The main character is Muthoni, a young adolescent (16 years). She is bored in her life, which is perfectly organised and timed by others.She dreams about independence and surprises but she’s also afraid of the outside world. One day, a puddle appears down her street. She can see it from the window of her room. The puddle soon turns into a lake, so big that it becomes the center of the neighbourhood. Every houses or shops stand on its banks. She sets up down the lake. Everyday, she follows the riverside and explore the city, with the lake as her guide. This is how she starts her adult’s life.

For exactly twenty years, the Gaudard house has been home to the mudac on the Cathedral square. To bring to a close this period in which it has played the role of museum to perfection, the mudac pays homage to it by offering to house, for three months, a rich selection of extra-ordinary and (almost) functional objects and creations. My little popsicle stick and three thundering Milanese bells are in the game! /Lison Christe

Project carried out within the framework of the competition for the new street furniture and lighting of the Pace Pestalozzi in Yverdon. The Pestalozzi square is characterized by the presence of very mineral elements such as the Hauterive stone of which its buildings are composed or the paving stones on which passers-by walk.

This proposal is therefore mainly based on the natural elegance of concrete. Shotcrete masts are discreetly part of this mineral universe. Simply blackened by surface oxidation, the connecting parts between the mat and the luminaires take on the same colour as the modules. The delicacy of the concrete, both visual and tactile, brings a certain softness to the luminaire. Moreover, concrete is a recognized and specific know-how in Switzerland. The bench has been designed from a section of a pillar also made of concrete. The prefabricated and raw elements thus drown in the decor of another time to add all the desired comfort to the visitor. /Lison Christe

We are 62 designers exhibiting our ice sticks at the Palais Gallery in Neuchâtel as part of the Cultural Spring. A holiday breath will blow on the opening which takes place on June 1st at 5pm. /Lison Christe /Palais Galerie /Denis Rouèche /Prune Simon-Vermot

Unique piece specially made for the exhibition « Esquimaux » at the Galerie Palais in Neuchâtel. The stick of ice evokes more than anything else, the holidays. Mine is that of the south, of the Mediterranean, its ruins and warm sand. But also that summer that we have to spend at home to observe the bottom of the aquarium and its innumerable miniature pastiches such as my ice-cream stick « Colonette ». /Lison Christe

For the 2019 Milan International Furniture Fair, we present the thundering collection of interactive doorbells developed by the 1st year students in the Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design, under the joint direction of graduate Mathieu Rivier and Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard and in collaboration with the EPFL+ECAL Lab./ECAL /Lison Christe /Mathieu Rivier /Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard /Mathieu Lang /Cédric Duchêne /EPFL+ECAL Lab

Scenography: /ECAl /Mathieu Lang

Pictures: /ECAl /Calypso Mahieu

Graphism: /ECAL /Bilal Sebei

Ring my bell is an offbeat collection of interactive bells developed by 1st year students in the Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design, under the joint direction of Mathieu Rivier and Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard and in collaboration with EPFL+ECAL Lab, Lison Christe and Mathieu Lang.

Sound and object design are two notions that industrial designers rarely have the opportunity to combine. Nevertheless, most everyday objects potentially produce sounds. Just pull up a chair, open or close a drawer or even flip a switch and you will create sound. What do all these actions have in common? Movement, friction and interaction which draw on the basic laws of physics to create tones. With this in mind, the students have offered a fresh and original take on an everyday object, one that is unremarkable yet never silent—the doorbell. /ECAL /Lison Christe /Mathieu Rivier /Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard /Mathieu Lang /Cédric Duchêne /EPFL+ECAL Lab

Film: http://www.ecal-ringmybell.ch/

Pictures: /ECAl /Calypso Mahieu

Graphism: /ECAL /Bilal Sebei

As part of the development of the Riponne and Tunnel squares, the city of Lausanne is launching a participatory project in the form of workshops to encourage discussion and interaction between the inhabitants. Invited by Constructlab, which will build an ephemeral village square around an oven and an inflatable hut, I organize activities around jungle bread. Big wheels made by me will be at your disposal to roll and toast your own bread above the oven. /Constructlab /Lison Christe

These little tea bowls fit into each other like Russian dolls. They are made from the molding of a 3D print which gives them a striated texture. This work is one of the intermediate results of a research on the use of 3D printing and ceramics. /Lison Christe

Whether we like it or not, we often communicate with colleagues or friends by text message, social media or mail. It’s increasingly rare to have face-to-face conversations. What’s more,objects now have so many functions that they communicate less and less with those around us. A newspaper or book may signify a specific interest or position of the person reading it, for example. It’s become quite hard for an onlooker to interpret the intentions of someone using a multifunctional device. For exemple: If you’re writing a letter, others can see exactly what you’re doing. If you’re writing a mail on your smartphone, they don’t know whether you’re composing a message or chatting to a friend on social media.

A 3D system translates the user’s state of mind into a colour. The system’s various axes range from active red to passive cyan, from accessible blue to unavailable yellow, and from stable green to creative purple. Different apps might trigger different states – mail could automatically trigger a yellow or inaccessible state – and different behaviours: fast app switching would move the user’s state on the cyan-red axis, time spent in an app would move the state into a green-purple dimension, and the type of app would change the state along the blueyellow axis. /OOOF

Point and Shoot is an exhibition realized for Bachelors industrial design and media & interaction design students from ECAL presented in the Mudac exhibition « Ligne de mire » in Lausanne. Students created two concepts during workshop with Map Project Office from London. The first project captures pictures when subjects are striking one of these poses : angry, sad or happy. The second is a talking camera. Instead of creating an image she will dictate it. /ECAL /Lison Christe /Students: Pierre Alain-Longval, Iskander Guetta, Manfred-Gordon Baud, Hanieh Rashid, Amélie Demay, Pierry Jaquillard. 

Photos: /ECAL /Calypso Mahieu

Where there are cameras, there are people is a interactive installation, autonomously interacting, photographing and collecting the portraits of the visitors. In three sections of the dispositive, the work traces the topics of dematerialisation, transmission and materialisation of images. While the interaction between the visitor and the three robots (abstractly resembling three paradise birds on roosts) first is playful, the true nature of the interaction gets revealed to the visitors along the installation. The three collectors are each connected to a series of networking cables, flowing in loose waves to the final point. In the section of materialisation, the visitor is confronted with a thermal printer continuously printing the collected portraits of the visitors, revealing the true character of the installation. The work thematizes the hyperobject of the connected camera being the materialisation of the vast system of cameras, manual and automatic postprocessing algorithms and machine vision enabled cameras. /OOOF

A series of three hundred coffee cups made in ceramic extrusion. The form derives directly from the processused. Once the shape has been extruded, all that remains is to cut it to the desired size, cast a bottom and enamel it. /Lison Christe

Interactive exhibition of « where there are cameras there are people » in the Cabanon space in Lausanne. /OOOF

Graphic design: /Giacomo Bastianelli

Helio is a ceiling light for office spaces, conference rooms, open spaces and other workspaces. Designed for the startup Insolight, this lamp makes the light move according to the user’s wishes, as if it is guided by an invisible hand. As the light is directed trough shifting the light sources behind the array of lenses, the lamp has no moving parts visible from the outside. The direction of the light is controlled via bluetooth with an app and can both move according to an automatic mode mimicking the trajectory of the sun throughout a working day as well as according to a manual mode allowing the user to direct the light projected to a specific area. /Lison Christe/Insolight

Film: https://vimeo.com/225992279

Screen is a scenography for the play «L’abattage rituel de Gorge Mastromas» at the Vidy theater in Lausanne for the acting school «les Tintureries». The screens are associated with the economic and urban atmosphere to recrate the oppressing feeling that Gorge Mastromas creates in his life. The screens are made of perforated paper attached to a frame. By placing stage lights behind it create an effect similar to that of a pixel. Stacked on top of one another they appear as a wall of television. Covered in black shiny vynil the stage reflects the light of the screens. The actors and objects placed between the light and the screen transform the set. The physical interaction between the set and the actors allows the scenography to take a more important role in the play. /ECAL/Lison Christe/Anna-Sophie Studer

Inspired by steel extrusion profiles, Pilup cup is made of three ceramic extrusion. This lowcost technic allows to create affordable handmade cups. Extrusion allows to obtain complex shape such as here with a double wall. This is used to keep the coffee warm while preventing from burning our hands. Work done at « Potsfink » in Ependes. /ECAL/Lison Christe

Inspired by the Möbius knot, these glasses are made from simple laser cut metal sheet. Glass and rubber are inserted into the shaped cut-outs. The joyful twist in the joints convey an elegant simplicity. /ECAL/Lison Christe

Photos: /ECAL/Axel Crettenand

Girolle is a hand lamp that wanders where you want to put it. Simply turn the handle of the bell to turn it off, on or change ambiance. /ECAL/Lison Christe, Alix Szijarto

We move to the Renens area with our workshop. We are industrial designer, photographer and multimedia designer. /OOOF

Photo: /Florian Amoser

My family members each have their own collection of remarkable objects. Remarkable by their form, their utility, their history or simply because of the feeling they give us. /ECAL/Lison Christe

Report/publication on kayaking, a sport that brings people together and closer to nature . /ECAL/Lison Christe

The activity of stand up paddle facilitated by multi-function pads. They plug themselves on the board similarly to the fin. They can be removed, placed and switched. /ECAL/Lison Christe

« Laisse tomber la chaise » That’s what the workshop with Pierre Charpin was called. Rethink the chair, archetype of industrial design, from another angle. The track I have chosen is that of the free newspaper, full of all kinds of advertising that is used in all situations to avoid getting dirty. Rather than a full page advertisement, why not offer a mythical seat? /ECAL/Lison Christe

Photos: ECAL/Axel Crettenand

It is a modular 15 to 35 liter bag, ultra light (800 gr) and can easily be switched between a messenger bag and backpack. Sewed reflective bands with easy access pockets on the sides, it is re-enforced with Dyneema fibers granting it a high resistance to abrasion. /ECAL/Lison Christe

Exhibition of the series « Lausanne en valise ». A city object as a work of art. /Lison Christe