EPFL CDH 2021 annual report by EPFL

ANNUAL REPORT 2021 College of Humanities

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

ANNUAL REPORT 2021 College of Humanities

CONTENTS

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

F OR EWOR D BY THE DIRECTOR ABOUT CDH E D U C AT IO N RESEARCH PUBL IC ENGAGEMEN T EXPENSES AND HUMAN RESOURCES

4 6 12 24 54 72

Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) EPFL is located in Lausanne, Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva and at the foot of the Alps. It was founded in 1853 under the name Ecole spéciale de Lausanne, and was given its current name in 1969 when it became Switzerland’s second federal institute of technology. We are now Europe’s most cosmopolitan technical university, with students, researchers and staff from over 120 countries. We pursue three missions – teaching, research and technology transfer – in a dynamic environment that’s open to Switzerland and the world. Our university consists of five schools and two colleges, and we have over 6,000 employees and nearly 12,000 students.

FOREWORD BY THE DIRECTOR

FOREWORD BY THE DIRECTOR I am pleased to present you with the College of Humanities’ third annual report. Now in my fourth and final year as CDH director, I’d like to look back on my highly rewarding time here. When I started my career after obtaining a history degree, I initially planned to study the history of astronomy. But I was intrigued by the opportunity to join CDH because I wanted to see first-hand how studying the humanities and social sciences can enhance an engineering student’s education, and to learn more about the research being conducted at the crossroads of art and science. My intuition was that this research also shapes the way scholars in the humanities think about their own fields. Here at CDH, our Social Sciences and Humanities (SHS) program is the only educational program of its kind. It was introduced in 2003 and now offers over 150 classes to some 8,500 Bachelor’s and Master’s students. We continually update the program to incorporate new teaching methods and cover emerging issues such as the future of work, sustainable design and the philosophy of AI. We recently introduced a new series of Master’s classes in which EPFL engineering students work hand in hand with humanities students from the University of Lausanne. The past few years have shown just how important it is for engineers to develop technology that draws on the insight of experts in the humanities and social sciences. Fortunately, our students understand this and often sign up for classes that are ostensibly unrelated to their degree programs – such as on the history of southeast Asia or ancient mythology – but which help them better comprehend engineers’ role in society and the fundamental principles of human-centered research.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

And when it comes to research, that too has been an eye-opener for me here at CDH. Every year we carry out new projects that examine how the latest findings in the humanities can be applied to developments in life science, information technology and robotics, for example. These projects investigate topics like the ethical issues related to neuro-implants, automated systems for analyzing cadastral documents, immersive visualization technology, and long-term archiving methods for video games. We attract a growing number of PhD students who regularly push the boundaries of traditional disciplines. Thanks to all these initiatives, CDH is set to become an even more important driver of interdisciplinary research. Personally, I’m especially interested in our research on digital history because it relates to my own field – the history of early-modern Europe – and in the new methods made possible by implementing computer-based approaches. CDH’s rapid growth is perhaps best reflected in our cultural programs. Our Deep Fakes: Art and Its Double exhibition at EPFL Pavilions has become an international success, placing it at the forefront of digital museology. We released our first podcast series in 2021, in which EPFL scientists examined the issue of uncertainty. We put on other exhibitions last year, including at the Rolex Learning Center, as well as masterclasses in creative writing, philosophy lunches and several contemporary music concerts – one of which involved a 40-meter-high instrument attached to a crane! We were also delighted to launch the first official edition of our artist-in-residence program despite the COVID restrictions. Through this program, we invite four artists every year to campus to work directly in an EPFL lab. As CDH goes from strength to strength, we are opening up new avenues for joint research with partner universities and further underscoring EPFL’s culture of excellence. It has been an immense pleasure for me to work with our outstanding scientists and staff, and I hope you will enjoy learning about their many achievements in 2021 as you read through our annual report.

Yours sincerely, Béla Kapossy

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

ABOUT CDH

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

ABOUT CDH EPFL’s College of Humanities (CDH) encourages joint research and teaching programs that combine the humanities and social sciences with technical fields taught at EPFL, such as engineering, life science and the natural sciences. We work through a variety of educational, research and public-engagement programs that promote the principles of interdisciplinary thinking, global awareness, responsible citizenship and creativity. At end-2021, CDH had 89 employees as well as six faculty members and 126 teachers who gave over 150 classes on a wide variety of topics. We also house two research institutes – the Digital Humanities Institute (DHI) and the Institute for Area and Global Studies (IAGS) – along with EPFL Pavilions and the CDH-Culture program, which puts on a number of artistic and cultural events.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

THE TEAM

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

College of Humanities DIRECTOR'S OFFICE Kapossy Béla Professor and CDH director Aghroum Nicole Financial and administrative manager Bilat Loïse Scientific assistant Bini Giulia Artist-in-Residence program manager and curator Dahmouni Martin Néjia SHS program coordinator Dungy Madeleine Scientist Elsig Alexandre Scientist Farget Christine Administrative assistant Global Issues program and CDH-Culture Gannac Anne-Laure Journalist, THEMA coordinator Gerber David Postdoctoral researcher Houlaihel Hamza Mediamatician trainee Ienca Marcello Scientist Kotlut Nihat Scientist Krichane Selim Scientist, GameLab UNIL-EPFL co-founder, and pedagogical design coordinator Luterbacher Celia Journalist Martin Nunez Virginie Communication manager Mauron Layaz Véronique Scientist and CDH-Culture manager Quinton Estelle Administrative assistant Rochat Yannick Scientist and GameLab UNIL-EPFL co-founder Rochel Johan Scientist Ruz Fabián Scientific assistant Sidorenko Semion Computer engineer Starke Georg Scientist

THE TEAM

Szymanski Radoslaw Scientific assistant

Roux Héléna Doctoral assistant

Tejada Gabriela Academic deputy

Theurillat Thierry Scientist

Tormey Roland Senior scientist Vetter Magalie Scientific assistant

Institute for Area and Global Studies Kapossy Béla Professor and IAGS director Aeberli Marius Coordinator of the DRIL, FIELD and INSSINC programs Bianchi Irene Scientific assistant, Lausanne Time Machine Boscani Simona Scientist Di Lenardo Isabella Scientist and Lausanne Time Machine coordinator Graezer Bideau Florence Senior scientist and member of the EDAR Commission

Zhang Mengke Doctoral assistant

Digital Humanities Institute Kaplan Frédéric

Nault Charmilie Scientific assistant Petitpierre Rémi Doctoral assistant, Lausanne Time Machine Puissant Pierre-Xavier Scientific assistant, DRIL Rappo Lucas Scientific assistant, Lausanne Time Machine

Cecchetti Gabriele Doctoral assistant Ericson Petter Postdoctoral researcher

Harasim Daniel Postdoctoral researcher

Collins Kathleen Deputy of section

Hentschel Johannes Doctoral assistant

Gatica Perez Daniel Professor and section director

Herff Steffen Postdoctoral researcher

Pidoux Jessica Doctoral assistant

Lieck Robert Postdoctoral researcher

Salzmann Mathieu Scientist

McLeod Andrew Postdoctoral researcher

Vassalli Jocelyne Administrative assistant

Meng Shuxin Doctoral assistant

EPFL Pavilions Kenderdine Sarah Professor and EPFL Pavilions director

Antohi Monica Communication specialist

Moll-François Fabien Scientist

Professor and DCML director

Baumer Kevin Project manager

Khayankhyarvaa Ariunzaya Scientific assistant, Lausanne Time Machine

Larsen Peter Academic guest

Rohrmeier Martin

Finkensiep Christoph Doctoral assistant

Alliata Giacomo Master student

Laperrouza Marc Scientist and coordinator of the DRIL, FIELD and INSSINC programs

Digital and Cognitive Musicology Laboratory

Professor and DHI director

Hügli Isabelle Administrative assistant

Kramer Marion Scientific assistant, Lausanne Time Machine

THE TEAM

Bagnowski Adam System specialist Bauer Sophie Administrative assistant Bini Giulia Curator and production coordinator Chouard Patrick Audiovisual technician Lardeau Anne-Gaëlle Manager Mananne Samy Computer scientist Mongini Camilla Mediator Novac Laurent System specialist Nguyen Le Thy Events coordinator Nicoulaz Aurélie Administrative assistant Romon Stéphanie Administrative assistant

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

Heuer Afshan Scientist Hibberd Lillian Scientific assistant Hou Yumeng Doctoral assistant Mannane Samy Software engineer Romon Stéphanie Administrative assistant Shaw Jeffrey Visiting professor Serafin Loïc Software engineer Yacob Mary Scientific assistant Yang Yuchen Doctoral assistant

Digital Humanities Laboratory Kaplan Frédéric Professor and DHLAB director Barman Raphaël Doctoral assistant Berger Fabrice Designer 3D Descombes Albane Photogrammetry operator Dupertuis Didier Doctoral assistant Ehrmann Maud Scientist Fernandez Jeanne Intern Foucart-Noriega Alicia Administrative assistant

Laboratory for the History of Science and Technology

Guhennec Paul Doctoral assistant

Moss Fabian Postdoctoral researcher

Baudry Jérôme Professor and LHST director

Pardini Federica Doctoral assistant

Neuwirth Markus Postdoctoral assistant

Dumas Primbault Simon Scientist

Vaienti Béatrice Doctoral assistant

Quinton Estelle Administrative assistant

Fenzi Marianna Scientist

Social Computing Group

Rammos Ioannis Scientist

Guffroy Yohann Doctoral assistant

Gatica-Perez Daniel

Ren Zeng Doctoral assistant

Lognogné Cyrus Doctoral assistant

Laboratory for Experimental Museology Kenderdine Sarah

Mihailescu Ion-Gabriel Scientist Mounier Pierre Academic guest

Professor and eM+ director

Nicolaeva Olga Doctoral assistant

Alliata Giacomo Doctoral assistant

Sidorenko Semion Doctoral assistant

Bagnowski Adam Technician

Thomet Sylvie Administrative assistant

Cantelli Lorenzo Software engineer

Volynskaya Alina Doctoral assistant

Cardin Sylvain Technical and integration lead Chouard Patrick Audiovisual technician Clavel Mathieu Scientific assistant

Najem-Meyer Sven Doctoral assistant

Professor and SCG director Alonso Del Barrio David Student intern, guest at CDH Bouton-Bessac Emma Master thesis student, guest at CDH Kim Haeeun Student intern, guest at CDH Labhart Florian Research associate, guest at CDH Mäder Aurel Ruben Student intern, guest at CDH Massé Benoit Postdoctoral researcher, guest at CDH Meegahapola Lakmal Doctoral assistant, guest at CDH Phan Thanh Trung Postdoctoral researcher, guest at CDH Sajadmanesh Sina Doctoral assistant, guest at CDH

Gurnel Hadrien Software engineer

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

Education

CHAPITRE

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

THE SHS PROGRAM Structure and credits Global Issues introductory classes New Bachelor’s and Master’s classes New TILT classes 2021 SHS Prize

INTERDISCIPLINARY TEACHING PRACTICES FIELD initiative

MASTER’S IN DIGITAL HUMANITIES 2021 students and graduates Internships in 2021

PHD IN DIGITAL HUMANITIES CDH EDUCATION: KEY FIGURES

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

We offer a range of classes in the humanities and social sciences at both the Bachelor’s and Master’s level. Our aim is to give tomorrow’s engineers a broader understanding of the world around them and enhance their awareness of societal issues. Our Master’s and PhD programs in the digital humanities promote the study and application of data-science methods to the humanities.

EDUCATION

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

THE SHS PROGRAM

Our Social Sciences and Humanities (SHS) program is an integral part of all EPFL degree programs. It offers students around 150 classes to choose from in a wide range of humanities and social science topics. The classes are given by teachers of the University of Lausanne (UNIL), EPFL and partner universities such as the University of Art and Design Lausanne (ECAL) and the Geneva School of Art and Design (HEAD).

Our programs combine an interdisciplinary perspective on critical societal and technological issues with hands-on, real-world experience. Students develop the skills they need to deal with unpredictable change and unprecedented challenges, think critically, solve problems, innovate and lead. ←

Bachelor's course, Artistic Practices A, directed by Frank Westermeyer and Aurélie Pétrel. Photo: Eddy Friedli, Paul Crisinel, Lydia Genecand.

Structure and credits

Year

Level

SHS program

Weekly hours

ECTS credits

Number of classes

Introductory

1 Global Issues class (spring)

Bachelor’s

2 classes (spring and fall)

2+2

Bachelor’s

2 classes (spring and fall)

2+2

Master’s

1 class (fall) and 1 project (spring)

3+3

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

EDUCATION

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

New TILT classes Global Issues introductory classes All first-year Bachelor’s students must take a Global Issues class in one of six key areas, or “tracks”: Climate, Communication, Energy, Food, Health or Mobility. The classes take an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and to the hands-on projects that students must complete in groups, on a subject of their choice. The students give poster presentations at the end of their projects. Each track is taught by two lecturers – one from the natural sciences or engineering and one from the social sciences or humanities.

Best-poster awards ceremony The best three poster presentations from the 2020 Global Issues program were recognized at the Grand Témoin ceremony, which took place online on 2 March 2021. The guest speaker was Swiss astrophysicist and astronaut Prof. Claude Nicollier, who gave a talk titled “Useful Space” on how space research and exploration can help society tackle the challenge of global warming. The winning projects were: → Campus: Energy Alternatives? (Energy track) → Artificial Intelligence in Traffic Control (Mobility track) → Advertising that Targets Children (Communication track).

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Artificial intelligence in traffic control: Clarence Linden, Denise Vandeuren, Julien Ars, Matthew Dupraz and Neroli Soso outline the trade-offs involved in the application of artificial intelligence to traffic control. They note that more systematic use of AI could reduce congestion by up to 50%, resulting in important corollary benefits for the economy and the environment. They balance these practical advantages against public concerns about the collection and use of personal data, defining the stakes for further public dialogue.

New Bachelor’s and Master’s classes We added new classes to the SHS program in 2021 at both the Bachelor’s and Master’s level. They address areas of growing relevance, such as: the ethics and legal aspects of artificial intelligence; the history of the climate and natural disasters; an introduction to environmental history; global and local sustainability-related issues; the sustainability transition; digital art and technology; the building blocks of creativity; social change in Hong Kong; and the Middle East in light of the Arab Spring.

In 2021, we introduced a Track for Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching (TILT) that consists of a series of classes given jointly by EPFL and UNIL. This is the next step in the teaching initiative that we rolled out in the SHS program in 2020, which is based on adding Bachelor’s and Master’s classes. The TILT classes are open to students from both universities and examine key issues related to the digital transformation and sustainability using a variety of methods. Teachers take a highly interdisciplinary approach to their instruction and encourage collaborative, hands-on group work. In the 2021–2022 school year, the following TILT classes were offered: → → → → →

Digital Urban History: The Lausanne Time Machine Data in Context: Critical Data Studies Video Games and Gamification The Ecological Transition: From Theory to Practice Design for Sustainability.

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Image from the course Science and Literature B given by Marc Atallah. The objective of this course is to study the different manifestations of totalitarian worlds in science fiction, and more precisely, how the writers tell the story of man's alienation from man, as well as the functions of such narratives.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

EDUCATION

2021 SHS Prize

The 2021 SHS Prize winners were:

The SHS Prize, introduced in 2012, rewards exceptionally high-quality, original Master’s projects that highlight the important contribution that the humanities and social sciences can make to an engineering education.

→ Charlyne Bürki, Constantin Decaux, Matteo Pariset and Antoine Gory → Project: Mending the Broken Cycle: Tapping into Old Computers’ Potential → Class: Economic Growth and Sustainability (taught by Philippe Thalmann).

The 2021 SHS Prize was awarded to a group of four Master’s students for their project titled Mending the Broken Cycle: Tapping into Old Computers’ Potential. They examined the complicated, often destructive process that computers and cell phones go through after being discarded, generally because users have decided to upgrade to a more recent version.

EDUCATION

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

I N T E R D I S C I P L I N A RY TEACHING PROGRAMS

The students were awarded the SHS Prize during EPFL’s annual education and research awards ceremony, which was held at the Rolex Learning Center on 8 November 2021.

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Marius Aeberli, Coordinator of the DRIL, FIELD and INSSINC programs. Photo: Maxime Marchionno.

FIELD initiative Through our FIELD initiative, coordinated by Marc Laperrouza and Marius Aeberli, we help the next generation of scientists and engineers incorporate design thinking and humanand design-centric approaches into their methods.

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SHS 2021 Award winners surrounded by CDH Director Béla Kapossy (left) and Associate Vice President for Education Pierre Dillenbourg (right). Photo: Alain Herzog.

In 2021, the FIELD team helped develop and run the Climate and Sustainability Action Week (CSAW), which consisted of an online pilot version followed by a full five-day event on the Lausanne campus. CSAW is an educational program in which students from EPFL and UNIL explore how they can address sustainability challenges in an interdisciplinary fashion as they embark on their careers.

The FIELD team also carried out the Structuring Activities for Interdisciplinary Learning (SAIL) project, developed a new Design for Sustainability class, and gave various workshops at the Design as Common Good Conference held by the Swiss Design Network as well as for the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI). In addition, the team worked with the MAKE initiative to develop and give a conference session on humancentered design for the EPFL Assistive Technologies Challenge. The MAKE initiative is part of the Discovery Learning Program, which takes an innovative approach to teaching that combines interdisciplinary projects with hands-on learning and practical applications.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

EDUCATION

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

PHD IN DIGITAL HUMANITIES

MASTER’S IN DIGITAL HUMANITIES Internships in 2021 Our Master of Science in Digital Humanities is a comprehensive program covering the foundations and applications of computer science and the humanities. Students are trained to evaluate the societal impact of technology, to extract information from ancient documents and to interpret centuries-old patterns – all while working to shape the future of culture using advanced digital technology.

2021 students and

Students in the Master’s in Digital Humanities program must complete a four- to six-month internship at a cultural institution, company, international organization or public institution of their choice.

graduates

Through this program, students worked on groundbreaking projects in 2021 such as the Venice Time Machine and the Montreux Jazz Festival Archives.

Fourteen new students joined the Master’s in Digital Humanities program in the fall of 2021, bringing the total number of students to 34. Most of them came from EPFL, with the rest coming from other universities in Switzerland, as well as from universities in China, Canada and Russia.

The breadth of topics covered by the students’ theses last year illustrates the many ways in which data science can be applied to the humanities across a wide range of fields: musicology, literature, the arts, global cultural heritage, historical archives, social media, human rights and more.

The third cohort of students in the Master’s in Digital Humanities program (two students) graduated in a ceremony on 14 October 2021. The ceremony was kept small due to the pandemic-related restrictions. This brought the total number of graduates to 15.

Some of the institutions that hosted interns in 2021 were: → → → → → → → → →

Pictet Asset Management Archives de l’Etat du Valais Art Recognition AG Sichuan Tianfu New Area Bureau Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art Allegro sp. z o.o. Tencent AI Lab Yang Technology AG Peter Lang Group AG

Our PhD in Digital Humanities program (EDDH) educates a new generation of scientists and engineers who have a solid foundation in both the humanities and their chosen field. The program teaches students to apply state-of-the-art empirical quantitative methods to gain a better understanding of real-world problems. It is designed for students from a range of backgrounds who are interested in the digital humanities and the associated interdisciplinary research topics. 17 PhD students were enrolled in the EDDH in 2021. These young men and women are being trained to provide an intellectual contribution to their fields, develop leadership skills in the digital humanities and address societal and cultural issues more generally. They conduct empirical research in areas spanning the arts, music, history, literature, data sculpting, experimental museology, social computing, the social, political, and cultural dimensions of digital technology, data science, machine learning and distributed information systems. The program received 74 applications from top-tier international universities in 2021, confirming a rising trend in both the number and quality of applicants.

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Image from the advertising campaign for the EPFL Master of Science in Digital Humanities. Illustration: Kevin Baumer.

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Internship work done by Master's student Jimin Wang at Dunhuang Academy. Photo: Jimin Wang.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

EDUCATION

C D H E D U C AT I O N KEY FIGURES

151

classes in the SHS program

126

lecturers in the SHS program

STUDENTS SHS Bachelor's Spring 2021 - 1st year introductory program

1,620

Spring 2021 - 2nd and 3rd years

2,141

Autumn 2021 - 2nd and 3rd years

2,017

SHS Master's Spring 2021 (class of 2020–2021)

1,358

Autumn 2021 (class of 2021–2022)

1,401

Master’s in Digital Humanities Class of 2020–2021

New students

2nd year students

Class of 2021–2022

New students

2nd year students

PhD students PhD Program in Digital Humanities (EDDH)

PhD Program in Architecture and Sciences of the City (EDAR) *Few CDH PhD students are enrolled in the EDAR due to our specific areas of research.

EPFL schools and colleges involved

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

IAGS RESEARCH Heritage, Culture and Cities Lausanne Time Machine

DHI RESEARCH Digital and Cognitive Musicology Laboratory (DCML) Digital Humanities Laboratory (DHLAB) Laboratory for Experimental Museology (eM+) Laboratory for the History of Science and Technology (LHST) Social Computing Group

PHD THESES Theses completed in 2021 Ongoing theses

OTHER RESEARCH GROUPS GameLab UNIL-EPFL History and the environment Ethics and AI Ethics, law and technology Mapping Flora Engineering education research

CROSS PROGRAM 2021 CROSS topic: Digital Humanities Selected projects

CDH VISITING PROFESSOR PROGRAM APPOINTMENTS AND RECOGNITIONS GRANTS AND RESEARCH PROJECTS IN 2021 PUBLICATIONS AND LIBRARY SERVICES

Research 25

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

CDH is home to world-class interdisciplinary research conducted through our two institutes: the Institute for Area and Global Studies (IAGS) and the Digital Humanities Institute (DHI). Research conducted at IAGS examines local realities across diverse geopolitical contexts from the perspectives of urban studies, cultural heritage, historical conservation and more. The DHI conducts cutting-edge research in the digital humanities by applying methods from data science, computer science and engineering to the study of culture, society and history. Independent research groups outside IAGS and DHI investigate topics such as engineering education, video-game studies, environmental history and ethics. Our institutes host a growing number of PhD students who explore a broad range of topics and research methods. Each year we welcome academic guests through our Visiting Professor Program; we also coordinate the Collaborative Research on Science and Society (CROSS) program, which brings researchers from EPFL and UNIL together to jointly study pressing issues in society and technology. 26

RESEARCH

IAGS RESEARCH The Institute for Area and Global Studies (IAGS) conducts research on an array of subjects including urban anthropology, cultural heritage, historical archives, urban culture, urban innovation and climate change.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

It has built up a cross-disciplinary network of scientists worldwide to support our research and educational programs, such as our semester projects and the former Minor in Science, Technology and Area Studies (STAS). In terms of education, IAGS’ goal is to prepare students to work effectively in an emerging country by giving them the tools they need to better understand societies and cultures outside the Western world.

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iStock image. Photo: wildpixel.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

RESEARCH

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

Publications and events The research group took part in an interdisciplinary educational initiative on temporary structures in urban environments as part of EPFL’s 2021 ENAC Week, and contributed to educational activities related to the Montreux Jazz Memories project in association with EPFL’s Cultural Heritage Innovation Center. This project involves making the interviews that students held with people involved in the Montreux Jazz Festival available as podcasts on notrehistoire.ch.

This research group, led by Florence Graezer Bideau, runs interdisciplinary studies on the social use of heritage in Europe and Asia and on the effect that cultural policies can have on urban development.

At the RC21 Conference on Sensing and Shaping the City, which took place in Antwerp, Belgium, in July 2021, the research group gave a talk titled “Beijing Winter Olympic Games 2022: Ecological Civilization as a New Step for Extended Urbanization to Enhance Consumption,” with Thierry Theurillat. Then, in November, Graezer Bideau and Bille Larsen held an international workshop called The Heritage, Creativity and Innovation Nexus, in association with EPFL’s Doctoral School and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

New and ongoing projects This group’s main research project in 2021 looked at the use of cultural heritage in connection with the Beijing Olympic Games. It also examined the link between heritage, creativity and innovation through a combination of interdisciplinary research exchanges, presentations by PhD students on anthropology, architecture, urban studies and digital humanities, and talks open to the public on heritage governance. The group hosted two academic guests in 2021 (Peter Bille Larsen and Stefano Mondozzi), while two PhD students and two Master’s students completed their theses.

Graezer Bideau authored several publications in 2021, most notably Porter le temps: Mémoires urbaines d’un site horloger and “Re-creating Memories of Gulou: Three Temporalities and Emotions” (published in People-Centred Methodologies for Heritage Conservation: Exploring Emotional Attachment to Historic Urban Places). She also spoke at major conferences such as the annual meeting of the Swiss Anthropological Association, the Assises d’anthropologie des mondes chinois (in Paris), and the RC21 Conference of the International Sociological Association, on the Sociology of Urban and Regional Development.

Heritage, Culture and Cities

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Albane Descombes working on the 3D photogrammetric modeling of the Musée historique de Lausanne's model of the city of Lausanne in the 17th century. Project: Lausanne Time Machine, directed by Isabella Di Lenardo. Photo: DHLAB EPFL.

Lausanne Time Machine This initiative, coordinated by Isabella Di Lenardo and Béla Kapossy, aims to give researchers easier access to the vast collection of archives currently stored at Lausanne’s main heritage institutions. It is being carried out jointly by CDH and the UNIL-EPFL dhCenter, the Time Machine Europe consortium and the City of Lausanne. New and ongoing projects In 2021, the Lausanne Time Machine team extracted data from the city's historical resources and used them to develop computer models. They also embarked on new projects and made several important findings. One such project is Names of Lausanne, carried out jointly with UNIL. It examines the evolution of language in Lausanne using census records and has already delivered important technical results. For instance, the team was able to convert 20,000 pages of 19th-century census reports into more than six million data points through a lengthy extraction process.

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Entrance to the ski slopes of Fulong Four Seasons resort in Chongli, 2019. Photo: Florence Graezer Bideau.

Another project is Mapping Lausanne, in which researchers are developing a software program called dhAnnoto that can automatically extract all the graphical data in Lausanne’s historical land registers. The software will be able to annotate and extract all the graphical-descriptive elements of historical cartography – thereby opening up new avenues of research that can make a major contribution to digital-humanities scholarship and to heritage institutions. The Lausanne in 3D project involves digitizing a 17th-century model of the city using photogrammetry and developing a platform for exploring a 3D model superimposed on a 3D representation of Lausanne today. This project is being carried out with the Lausanne Historical Museum and Iconem in Paris. Through a joint research project with GameLab UNIL-EPFL, researchers developed an educational video game, called Lausanne 1830, based on historical documents about Lausanne in the year 1830. The game, intended for schoolchildren and young students, is an example of how results useful to the broader community can be obtained from computational and historical research.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

RESEARCH

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

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How does music and its structure work? Visualization of the tonal space derived from an analysis of J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Photo: DCML, Robert Lieck.

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Procedural reconstruction of Venice in 1808 based on cadastral data. Model by Fabrice Berger. Photo: EPFL DHLAB.

DHI RESEARCH The Digital Humanities Institute (DHI) was established to provide international leadership in digital humanities research and education. It applies methods from data science, computer science and engineering to fields in the humanities and social sciences – from music to cultural heritage. Our digital humanities program is an excellent example of EPFL’s interdisciplinary approach, which goes beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries while strengthening our School’s contribution to engineering and the social sciences. The DHI was established in 2015 and already houses some of Europe’s most prestigious laboratories in this exciting, rapidly growing field.

Digital and Cognitive Musicology Laboratory (DCML) Led by Prof. Martin Rohrmeier The DCML explores music from the cognitive, computational, musicological and psychological perspectives. It combines modern algorithmic methods, corpus research, musictheoretical expertise and experimental approaches to conduct research in four main areas: musical structure-building, musicological corpus research, the cognitive foundations of music and computational modeling. The DCML also draws on a global network of experts in musicology, artificial intelligence and neuroscience to deepen researchers’ understanding of musical structures by employing cutting-edge technology. In 2021, two PhD students (Shuxin Meng and Zeng Ren) and one postdoc (Yannis Rammos) joined the DCML, while three postdocs (Peter Ericson, Fabian Moss and Robert Lieck) left. One PhD student in the digital humanities program (Daniel Harasim) received an outstanding distinction for his thesis titled The Learnability of the Grammar of Jazz: Bayesian Inference of Hierarchical Structures in Harmony.

The DHLAB’s Impresso project on large historical newspaper archives was expanded to include new collections, and researchers working on the Identifying Historical People, Places and other Entities (HIPE) project determined the best algorithms for recognizing named entities in historical newspapers. New and ongoing projects The DCML initiated the project: Why Cherry-Pick When You Can Have the Whole Platter? – Music History Reloaded, in collaboration with the LHST. In this 2021 CDH priority project, researchers use music history as a case study to provide a large-scale, multimodal, interactive platform for exploring, visualizing and exemplifying the history of musical compositional practice, with the goal of making music history accessible to a wide audience. Other ongoing projects such as PMSB - Principles of Musical Structure Building: Theory, Computation and Cognition and Distant Listening - the Development of Harmony over Three Centuries (1700-2000), funded by the ERC and SNSF respectively, continued to run productively during the year. Publications DCML researchers authored several publications in 2021, including in the proceedings of several prestigious international conferences such as The Computational Humanities Research Conference, the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, the International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference, and the Sound and Music Computer Conference.

Digital Humanities Laboratory (DHLAB) Led by Prof. Frédéric Kaplan The DHLAB studies new computational approaches to managing large digital cultural objects (such as large corpora of texts, images and complex documents) and generating high-resolution digital replications of artifacts, buildings and cities. It also promotes new ways of understanding elements of digital culture, such as visual language, video culture and linguistic mediation. In 2021, the lab hired four new researchers – Paul Guhennec, Sven Najem-Meyer, Didier Dupertuis and Beatrice Vaienti – and bid farewell to Fabrice Berger. New and ongoing projects In 2021, the DHLAB made significant progress on developing technology fundamental to the construction of mirror worlds (based on the cities of Venice and Jerusalem) and to the large-scale extraction of data from archives and vast text collections.

In the Parcels of Venice project, DHLAB researchers created 3D models of Venice in 1808 by combining an automated analysis of historical cadastral documents with procedural models. The project team also began analyzing and structuring the 60 billion data points obtained from the digitization of the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, carried out by the Factum Foundation and DHLAB in 2020. Finally, under the SNSF’s ScanVan project, DHLAB researchers used a new patented technology for spherical photogrammetry to generate digital images of Sion. Publications Key publications in 2021 included the ScanVan project patent, titled Method and System for Generating a Three-Dimensional Model Based on Spherical Photogrammetry, as well as three articles: “Combining Visual and Textual Features for Semantic Segmentation of Historical Newspapers” (in Journal of Data Mining & Digital Humanities); “Une approche computationnelle du cadastre napoléonien de Venise” (in Humanités numériques); and “Extended Overview of CLEF HIPE 2020: Named Entity Processing on Historical Newspapers” (in CLEF 2020 Working Notes).

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

RESEARCH

Laboratory for Experimental Museology (eM+)

Laboratory for the History of Science and Technology (LHST)

Led by Prof. Sarah Kenderdine The Laboratory for Experimental Museology (eM+) is an interdisciplinary research laboratory at the crossroads of immersive visualization technology, aesthetics and cultural (big) data. It views computational museology as a scaffold that combines machine intelligence with data curation, ontology with visualization, and citizens with practitioners through interactive exhibits and kinaesthetic interfaces. The computational-museology research conducted at eM+ extends beyond object-oriented curation to blend experimental curatorship with contemporary aesthetics, digital humanism and emerging technology.

Led by Prof. Jérôme Baudry The Laboratory for the History of Science and Technology (LHST) seeks to provide greater insight into the transformation of science and technology in their historical, cultural and social contexts. In addition to studying the past using approaches from the digital humanities, LHST explores contemporary developments in science and technology to understand how they shape and are shaped by today’s world.

In 2021, the eM+ lab hired several researchers including Sylvain Cardin (technical and integration lead), Loïc Serafin (software engineer), and PhD students Giacomo Alliata and Yuchen Yang. Researchers Patrick Chouard, Lorenzo Cantelli and Mathieu Clavel left the lab.

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“Double Truth” (2021). Photo: Catherine Leutenegger.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

In 2021, PhD students Semion Sidorenko and Cyrus Lognonné joined the lab, along with academic guest Pierre Mounier and artist-in-residence Caroline Corbasson. New and ongoing projects The LHST initiated several projects in 2021 under the SNSF Agora and CROSS programs. These included Les Alpes, Laboratoire de la Nature, in which researchers developed the Le Sommet qui Cache la Montagne exhibition, which was displayed at the Rolex Learning Center, in association with CDH Culture, the Geneva Museum of the History of Science, and three contemporary artists. A new SHS Master’s class – Experimental History of Science – was introduced in the 2020–2021 school year and proved highly popular. Publications LHST researchers authored several publications in 2021, including “Turning Crowds into Communities: The Collectives of Online Citizen Science”, published in Social Studies of Science, the most prestigious journal in the field.

In 2021, Kenderdine had the honor of being named a corresponding fellow of the British Academy and being included in Bilanz’s list of 2021 Digital Shapers. New and ongoing projects eM+ put on three major exhibitions and built three major installations in 2021, all curated and produced by Kenderdine: → Deep Fakes: Art and Its Double, EPFL Pavilions, Lausanne, Switzerland, 16 September 2021 to 1 May 2022 → Buddhist Maritime Silk Road: New Media Art Exhibition, Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum, Dashu, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, May 2021 to May 2026 → Atlas of Maritime Buddhism, Indra and Harry Banga Gallery, City University of Hong Kong, 7 July to 3 October 2021 → Atlas of Maritime Buddhism Immersive, Chengdu Biennale, November 2021 to April 2022 → “Double Truth,” in Deep Fakes: Art and Its Double, EPFL Pavilions, Lausanne, Switzerland, 16 September 2021 to 1 May 2022 → “Emaki Navigator,” in Love, Fight, Feast, Rietberg Museum, Zurich, Switzerland, 9 September to 5 December 2021

Publications and events Kenderdine gave over a dozen keynote speeches and other talks in 2021, such as: “Users and Stakeholders: Innovative Applications and Services in the Field of Cultural Heritage” (European Space Agency Workshop: Space for Cultural Heritage); “Interactive et immersive, la technologie au service de l’art et de la culture: comment renouveler et augmenter l’expérience du spectacle pour le public?” (Verbier Festival); and “Deep Fakes: Art and Its Double” (Photo London, Fecit – The Dynamic Relationship Between Making, Preserving and Sharing). She has also published a number of books, chapters and papers, including The Atlas of Maritime Buddhism, and “Experimental Museology: Immersive Visualization and Cultural (Big) Data” (in Experimental Museology Institutions, Representations, Users).

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Illustration: Drawing of Leibniz's “Lebendige Rechenbanck,” 1673. Source: GWLB, LH XLII, 5, Bl 23r.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

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iStock photo. Photo: zubada.

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Jessica Pidoux. Photo: Hamza Houlaihel.

Social Computing Group Led by Prof. Daniel Gatica-Perez The Social Computing Group (SCG), part of LIDIAP – the EPFL laboratory associated with the Idiap Research Institute on Artificial Intelligence – studies how people and technology interface in everyday life. In doing so, it combines theories and methods from ubiquitous computing, social media, machine learning and the social sciences to analyze human and social behavior and design systems that support individuals and communities. The Group is affiliated with both CDH and EPFL’s School of Engineering. Its researchers are currently studying the use of mobile and social-media technology in the fields of urban planning, public health and the media. For example, under the H2020 WeNet project, researchers are developing diversity-aware mobile technology to support the well-being of young adults, based on a series of large-scale experiments performed at universities in Europe, Latin America and Asia. Under the H2020 AI4Media project, researchers are

investigating methods for privacy-preserving machine learning and a human-centered analysis of local news. In both projects, the SCG’s work advocates for diversity in data and algorithmic design to represent people from all world regions and to support their specific needs. In 2021, the SCG hosted visiting student David Alonso Del Barrio, while Florian Labhart, Benoit Massé, Thanh Trung Phan and Jessica Pidoux left the Group. Gatica-Perez served as an international advisor to the Japan Science and Technology Agency’s CREST program and authored several publications including “Examining the Social Context of Alcohol Drinking in Young Adults with Smartphone Sensing” (in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies) and “Locally Private Graph Neural Networks” (in Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security).

PHD THESES Theses completed in 2021 Jessica Pidoux (DHI) Online Dating Quantification Practices: A Human-Machine Learning Process. Pidoux’s thesis was supervised by Gatica-Perez and Dominique Boullier and defended publicly on 16 September. Her research explored the sociotechnical issues arising from online encounters via dating apps and websites that are organized by algorithmic matching systems.

Using qualitative and quantitative methods, Pidoux analyzed the communication practices of graphical user interfaces, developers, algorithmic systems for user matching and users. She found that dating app developers adapt to technical and business constraints when building algorithmic recommendation systems, which reduces the potential of artificial intelligence. Her work also shows how design conventions are used on 30 apps to define human attractiveness. While these conventions bring opportunities for interacting with others, they also imply stereotypes that could influence how human desire is assessed both on- and offline.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

Ongoing theses Giacomo Alliata (eM+) Alliata’s research addresses the use of immersive environments and state-of-the-art technology for the exploration of large audiovisual archives. Drawing on theories of embodiment, interactive narrative, human-computer interaction and data visualization, Alliata’s work helps artists create compelling digital installations that place users at the center of the creative space, turning them from mere spectators into true actors of the experience. Raphaël Barman (DHLAB) Historical Cadaster as a Computational Object. Barman’s research develops and formalizes the process of extracting data from historical cadasters so they can be used to create evolutionary models of the populations represented in the documents. Gabriele Cecchetti (DCML) Cecchetti's research explores the interface between formal models of musical structure and the fundamental cognitive processes involved in the experience of music. By linking music theory, computational modeling and empirical investigation, his work furthers our understanding of how musical structure influences the way humans experience it.

RESEARCH

Didier Dupertuis (DHLAB) Dupertuis' research looks at how spatiotemporal data can be extracted from text and exploited in new ways using creative interfaces. Of particular interest are the control networks used in Swiss politics from the late Middle Ages to the present. For instance, which lord had authority over a given parish? Who controlled the parish before and after him? To answer such questions, Dupertuis uses natural language processing techniques with a focus on named entity recognition. Christoph Finkensiep (DCML) Modelling Polyphonic Structure in Music. When listening to music, humans are able to identify structural entities such as chords or voices. However, very little is known about how these entities are linked to the musical surface or, for example, what makes us say that two musical fragments form the same harmony. Finkensiep’s thesis explores the principles by which sequences of notes form “voices,” how this relates to harmony and how it contributes to a listener’s perception of a song. Yohann Guffroy (LHST) Representing the Invention: Study of the Evolution of Technical Object Design in England (1750–1850). Guffroy’s research explores the role that technical object drawing played in the invention process in England and how it evolved between the 18th and 19th centuries. He studies the design process as both the physical production of a diagram and a possible language technique. Paul Guhennec (DHLAB) Guhennec’s research relates to the procedural reconstruction of the architecture of past cities using historical sources. His work focuses primarily on 19th-century Venice, for which a great deal of information exists (in the form of cadastral documents, visual depictions and textual descriptions) and can be extracted algorithmically.

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Johannes Hentschel (DCML) Hentschel, a musician, music theorist and educator, is conducting thesis research in musicology. His work involves evaluating a large corpus of digital music scores from three centuries and empirically examining the evolution of musical language throughout music history. Yumeng Hou (eM+) EncodingActs. Hou’s thesis investigates new computational approaches for curating the archival content of the Hong Kong Martial Arts Living Archive. His work combines machine learning with semantic modeling to encode embodied knowledge by representing aspects of kinaesthetic elements, persons (masters), rituals, objects and the meaning of traditions. The framework developed by Hou will pave the way to an interactive knowledge system for disseminating the intangible cultural heritage of Southern Chinese martial arts. Cyrus Lognonné (LHST) Lognonné’s research draws on media archeology, speculative technical practice and (materialistic) internet studies. He deconstructs, through design, the engineered narrative and illusion of the immaterial “cloud.” This entails shedding light on the intersections between cloud infrastructure and the geophysical and geological site of execution.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

Federica Pardini (DHLAB) The Cadastral City. A European Urban History through the Geometry of the 19th Century. Pardini’s thesis examines the relationships between measured cartography, information systems and urban revolution, demonstrating that 19th-century geometrical cadasters were a pivotal instrument for urban decision-making. She views cadasters as not only historical documents, but also a mechanism for activating urban transformation and merging typo-morphological and social issues in ways that prefigured the discipline of town planning. Rémi Petitpierre (IAGS) Petitpierre’s research looks at the processing and computational analysis of historical cartography. His work aims to trace the evolution of mapping methods and cartographic technology since the 17th century by applying computer vision techniques to geohistorical big data. The insight provided by Petitpierre’s work should support the development of efficient vectorization technology for urban and environmental history.

Shuxin Meng (DCML) Meng’s thesis applies computational and cognitive methods and frameworks to the study of specific components of Chinese musical structure (e.g., mode and tonal hierarchy). Her work currently involves studying a corpus of Chinese folk songs to examine a long-debated theory about the Chinese scale system. Sven Najem-Meyer (DHLAB) Najem-Meyer’s thesis sits at the crossroads of machine learning and classical scholarship. His primary research interest is natural language processing (NLP) with a focus on domain-specific transfer learning strategies. The goal is to develop new NLP frameworks capable of extracting information from a wide corpus of classical commentaries – a task made particularly challenging by the many different languages contained in the data. Ultimately, Najem-Meyer aims to trace the dynamics of information transmission throughout the corpus.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

Zeng Ren (DCML) Ren’s research aims to build controllable, interpretable music generation systems that capture users' aesthetic goals via a series of intuitive music elaboration processes. By drawing insight from formal reductive analysis and composition processes in practice, this thesis explores how generative systems can derive the musical surface from abstract compositional goals, such as “building up towards an important moment” and “creating contrast while maintaining coherence.” Héléna Roux (IAGS) Hosting the Olympic Games through Industrial Heritage Regeneration: A Comparative Research between Torino 2006, London 2012, and Beijing 2022. Roux’s research examines the conversion of industrial wastelands into sites for the Olympic Games and the planning strategies used to integrate these sites into the Games’ long-term legacy plan. Her thesis uses the Shougang abandoned steel plant as a case study, illustrating how such urban development projects can contribute to the emergence of new practices and lifestyles in cities around the world. Semion Sidorenko (LHST) An Ethnographic Study of Data Science Practices in Public Administration. Data science draws on techniques from both statistics and computer science and is being increasingly incorporated into government practices at all levels. However, new data science methods and systems are required to cope with the rapidly expanding amount of data being collected and processed. Sidorenko’s thesis uses an ethnographic approach to study the application of data science practices in public administration. He examines methods of data quantification and constitution through social interaction and organizational dynamics.

RESEARCH

Alina Volynskaya (LHST) Querying the Digital Archive of Science: Distant Reading, Semantic Modelling and Representation of Knowledge. Volynskaya’s research examines how digital science archives can be used as an agency of memory and knowledge production. Her work focuses on institutional repositories, looking at both their infrastructure (in particular, linked data technology) and methods (distant reading). Yang Yuchen (eM+) Narratives from the Long Tail: Transforming Access to Audiovisual Archives. Yuchen’s research is being carried out under the SNSF's Sinergia project. It studies new ways of storing and processing AV content in museums and looks at how a digitally transformed archive would allow visitors to meaningfully explore the long tail of AV memory through computational museology. Mengke Zhang (IAGS) New Business Models towards Leisure and Cultural Consumption: Urban Economic and Social Transformation in the Mountains of Beijing Winter Olympics. Zhang's research investigates how Beijing’s hosting of the 2022 Winter Olympics and its use of heritage will affect urban development in the mountains and in the everyday lives of local residents. Her work looks in particular at the mountain areas of Yanqing (in the suburbs of Beijing) and Zhangjiakou-Chongli, where new ski and leisure resorts have been developed to promote a consumption-based society.

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OTHER RESEARCH GROUPS GameLab UNIL-EPFL GameLab UNIL-EPFL examines video games in their cultural, historical and educational contexts, and looks at how digital humanities methods can be applied to video game studies. GameLab researchers, including Selim Krichane, give classes on video games as part of the SHS program and through UNIL-EPFL’s continuing education program. In 2021, Loïse Bilat, Magalie Vetter, David Gerber and Fabián Ruz joined GameLab as research assistants, while GameLab cofounder Yannick Rochat left after being appointed assistant professor at the University of Lausanne’s Faculty of Arts.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

New and ongoing projects The Pixelvetica project is being funded by the Association for the Preservation of the Audiovisual Heritage of Switzerland (Memoriav) to map the current state of video-game preservation in Switzerland and make recommendations for the future. The first stage of another project – Teaching with Video Games, funded by the SNSF – ended in 2021 with three workshops on how video-game studies can be linked to secondary-school subjects. In July 2021, GameLab began working on the Lausanne 1830 project in conjunction with the Lausanne Time Machine team. This project will develop an educational video game set in Lausanne in the 1830s. Events GameLab held further editions of its Games on Campus conference series in 2021, bringing together all the various researchers working on (or with) video games at UNIL and EPFL.

Beatrice Vaienti (DHLAB) Vaienti’s research aims to develop a 4D reconstruction of Jerusalem between 1840 and 1940. The goal is to model the profound transformation that the city experienced over this period with a focus on its residents. Her thesis compiles data from different sources – historical maps, land registers, aerial photos, census reports, etc. – and uses semi-automated methods to extract the information they contain.

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Games on Campus conference series organized by GameLab UNIL-EPFL in 2021 set out to bring together all the researchers working on (or with) video games at UNIL and EPFL. Illustration: Sarah Jallon.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

RESEARCH

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

History and the environment

Ethics and AI

Ethics, law and technology

Mapping Flora

Historian Alexandre Elsig, who joined CDH in 2020 under the SNSF Ambizione program, is working with CDH scientist Fabien Moll-François on a research project titled The Dose and the Poison. Measure, Govern and Face Industrial Toxicity in the 20th Century.

Marcello Ienca joined CDH in 2021 as an expert in bioethics and the ethical issues associated with technology. He is the principal investigator of Hybrid Minds – an ERA-NETfunded, international project – and leads a small research group studying the relationship between bioethics and AI. He also helps teach ethics at EPFL and leverage synergies between CDH and other schools and universities.

Johan Rochel heads up CDH research and teaching on the interactions between ethics, law and technology. In 2021, Rochel worked on developing best practices for further integrating ethics into engineering curricula and research, especially with regards to data-related disciplines, in association with stakeholders at EPFL and the University of Lausanne. His work was used to put together a new call for proposals under the CROSS Program and to develop a new class, both of which will be rolled out in 2022.

Simona Boscani Leoni carried out the first part of the Mapping Flora project from August to December 2021. Her work verified the data contained in ancient books on botany – especially those covering the old Swiss confederation and listed on hallernet.org. She also worked with a botanist to select a specific region and species for generating a historical map that should help scientists compare the data contained on infoflora.ch, making it easier to trace the evolution of biodiversity over the centuries. Boscani Leoni is now studying plants with highly specific ecological characteristics, such as those native to wetlands.

In 2021, Elsig combed through Swiss public and private archives to study the environmental regulations (or lack thereof) on soil pollution and toxic substances like mercury and fluorine. He is preparing a monograph on his findings. Elsig began holding a monthly environmental history seminar in 2021 and presented his research widely at museums and secondary schools as well as to fellow academics. He co-edited a special issue of Traverse on the shifting work relationships between humans and animals, and collaborated with the StoGramm theater group on a play called Little Italy about the former workingclass district of Sous-Géronde, in Sierre (Valais Canton). Moll-François’ own project – Asbestos: an Eternal History– traces the trajectory of asbestos, a carcinogenic fiber. It was used widely in construction during most of the 20th century and considered to be a miracle material, but is now understood to be toxic. Despite being banned 30 years ago, asbestos can still be found in some buildings, which raises major concerns and requires the regular adoption of new regulations. Moll-François’ research is based on interviews and newly revealed archives, including those held by architect and EPFL lecturer François Iselin, with a particular focus on the roles played by economic agents and activists in both concealing and exposing the problem.

In May, Ienca held a virtual OECD workshop in Zurich, hosted by the Swiss delegation and titled Neurotechnology in and for Society: Deliberation, Stewardship and Trust. He also helped organize a Council of Europe and OECD Symposium called Neurotechnologies and Human Rights Framework: Do We Need New Rights? in Strasbourg in November. In connection with the Symposium, Ienca issued an expert report commissioned by the Council of Europe Committee on Bioethics, titled Common Human Rights Challenges Raised by Different Applications of Neurotechnologies in the Biomedical Fields. Other key publications by Ienca in 2021 included “Ethical Requirements for Responsible Research with Hacked Data” (in Nature Machine Intelligence) and “Digital Health Interventions for Healthy Ageing: A Qualitative User Evaluation and Ethical Assessment” (in BMC Geriatrics).

In addition to publishing papers in peer-reviewed journals – including “Ethics in the GDPR: A Blueprint for Applied Legal Theory” (in International Data Privacy Law) and “Connecting the Dots: Digital Integrity as a Human Right” (in Human Rights Law Review) – Rochel gave a new Bachelor’s class for the SHS program in 2021 called Law and Ethics of AI. This class was highly popular and included several guest lecturers who discussed topics such as the ethical design of digital applications. Selected term papers from the class will be published next year on medium.com as contributions to the public debate on the ethics of AI.

In 2021, Boscani Leoni contributed to two key publications: Connecting Territories: Exploring People and Nature, 1700–1830 and Histoire naturelle et montagnes. Regards croisés des Andes à l’Himalaya.

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iStock photo. Photo: Ralf Menache.

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iStock photo. Photo: DNY59.

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Industrial disaster in Schweizerhalle, 1986. Photo: Comet Photo AG, ETH E-Pics.

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iStock photo. Photo: Ignatiev.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

Engineering education research The Engineering Education Research group (EER), led by Roland Tormey, seeks to improve how engineers are taught and trained, so as to develop the next generation of responsible leaders. The group works in association with EPFL’s Teaching Support Center (CAPE), Center for Digital Education (CEDE), Center for Learning Sciences (LEARN) and other education-related units. New and ongoing projects In 2021, the EER worked with CDH scholar at risk Nihat Kotluk to collect initial data on how information associated with emotions can be included in case studies and how that would affect the moral reasoning of STEM students. The EER is also taking part in a longitudinal study led by TU Munich on engineering students’ attitudes and beliefs regarding sustainability, professional responsibility and professional self-efficacy.

RESEARCH

Publications and events In early 2021, the EER published a 3D model of student-teacher emotional relationships in the STEM subjects in higher education. This was followed by a book chapter on how the model can be used in faculty members’ skills development. Tormey co-authored a study on the effects of different approaches to project-based learning (PBL), as well as a first edition of Facilitating Experiential Learning in Higher Education; Teaching and Supervising in Labs, Fieldwork, Studios, and Projects. The EER also organized the 2021 European Society for Engineering Education Spring School, which took place online in March.

RESEARCH

CROSS PROGRAM Our Collaborative Research on Science and Society (CROSS) Program facilitates interdisciplinary projects that address pressing societal and technological issues and that are carried out jointly by researchers from EPFL and UNIL.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

2021 CROSS topic: Digital Humanities The topic for the 2021 CROSS Program was the digital humanities. Nine applications were received and four were selected, resulting in a total of CHF 238,528 being awarded as grants. The researchers behind the four winning projects presented their findings, prototypes and proofs-of-concept at a conference held at EPFL on 16 September.

Through an annual call for projects, CROSS provides competitive grants to support the preparatory phase of new research endeavors with a view to obtaining major funding.

Another EER project is 3T Play, led by EPFL’s LEARN Center and College of Management and funded by the LEGO foundation. It explores the use of tangible objects in the teaching of transversal skills to engineering and science students. The EER also helped roll out the Learning Companion 2.0, developed by CEDE and CAPE, and collect data on usage patterns.

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Photo: Alain Herzog, EPFL.

The Hong Kong Martial Arts Living Archive (HKMALA), Re-Actor interactive installation and multimodal content, on display at the 300 Years of Hakka Kung Fu exhibition (Heritage Museum Hong Kong, 2016). Photo: Sarah Kenderdine.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

2021 CROSS SELECTED PROJECTS → GS: Computational Interoperability for Intangible Cultural Heritage. Led by Sarah Kenderdine (EPFL CDH eM+) and Davide Picca (UNIL SLI FL). → Digitizing the Dualism Debate: Case Study in the Computational Analysis of Historical Music Sources. Led by Fabian Moss (EPFL CDH DCML) and François Bavaud (UNIL SLI FL). → Names of Lausanne: The Evolution of Family Names in Administration Records 1803–1900. Led by Isabella Di Lenardo (EPFL CDH IAGS) and Marie-Hélène Côté (UNIL SLI FL). → ACCOMOJI. Emoji Accommodation in Swiss Multilingual Computer-Mediated Conversations. Led by Robert West (EPFL IC DLAB), Aris Xanthos (UNIL SLI FL), and Anita Auer (UNIL SLI FL).

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A basic ontological framework for martial arts, invention of the project Computational Interoperability for Intangible and Tangible Cultural Heritage (CROSSINGS), 2021. Credits: Alessandro Adamou, Yumeng Hou, Davide Picca, Mattia Egloff and Sarah Kenderdine.

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Morphological clustering used for tracking the evolution of the family names through time. Credits: Lausanne Time Machine, EPFL.

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ACCOMOJI. Emoji Accommodation in Swiss Multilingual Computer-Mediated Conversations. CROSS project led by Robert West (EPFL IC DLAB), Aris Xanthos (UNIL SLI FL), and Anita Auer (UNIL SLI FL). Photo: NCCR Evolving Language.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

CDH VISITING PROFESSOR PROGRAM Through our Visiting Professor Program, we forge ties with international scholars working in digital humanities research and education and in other interdisciplinary fields that combine engineering and the social sciences. Through the program, visiting professors and academic guests complete temporary stays at a CDH lab or research institute.

RESEARCH

Peter Bille Larsen, a senior lecturer and researcher in anthropology at the University of Zurich, came to CDH through the program in early 2021. He is working with senior scientist and lecturer Florence Graezer Bideau to study under-addressed issues (from both a theoretical and practical perspective) associated with heritage, creativity and innovation. In November, Larsen and Bideau held the Heritage, Creativity and Innovation Nexus workshop, which brought researchers from around the world to the EPFL campus. Pierre Mounier, a research engineer at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, came to the CDH’s Laboratory for the History of Science and Technology as a visiting scholar for the 2021–2022 school year. Mounier is studying the design and management of digital systems that are both open and sustainable and gives a monthly seminar on the governance of digital system infrastructure as part of his visiting professorship.

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College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

APPOINTMENTS AND RECOGNITIONS

CDH APPOINTMENTS

CONGRATULATIONS

→ Prof. Daniel Gatica-Perez – His courtesy appointment as head of the Social Computing Group and director of the digital humanities section was renewed → Roland Tormey – Named senior scientist

→ Dr. Jessica Pidoux – Appointed postdoc at SciencesPo and president of non-profit organization PersonalData.IO → Dr. Yannick Rochat – Appointed assistant professor of game studies at UNIL → Dr. Fabian Moss – Appointed research fellow in cultural analytics at the University of Amsterdam → Dr. Robert Lieck – Appointed assistant professor in computer science at Durham University, UK

AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS → Prof. Sarah Kenderdine – Elected corresponding fellow of the British Academy and named a 2021 Digital Shaper by Bilanz → Daniel Harasim – Received an outstanding distinction for his PhD thesis in digital humanities, titled “The Learnability of the Grammar of Jazz: Bayesian Inference of Hierarchical Structures in Harmony”

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Pierre Mounier is a research engineer at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He is an expert in digital humanities and open scholarly communication. He came to the CDH’s Laboratory for the History of Science and Technology as a visiting scholar for the 2021–2022 school year. Photo: Pierre Mounier.

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Peter Larsen is a senior lecturer and researcher in anthropology and sustainability at the University of Geneva. He came as a visiting scholar to CDH in early 2021. He is working with Florence Graezer Bideau to study under-addressed issues (from both a theoretical and practical perspective) associated with heritage, creativity and innovation. Photo: Olivier Porchet, EPFL.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

RESEARCH

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

GRANTS AND RESEARCH PROJECTS IN 2021 DHI Project Title

Principal Investigator(s)

Funding Agency or Program

Project Title

Principal Investigator(s)

Funding Agency or Program

Wanderful Music a Systematic Investigation into Music-Induced Mind Wandering

Steffen A. Herff

SNSF

An Ethnographic Study of Data Science Practices in Public Administration

Semion Sidorenko

LHST

Digitizing the Dualism Debate: A Case Study In The Computational Analysis of Historical Music Theory Sources

Fabien Moss

CROSS

Twisted Stories: The Unexpected Impacts of Scientific Objects

Jérôme Baudry, Simon Dumas Primbault, Ion Mihailescu

LHST, EPFL + ECAL Lab

Models of Musician Mobility and Migrating Musical Patterns

Markus Neuwirth

CROSS

Les Alpes, Laboratoire de la Nature

SNSF

Principles of Musical Structure Building: Theory, Computation and Cognition

Martin Rohrmeier

European Research Council (ERC)

Jérôme Baudry, Simon Dumas Primbault, Ion Mihailescu Sarah Kenderdine, Jennifer Biddle

Australian Research Council

Distant Listening: The development of Harmony over Three Centuries (1700–2000)

Martin Rohrmeier

Cultural Sensorium: An Indigenous Ethnography of the Senses Muse: The Voice of the Visitor

Sarah Kenderdine

Migros Pioneer Fund

ScanVan: A Distributed 3D Digitization Platform for Cities

Frédéric Kaplan

SNSF

Atlas of Maritime Buddhism: Transforming Visualisation in Museums: Deep Mapping for Narrative Coherence

Sarah Kenderdine, Lewis Lancaster, Jeffrey Shaw

Australian Research Council

Parcels of Venice

Frédéric Kaplan, Isabella di Lenardo

SNSF

Immersive Environment for Cosmological Big Data

Jean-Paul Kneib, Sarah Kenderdine

Jerusalem 1840–1940

Beatrice Vaienti, Frederic Kaplan

EPFLglobaLeaders

EPFL Interdisciplinary Seed Fund

Narrative from the Long Tail: FNS Sinergia Frédéric Kaplan, Patrick Rérat

CROSS

Sarah Kenderdine, Giovanna Fossati, Alexandre Alahi, Renato Pajarola

SNSF

Swiss in Motion: Analyzing and Visualizing Daily Rhythms Knotted Curves: A History of Graphical Features, Patterns and Analogues

Ion Mihailescu

LHST

EUROfusion EPFL Advanced Computing Hub

Sarah Kenderdine, Paolo Ricci

EPFL CROSS

Simon Dumas Primbault

LHST

Computational Interoperability for Intangible and Tangible Culture Heritage

Sarah Kenderdine, Davide Picca

Paper Minds: A Material History of Scholarly Work through the Working Papers of Viviani and Leibniz, ca. 1650–1700

Panorama de Morat

Sarah Kenderdine, Daniel Jacquet

Figuring (Out) Technology: A History of Technical Drawing in England, ca. 1750–1850

Yohann Guffroy

LHST

Fondation du Panorama de Morat H2020

Jérôme Baudry, Simon Dumas Primbault, Jean-François Bert

CROSS

AI4Media: A European Excellence Centre for Media, Society and Democracy

Daniel Gatica-Perez

Digital Trail Blazing: Understanding and Remaking Intellectual Mobility on Online Research Platforms

ICARUS: Innovative Approach for Urban Security

Daniel Gatica-Perez

H2020

Querying the Digital Archive of Science: Distant Reading, Semantic Modeling and Representation of Knowledge

Alina Volynskaya

SNSF WeNet: The Internet of Us

Daniel Gatica-Perez

H2020

SAVOIRS

Jérôme Baudry, Simon Dumas Primbault

EHESS, ENSSIB, BNU Strasbourg, UNIL, LHST

Characterizing Youth Nightlife Spaces, Activities, and Drinks

Daniel Gatica-Perez, Emmanuel Kuntsche

SNSF

Interconnected Cropscapes: Antagonism and Complementarity in Conservation and Breeding

Marianna Fenzi

Future Food Initiative

HealthVlogging: Social Media Culture and Health-related Practices by YouTubers

Maria del Rio Carral, Daniel Gatica-Perez

SNSF

Inventing Intellectual Property

Jérôme Baudry

LHST

Rethinking Science and Public Participation

Bruno J. Strasser

SNSF, University of Geneva

2000 Lakes: Alpine Research and Citizen Science toward the Microbial Conservation of High-Mountain Lakes in Switzerland

Anna Carratalà, Jasmine Berg, Daniel Gatica-Perez

Climact UNIL-EPFL initiative SNSF

Cyrus Lognonné

HEAD

The Metrics of Online Dating: A Sociology of Algorithmic Matching

Jessica Pidoux

Internet Metaphors and Narratives

SNSF

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

RESEARCH

IAGS

RESEARCH

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

OTHERS

Project Title

Principal Investigator(s)

Funding Agency or Program

Project Title

Principal Investigator(s)

Funding Agency or Program

Uses of Cultural Heritage at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games of 2022

Florence Graezer Bideau, Thierry Theurillat

SNSF

Video Game Study

CDH, UNIL (Faculty of Arts)

FIELD – Design for sustainability

Marc Laperrouza

EPFL MAKE

Loïse Bilat, David Gerber, Selim Krichane, Yannick Rochat, Fabian Ruz, Magalie Vetter

FIELD – Ageing-friendly societies

Marc Laperrouza

DGES DfS

Teaching with Video Games

Yannick Rochat, Selim Krichane

SNSF, CDH

Lausanne in 3D

Isabella di Lenardo, Béla Kapossy, Laurent Golay, Frédéric Kaplan

EPFL

Pixelvetica

Selim Krichane, Yannick Rochat

Memoriav, CDH

Lausanne 1830

CDH

Isabella di Lenardo, Marie-Hélène Côté (UNIL)

CROSS

Selim Krichane, Yannick Rochat, Isabella di Lenardo

Isabella di Lenardo, Béla Kapossy

EPFL

Pierre Dillenbourg, Roland Tormey, Francisco Pinto, Patrick Jermann

SNSF

Mapping Lausanne

Uni Analytics: What, How, and Why Do Different Educational Stakeholders Use Learning Analytics in Higher Education?

Lausanne Time Machine

Isabella di Lenardo, Béla Kapossy

UNIL, EPFL

Supporting Responsible Computational Problem Solving across Domains

Patrick Jermann, Roland Tormey, Jessica Dehler Zufferey, Denis Gillet, Gerd Kortemeyer, Adrian Holzer

SwissUniversities under P8

Deepfakes and Engineering Ethics Education

Roland Tormey

BeLEARN

Lerngeselle: A German-Language Version of the Learning Companion

Patrick Jermann, with Roland Torrmey

BeLEARN

The Dose and the Poison: Measure, Govern and Face Industrial Toxicity in the 20th Century

Alexandre Elsig

SNSF

Hybrid Minds

Marcello Ienca, Jennifer Chandler, Surjo Sokeadar, Christoph Bublitz

ERANET Neuron

Names of Lausanne

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

RESEARCH

P U B L I C AT I O N S AND LIBRARY SERVICES EPFL’s liaison librarian for CDH, Jacqueline Despont, and her staff provided ongoing support to lecturers, students and researchers in 2021 on issues related to copyrights

and contracts, publication models, open access publications, funders’ requirements, data management plans and more.

1,715

Total CDH publications in Infoscience at end-2021

162 IAGS

1,188 SHS

365 DHI

(incl. student projects)

training sessions held

16,000 annual budget for purchasing books (CHF)

119

New Infoscience entries in 2021

new titles in electronic format

1,488

people trained (Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD students, lecturers, and researchers)

315

new printed volumes

Four Publications funded through agreements between the EPFL Library and publishers (one with Taylor & Francis, two with Springer and one with MDPI)

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

Public engagement

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

EPFL PAVILIONS Main exhibitions Pop-up exhibitions and events Online events

CDH-CULTURE 2021 events Daily free-ticket giveaways Artwork displayed on the EPFL campus

2021 THEMA TOPIC: UNCERTAINTY 2021 THEMA events

ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM 2021 artists in residence

HIGHLIGHTS Creativity in Cultural Heritage Scholars at Risk program

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

CDH serves as a natural bridge linking together scientists, engineers, thinkers, artists and the general public. Our outreach initiatives are spearheaded mainly by EPFL Pavilions, which puts on a number of ambitious exhibitions at its Pavilions A and B, and by CDH-Culture, which carries out a range of artistic programs including an artist-in-residence program and THEMA, a program that explores a specific topic each year through events involving the general public. We also hold a series of flagship events bringing together key figures from different fields to work together through a cross-disciplinary approach. In 2021, and in spite of the pandemic-related challenges, we were able to hold two major exhibitions at Pavilion B as well as around 20 pop-up events either online or at various sites around campus. We brought prominent international artists to EPFL through our artist-in-residence program, developed a podcast, held a series of online talks with philosophers, and gave a number of artistic workshops with EPFL students and employees.

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

EPFL PAV I L I O N S EPFL Pavilions (formerly ArtLab) sprung back to life in 2021 despite the ongoing uncertainty. We finished the building’s renovation work during the lockdown and reopened it towards end-2020 with the Nature of Robotics: An Expanded Field exhibition. Pavilion A hosted a number of exhibitions between March and July 2021, including: Babylonian Vision, by 2019 artist-in-residence Nora al Badri; Watt is Art, by Be-Smart and the European Union; Defying Gravity, by CDH-Culture and the Asclepios student association; and Technorama@ EPFL, by EPFL and Technorama (based in Winterthur).

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

September was a celebratory month as conditions on campus gradually returned to normal. After two years of preparatory work, we finally opened our flagship exhibition Deep Fakes: Art and Its Double. In 2021, we held a fully virtual exhibition at EPFL Pavilions for the first time, called Spatial Affairs. Worlding. This exhibition was designed with the Ludwig Museum in Budapest to be a multi-user exploratory experience in which visitors, through their avatars, interact with moving works of art within an immersive digital fabric.

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Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson Delay Lines, (feedback), 2020 Commissioned and produced in the framework of the CDH/EPFL Pavilions Artist-in-Residence program 2020 Courtesy: the artists Photo: Alain Herzog.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

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Deep Fakes exhibition Henry VI Trifold (II). Photo: Catherine Leutenegger.

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Deep Fakes exhibition The Abbey St Michel, Bamberg (2021). Photo: Alain Herzog.

Main exhibitions Nature of Robotics: An Expanded Field 11 December 2020 to 16 May 2021 This exhibition provided an unconventional perspective on the rapidly expanding field of robotics using works of art coupled with prototypes developed right here at EPFL. The goal was to explore the possible societal ramifications of developments in robotics. Captivating displays of modular, reconfigurable, flexible, and micro- and bio-robots depicted just a few of the technologies emerging from this continuously evolving discipline. The exhibition opened during the pandemic and therefore had modest attendance figures, but was nevertheless a success. After it was taken down, some exhibits were displayed at the ZKM art and media center in Karlsruhe and at the 2021 Pop-up House of Switzerland in Stuttgart. Curated by Giulia Bini and Sarah Kenderdine

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Katja Novitskova Pattern of Activation (Mamaroo nursery, dawn chorus), 2017 Courtesy: the artist and Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin. Photo: Alain Herzog

Pop-up exhibitions and events Deep Fakes: Art and its Double 17 September 2021 to 6 February 2022 – extended to 1 May 2022 This exhibition examines the use of deep fakes to replicate cultural artifacts. It spans over 1,000 m2 and features 21 installations, almost half of which are world premieres. Few fields are as active as art history in denouncing copies as fake, and few are as concerned with the authenticity and provenance of cultural artifacts. Deep Fakes: Art and Its Double poses crucial questions about the potency of digital replicas to absorb audiences in enduring emotional encounters with universal art treasures. Through installations across EPFL Pavilions A and B, the exhibition engages with the applied and critical implications of digital replicas and their power to both entangle and emancipate cultural heritage objects. A joint exhibition by EPFL and UNIL Curated by Sarah Kenderdine

Babylonian Vision 9–28 March 2021, EPFL Pavilions, Pavilion A

Defying Gravity: Students Shooting to the Moon 4–23 May 2021, EPFL Pavilions, Pavilion A

Nora Al-Badri presented Babylonian Vision at EPFL Pavilions as a culmination of her work as an artist in residence. Al-Badri trained a neural network using general adversarial network (GAN) technology to generate new synthetic Babylonian objects based on ancestral ones, thereby taking back and re-possessing cultural datasets from colonial Western museum collections.

This exhibition was designed by the Space@yourService EPFL student association and put on by CDH-Culture.

Watt is Art 26 March to 25 April 2021, EPFL Pavilions, Pavilion A

Technorama 12 June to 4 July 2021, EPFL Pavilions, Pavilion A Pavilion A hosted a dozen experiments during the summer break that were set up by the Technorama science center in order to explore both natural phenomena and technology.

This exhibition showcased the groundbreaking work done by Compáz and the Be-Smart project consortium. Be-Smart is an EU-funded R&D project that aims to speed the deployment of building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) and cut their costs by 75% by 2030. It was launched in October 2018 in response to EU regulations that require new buildings to be nearly energy neutral.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

Digging Deeper As part of the Deep Fakes: Art and Its Double exhibition, students were taken on guided tours of the exhibition and invited to attend talks on associated topics at the Satellite bar. Three talks were given: → 19 October: Art Recognition AG and ArtMyn By Christiane Hoppe-Oehl of Art Recognition AG and Loïc Baboulaz of Artmyn → 9 November: Art in the Digital Age By Nathalie Dietschy and Isaac Pante, both from UNIL → 14 December: Innovation by Imitation By Ion Mihailescu and Simon Dumas Primbault, both from EPFL

Online events Spatial Affairs. Worlding 29 April to 31 August 2021 This exhibition was designed by post-critical Dutch design studio The Rodina and inspired by Konrad Zuse's 1969 book, Calculating Space. Zuse’s work describes a universe that consists of an abundance of living and evolving automata – discrete computational systems composed of cells that add up to a large self-reproducing cellular automaton. The artwork and visitors that inhabited the exhibition’s virtual world were computational, biological and geological bodies without organs, while the walls and floors were technical beings: everyone and everything was sculpted from the same digital tissue.

Open-air cinema 16–25 September 2021, EPFL, Agora Lombard Odier Last fall, with the return of cooler temperatures and of students to campus, we were pleased to bring back our annual open-air cinema event. We projected films associated with the Deep Fakes: Art and Its Double exhibition, in association with Richard Castelli of Epidemic, the Geneva International Film Festival, and Ecrans Urbains.

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Open-air cinema on the Agora Lombard Odier in Place Cosandey. Photo: Sarah Kenderdine.

In Conversation In this live video-discussion series, the artists and scientists behind EPFL Pavilions’ major exhibitions delved deeper into the issues addressed. Eight video discussions were held in 2021.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

C D H - C U LT U R E

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“Blue Mind - Sensory Wandering” performance at the Rolex Learning Center. Photo: Nicholas Pettit.

Our CDH-Culture program carried out nine projects in 2021, a year marked by a stark contrast between the spring, when students were largely absent from campus, and the fall, which was bustling with activity and new initiatives. The nine projects spanned the fields of music, dance, film, contemporary art, and art in public spaces, and were implemented through a combination of patience, perseverance, flexibility, astuteness and timely action. One project – Masterclass: Writing Workshop – was designed to be carried out entirely online, while two others were led by students; a fourth, highly creative one was conducted at the LHST. Other projects involved famous or emerging artists who produced artwork and plays specifically for EPFL.

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Installation of the “Rohrwerk, Fabrique Sonore” at the Rolex Learning Center. Photo: Véronique Mauron.

2021 events Daily free-ticket giveaways Spring Masterclass: Writing Workshop

25 September Le Carnaval des Planètes

During this online writing workshop held over two sessions, 20 students were given an opportunity to receive individual feedback from renowned authors. Their prose was then read by actors from the EPFL and UNIL theater group (Pôle d'Expression Théâtrale) at two performances: one at EPFL on 5 June and another at Café Littéraire in Vevey on 3 December.

This music-and-astronomy show was designed by Simòn Prêcheur Llarena (a composer and student at EPFL) and Laurent Eyer (an astronomer at UNIGE) using Kepler’s musical scales as a starting point.

4–23 May Defying Gravity This exhibition, put on by the Space@yourService EPFL student association, displayed images of a simulated space mission with drawings by Nicolas Fournier and photographs by Justine Willa.

21–23 September Rohrwerk, Fabrique Sonore This architectural, sculptural and musical exhibition was designed by Beat Gysin, a composer from Basel, and ran for three days at the large patio in the Rolex Learning Center. The exhibition included displays, a panel discussion, concerts, workshops and live music played by five musicians.

The number of events and performances listed on our online agenda, offres-culturelles.epfl.ch, picked back up in the spring of 2021 and totaled 123 for the full year. We gave away 1,333 tickets to EPFL students and staff – slightly less than half our usual number due to the various COVID restrictions and event cancellations.

4 and 11 October Blue Mind - Sensory Wanderings

Charmilie Nault was hired in 2021 to support Virginie Martin, bringing fresh energy to our small team. We also added some new features to our website

This performance was given by four dancers from the Marchepied dance company. It combined elements of a show and a meandering stroll, allowing visitors to experience the fluid nature of the Rolex Learning Center’s spaces and take a unique tour of the building.

Artwork displayed on the EPFL campus We added a new piece of artwork to our collection in 2021: Envol Bleu, by Yoki (1995). This tapestry depicts fragmented human silhouettes, made from wool, silk and cotton, that appear to float weightlessly in a vibrating sky. It presents an array of shades of blue, with some pink and garnet as well as bursts of white to provide depth and movement. The artwork was donated by Patrick Aebischer and is on display in the EPFL Pavilions Welkom room.

7 October 2021 to 24 April 2022 Tree Line Curve Claudia Comte – a young, internationally recognized Swiss artist – set up this forest of 42 tree trunks beneath the Rolex Learning Center vaults. Her installation echoes the building’s own architecture and is designed to explore mankind’s relationship with nature.

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Tree Line Curve installation by Claudia Comte at the Rolex Learning Center. Photo: Kostas Maros.

Videos showing many other pieces of artwork from our permanent collection can be seen on the CDH YouTube channel.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

2021 THEMA TOPIC: UNCERTAINTY 2021 THEMA events We introduced the THEMA program in 2021 to explore a specific topic each year from the perspective of both the humanities and the technical sciences through a lineup of activities involving the EPFL community and the general public. Our first year of the program examined the topic of uncertainty, which was particularly relevant in light of the pandemic’s many twist and turns.

We regret to announce that our colleague Assyr Abdulle, one of the podcast speakers, sadly passed away on 1 September 2021.

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Panel discussions on uncertainty in knowledge with Christine Clavien, Sabine Süsstrunk, Lê Nguyen Hoang and Thierry Lhermitte. Photo: Hamza Houlaihel.

Philosophical hours We held a series of six philosophical discussions in 2021, intended to provide an open forum where students can ask questions and debate freely with philosophy professors. The discussions were held via Zoom to make it easier for people to participate during the pandemic. Up to 50 students took part in the discussions with professors Michael Esfeld, Sandra Laugier, Thierry Ménissier, Charles Pépin, Hugues Poltier and Johan Rochel. Artist Trân Tran sketched out drawings live; his drawings, along with summaries of each discussion, are available on the EPFL website (“Pour aller plus loin,” in French).

“Are you sure?” podcast In this podcast series, our journalist Anne Laure Gannac spoke with EPFL scientists and engineers about the role of certainty, uncertainty and doubt in their research and their careers more broadly. The series consisted of nine podcasts published on the main podcasting websites in the spring of 2021; the speakers were: Assyr Abdulle, Denis Duboule, Kathryn Hess, Wendy Queen, Sylvie Roke, Henrik Ronnow, Klaus Schönenberger, Carmela Troncoso and Paola Vigano.

Introduction to improvisation workshop We put on a workshop in 2021 that introduced participants to the benefits of improvisation. Eight students signed up for the class and were coached by three artists from Pool d’Impro du Poly. Over the 20 hours of group work the students put together a show, which they performed at Théâtre du Lapin Vert in Lausanne on 3 June 2021.

Panel discussions on uncertainty in knowledge We held three panel discussions in November and December associated with the 2021 THEMA topic of uncertainty. The discussions took place in the Niki cafeteria on the Lausanne campus, and around 60 people attended. Each panel was made up of four prestigious speakers who addressed the following subjects: → What power does science have over uncertainty? With Christine Clavien, Lê Nguyen Hoang, Thierry Lhermitte and Sabine Süsstrunk → Are Deepfakes the epitome of uncertainty? With Sebastian Dieguez, Prof. Touradj Ebrahimi, Anne-Gaëlle Lardeau and Sarah Sermondadaz → Why can uncertainty be appealing? This panel discussion was cancelled due to the pandemic

Video-game development workshop We worked with GameLab UNIL-EPFL to give a workshop on creating video games. Around 20 students signed up and spent an entire Saturday reconstructing Breakout, a video-arcade classic released in 1975.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

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French artist Caroline Corbasson joined the Laboratory for the History of Science and Technology, led by Jérôme Baudry, for a residency as part of the 2021 CDH Artist-in-Residence program. Photo: Andrea Montano.

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Michael Wollny was the guest of the Digital and Cognitive Musicology Lab led by Martin Rohrmeier, for a residency as part of the 2021 CDH Artist-in-Residence program. Photo: DR.

ARTIST-INRESIDENCE PROGRAM 2021 artists in residence We brought two artists to CDH as part of our artist-inresidence program in 2021: Caroline Corbasson, invited by Prof. Jérôme Baudry at the Laboratory for the History of Science and Technology (LHST); and Michael Wollny, invited by Prof. Martin Rohrmeier at the Digital and Cognitive Musicology Lab (DCML).

In October 2021, we rolled out the first official edition of our artist-in-residence program (after a two-year pilot phase) through an international call for proposals for a project titled Enter the Hyper Scientific. This new edition of the program reflects our goal of encouraging cross-disciplinary research and collaboration between artists and EPFL scientists, engineers and the broader community. We received 216 research proposals from around the world. Our artist-in-residence program aims to forge dynamic, inspiring partnerships for exploring new approaches to technology and design, including from a critical perspective, and developing synergies at the intersection of the arts, science, engineering and the humanities.

Caroline Corbasson Resident at LHST

Michael Wollny Resident at DCML

Corbasson is working with Prof. Baudry and his colleagues at the LHST on a short film called PHYSICS, which is inspired by the UNIL-EPFL Collection of Scientific Instruments. PHYSICS consists of five chapters, starting with the word “physics,” and explores topics through the prism of a relationship between two young people: meeting, sharing, love, tension, harmony and eventually separation. It juxtaposes various notions of scale against the backdrop of the EPFL campus and architecture, forming analogies with scientific instruments and daily life in a research lab.

Michael Wollny is one of the few German jazz pianists to achieve international fame and recognition for his artistic work. His music continues the European jazz tradition in innovative ways, building on the continent’s 19th-century, late-Romantic musical heritage and breaking with current trends in North American jazz. As part of his residency, Wollny will hold workshops along with Prof. Rohrmeier and his colleagues at the DCML, and will give public concerts in May and September 2022.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

HIGHLIGHTS

Creativity in Cultural Heritage

The workshop was sponsored by CDH and the Swiss National Science Foundation and attracted speakers and participants from around the world. Discussion topics ranged from the theoretical to the practical, with a variety of presentations on the interactions between cultural heritage, theory, art, craftsmanship, technology, governance, the environment, urban spaces and more. Junior researchers also took part in the event through a PhD poster session on 6 November.

CDH researchers Florence Graezer Bideau and Peter Bille Larsen held an interdisciplinary workshop titled The Heritage, Creativity and Innovation Nexus from 4 to 6 November. During the workshop, participants outlined a new theoretical framework for understanding how elements of contemporary culture are produced.

The organizers developed the workshop in response to the major creative shift taking place in the production of cultural heritage worldwide, with a view to dispelling the stereotype of cultural heritage as an exclusively historical discipline that is little concerned with innovation. However, dispelling stereotypes is easier said than done, given that the creative shift is being accompanied by a number of paradoxes and contradictions.

The workshop had an important educational aspect. It was run by three PhD programs (CUSO, EDAR and EDDH) through EPFL’s Doctoral School, bringing together students from anthropology, architecture, urban studies and digital humanities. Graezer Bideau and Bille Larsen are now jointly writing a research paper on the workshop topic, and the proceedings will be compiled into a published volume. They also see their workshop as a crucial opportunity to engage with heritage practitioners and institutional stakeholders, and are exploring ways to work more closely with international organizations and the Swiss Federal Office of Culture.

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Luca Zan, Professor of Economy at the University of Bologna (IT). Photo: Mengke Zhang.

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Michael Herzfeld, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Harvard University during the workshop. Photo: Virginie Martin.

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PhD school seminar: Interrogating heritage and creativity. Photo: Mengke Zhang.

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

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Nihat Kotluk. Photo: Gabriela Tejada.

Scholars at Risk program In 2021, we hosted Nihat Kotluk, a researcher from Turkey, as part of the Scholars at Risk program – an international university initiative that aims to protect academics who are under threat, prevent attacks on the scientific community and promote academic freedom around the world. Kotluk began his career as a physics teacher in 2008, where he developed an interest in teaching methods. After realizing that there was a lack of resources in Turkey for preparing teachers to handle classes of culturally and socioeconomically diverse students, he pursued a degree program in culturally relevant pedagogy. At CDH, Kotluk is completing his postdoctoral research in educational science (with Roland Tormey), with a particular focus on gender equality and diversity in engineering education. He has been awarded a Scientific Exchange grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation as part of its initiative to support the Scholars at Risk program in Switzerland.

In 2021, Kotluk worked with Tormey and Siara Isaac, a fellow education scientist at EPFL, to study ethical interactions and moral decision making in engineering classrooms. They are currently writing two research papers on their findings. Kotluk also worked with Hasan Aydin, a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University in the US, on a paper titled “Culturally Relevant/Sustaining Pedagogy in a Diverse Urban Classroom: Challenges of Pedagogy for Syrian Refugee Youths and Teachers in Turkey” (published in British Educational Research Journal, 47 (4), 900–921). Thanks to EPFL’s support, Kotluk was able to travel and give a number of seminars and keynote speeches in 2021, including the Culturally Relevant Education Seminar at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany (10–14 October); “In/exclusion in Mathematics and Science Education as a Matter of Pedagogy” at a seminar at Stockholm University, Sweden (29 November–3 December); and “Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching” at a seminar at Malmö University, Sweden (6–10 December).

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

Expenses and human resources

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

EXPENSES Full-year expenditure by sector and funding source Expenditure of third-party funding by funding source

HUMAN RESOURCES Staff breakdown by category Staff breakdown by funding source Staff breakdown by gender Staff numbers

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

EXPENSES AND HUMAN RESOURCES

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

EXPENSES FULL-YEAR EXPENDITURE BY SECTOR AND FUNDING SOURCE

EXPENDITURE OF THIRD-PARTY FUNDING BY FUNDING SOURCE

(in CHF)

(21% of total expenditures, in CHF)

70%

6,534,702

60%

50%

40%

30%

1,967,526

20%

552,229 317,188

20%

1,581,415 672,931

10%

1,155,202

229,727

10%

15%

14%

10,756,574

2,254,346

18% 61%

Internal salaries (EPFL)

Internal operating costs (EPFL)

External salaries (third-party funding)

51%

24%

External operating costs (third-party funding)

SNSF

Private and non-profit foundations

H2020

Various

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

EXPENSES AND HUMAN RESOURCES

College of Humanities - Annual Report 2021

HUMAN RESOURCES In 2021, François Jaccottet began his term as the new human resources manager at CDH.

STAFF BREAKDOWN BY CATEGORY

STAFF BREAKDOWN BY FUNDING SOURCE 53