The Atelier Zérodeux project, realised in collaboration with the Swiss Universities of Art and Design, began in December 2000. A dozen film students and young filmmakers from Lausanne, Zurich, Lucerne and Geneva met in Biel-Bienne to take part in the first documentary film workshop.

This is the realisation of a project created in 1997 at the Ecole Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne and submitted to the Expo with the support of the Swiss Universities of Art and Design. The Atelier Zérodeux project was developed in 1999 by a group of teachers and young film-makers in collaboration with the Direction Artistique of Expo.02.

An audiovisual mémoire

Atelier Zérodeux aims to create an audiovisual mémoire of Expo.02, expressing the curious, unusual, tender, ironic and critical views that young filmmakers have of the event and of Switzerland today.

Audiovisual Mémoire does not mean archive or promotional films for Expo.02, but rather a series of independent contributions realised in very different fields:

• in the documentary section, fifty short films will be produced on various aspects of Expo.02 and contemporary Switzerland;
• in the area of free short film contributions, some sixty spots will be created, taking as their starting point the themes chosen for the Arteplages and developing them in original ways;
• in the area of interactive media, installations will be designed and created to film the contributions of Expo.02 visitors. In addition, a database will be created that will include all the films realised by Atelier Zérodeux.

In this third area, a project in the field of applied research is planned, initially in collaboration between the Ecole Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne, a member of the University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland, and the Lysis company in Lausanne. Subsequently, the project will be extended to other schools that are members of a university of applied sciences and other partners from the business world.

Place of production - open to interested visitors

The realisation of the documentary short films and the free film contributions will be entrusted to higher semesters of the schools of design, young filmmakers, videographers and independent designers. The contributions will be broadcast before, during and after the opening of Expo.02 at the exhibition itself, on national television channels and via other interactive channels.

Very close to the entrance to the Arteplage, the Atelier Zérodeux in Biel-Bienne has premises available to participants from all over Switzerland for training, research and production. During Expo.02, these premises are also open to interested visitors.

Arteplage
Biel-Bienne

Partner
SRG SSR idée suisse, Berne www.srgssr.ch
Volkart Foundation, Winterthur www.volkart.ch
Federal Office of Communications OFCOM, Biel-Bienne www.bakom.admin.ch
Swiss Universities of Art and Design

Project management
Jean-François Blanc (Head)
Gérard Ruey (Producer)
Werner Schweizer (Producer)
in collaboration with Expo.02, SRG SSR idée suisse and the Swiss Universities of Art and Design.

Coaching Expo.02                        
Pidu Russek (Head)
Karin Hilzinger
Dogan Firuzbay

^{Photos: © Kornelija Narako; © Michael Ryffel; are still missing - send us yours! expo.02(at)ex-expo.ch}