Closure Event - Kick-out Meeting, Valence, Novembre 25th~27th 2025

Atelier de Recherche et Création (ARC)

In order to showcase all the work carried out during the EPE project period, and in particular the six workshops that enabled students, teachers and staff from all the institutions involved to work together, a major closing event was organised, consisting of a symposium and a retrospective exhibition. An ARC (Research and Creation Workshop) was opened in the first semester at Esad•Valence for Graphic Design students. The aim was to build the retrospective exhibition with a group of students, with professional standards and production conditions.

With eight sessions spread between mid-September and the end of November 2025 and an intensive week before the event, a group of seven students worked with Dominique Cunin to develop the entire exhibition of work produced throughout the EPE project. These students had all participated in an EPE workshop in the past, but their knowledge of the workshop projects they had not attended was limited.

This team worked meticulously and carefully to revamp the projects and ensure consistency across the entire exhibition. The tasks carried out were as follows:

• selection of projects to be highlighted
• design of signage specific to the exhibition
• drafting of labels in English
• design of graphic elements dedicated to the exhibition: timeline, technical explanations, etc.
• improving and finalising the EPE projects from the workshops
• reprinting paper items
• printing all the panels for the exhibition
• designing and manufacturing dedicated furniture for the exhibition, capable of accommodating computers (screens) and printed items
• physical organisation and on-site assembly
• Video recording of the symposium conferences
• Guided tours of the exhibition for the public during the symposium

This experience at Esad•Valence has professional value.

The contents of the exhibition are listed at the end of the document to give an overview of the high quality of the work produced.

In a way, this exhibition is similar to an innovative format: exhibition-to-print. In fact, apart from the computers needed to demonstrate the interactive and printable websites, all of the elements were printed for the occasion. It is therefore entirely possible for our international partners to hold the same exhibition on their premises, printing all of the elements to be displayed on site.

Content of the official information and invitation document

The Screen-Paper-Editing (Écran-Papier-Éditer, EPE) project was led by ESAD•GV from December 2023 to late 2025 under the research unit “Designing Tools, Tools for Design”. This initiative, developed in collaboration with a consortium of five national and international partners, addresses a critical issue: the hegemony of a handful of editing tools has severely limited design choices for online content layout. We argue that open-source tools can expand design possibilities by leveraging web technologies. Furthermore, these new toolchains promote ecological sustainability by enabling precise control over what is published on paper. It is therefore based on website content that we design hybrid editorial objects that combine screen and paper: web-to-print. Situated at the intersection of graphic production professions—with a particular focus on graphic design practices—EPE serves as both a conceptual and practical toolbox. Its goal is to develop open-license software modules that foster alternative and creative communication between screen and paper.

As part of Work Package 8 of the EPE cooperation project, this closing “Kick-out” event features public lectures and an exhibition showcasing selected works from the project’s two-year activities. The EPE project is funded by the European Union (CREA-CULT-2023-COOP, grant agreement 101131949).

Dates: 2025 November 25^th, 26^th & 27^th.

Location: Esad•Valence, place des Beaux-Arts, 26000 Valence, FRANCE

Rooms: conferences in the Amphitheater, exhibition in rooms Expo 1 & 2, in front of the Amphitheater.

Access by public transportation: from Pôle Bus Station (city center)

C4 line bound to Centre Pénitentiaire, stop at station Europe

C1 line bound to Pôle Briffaud, stop at station Bizet.

Free parking for vehicules.

Calendar

Tuesday 25 November

Reviewing the EPE project from its 3 pillars: pedagogy, technics, research.

EPE results lectures Part 1 – Consortium members keynotes

Morning

• 9h30: Welcome words from organizers

• 9h45: Dominique Cunin – Esad•Valence, EPE scientific leader, researcher, creative coder.

• 10h30: <u>Roundtable</u>, Esad•Valence, teaching assistant team for EPE:

  • Raphael Bottura, creative coder.
  • Coline Houot, graphic designer.
  • Romain Laurent, graphic designer.
  • Cédric Rossignol-Brunet, Esad•Valence teacher, creative coder.

• 11h45: Guided tour of the exhibition

Afternoon

• 14h: Gokhan Mura - Assoc. Prof., VCD, Department head, Izmir University of Economics, & Daniele Savasta - Assoc. Prof. Visual Communication Design.
• 15h: Tomislav Cigula - Assoc. Prof, Zagreb Faculty of Graphic Arts.
• 16h: Ikbel Charfi - Professor in Design & Sonda Kammoun - Assistant Professor, ISAM Sfax.

Discussions & closing of the day

Wednesday 26 November

Morning

EPE results lectures, Part 2 – Consortium members keynotes

• 9h30: Lionel Chagas - Director of Studies, Lecturer, Pagora, Grenoble INP.
• 10h30: Laurence Bardini - Chief Executive Officer & Louise Croze - Communications Officer and Webmaster, Hexagone Theater.

Guests’ keynotes: EPE and its openings

Part 1: web-to-print practices, theories, technics and industries

• 11h30: Raša Urbas – <u>About the</u> <u>Ghent Workgroup</u>, prof. Head of the Chair of Information and Graphic Arts Technology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Afternoon

• 14h00~16h00: <u>Web-to-print from theory to practices roundTable</u>

  • Antoine Fauchié, Assoc. Prof., Information and Documentation Sciences, UGA.
  • Sarah Garcin, Web developer/Graphic Design/Web2print.
  • Julien Taquet, UX Designer, Paged.js developer.

• 16h20: Guided tour of the exhibition

Thursday 27 November

Morning

Guests’ keynotes Part 2 – Future orientations & AI considerations

• 9:30: Alice Guarnieri, <u>AI in the editorial chain – an attempt,</u> Graphic Designer, Milano.
• 10:30: Frederik De Bleser, <u>The <span class="mark">Algorithmic Gaze</span></u>, Researcher, software engineer and UX designer, Karel de Grote University, Antwerp.
• 11:30: Lucile Haute – <u>About the collection The Web-to-Print Library</u>, senior lecturer, Projekt, Nîmes University, associate researcher EnsadLab, École des Arts Décoratifs PSL.
• 12:30 Fabienne Trotte, <u>EU Cooperation projects: a vector for art and design research</u>, Research & Innovation Project Manager, Relais Culture Europe.

End of the public part of the event.

Afternoon

Private Consortium meeting (research room)

EPE project closure meeting, with EPE’s partners on site:

• Reminder of the produced deliverables.
• Reminder about what need to be finished to close the project.
• Questions about the next steps for each partner.

Some elements for a conclusion to EPE

The EPE project has been both a continuation of a set of practices already underway in web-to-print, and the beginning of a fruitful and exciting European and extra-European collaboration.

We are proud of this collaboration, which resulted in 26 projects across six workshops. EPE has had numerous effects, which are explained in the various reports we have produced. Our deliverables are these reports, but above all the design productions and software contributions we have implemented.

We are particularly proud to have participated in the creation of a new communications position at the Théâtre Hexagone. Louise Croze (formerly Thomas Croze, a student in the Digital Environments Research programme at Esad•Valence) is in charge of the effective implementation of our web-to-print solution for all of the Hexagone's communications. This demonstrates that the techniques we have developed and the skills of our students are responding to a new situation that may have a real impact on the graphic arts industry.

It is important to note that the technological aspect of EPE is supported by the NLNet foundation, with whom we have signed a memorandum of understanding that is still in force at the time of completing this cooperation project. Much work has been accomplished, and many people have been affected by our actions. Collaborations are currently continuing in other contexts, in particular in the setting up of a Horizon Europe project on a different theme but bringing together some of the EPE stakeholders.

All lectures are publicly available on Canal U: https://www.canal-u.tv/chaines/esad-grenoble-valence.