Email – jurgen.simpson@ul.ie / Office – CS2-009 / Tel: +353 (61) 202759
Jürgen Simpson is a composer, performer and academic. His work is performed internationally and spans the area of dance, electronic music, film, opera and installation art. His most recent large-scale work “Air India [redacted]”, a setting of poems by Renée Sarojini Saklikar to music and video, was premiered in Vancouver in 2015. In 2003 he received the Genesis Opera Project’s principal award for “Thwaite” with librettist Simon Doyle.
He has written extensively for film including six works with director Clare Langan (including “Metamorphosis” which received the principal award at the 2007 Oberhausen Film Festival) and seven screendance works with director Mary Wycherley, including the feature length film “In The Bell’s Shadow” (2015) composed for the Irish Chamber Orchestra.
His works for the gallery include “Within You, Without You” with architects O’Donnell & Tuomey and digital artist Nicholas Ward for the 2008 Venice Architectural Biennale. His work has been supported by RTÉ, The Arts Council of Ireland, Culture Ireland, The British Council, The Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Canada Council for the Arts.
He was a member of the band The Jimmy Cake from 2000 to 2008 and recorded and produced their third album “Spectre and Crown”. He is the director of the Digital Media and Arts Research Centre (DMARC) at the University of Limerick and is the co-founder of Light Moves – Festival of Screendance. Recent writings includes chapters in the Oxford Screendance Handbook and Dance Matters in Ireland (Palgrave) and an essay for the International Screendance Journal.
Email – giuseppe.torre@ul.ie / Office – CS2-007 / Tel: +353 (61) 234611
My work spans live electronic performances, audiovisual compositions and media art. More recently I have developed a keen interest in the philosophical issues arising from the relationships between art and technology; a process that has so far led me to question under what forms and forces truly creative efforts may, or may not, arise. I have performed live and exhibited both nationally and internationally, My academic writings features in journals and books by publishing houses such as MIT Press, Springer and Taylor & Francis. Currently I am Course Director for the BSc in Creative Media and Interaction Design at UL. My research interests are: a/v live performances, media art, coding for arts, critical code studies, philosophy of art.
Personal Website
Email – kerry.hagan@ul.ie / Office – CS2-011 / Tel: +353 (61) 213099
Kerry is a composer and researcher working in both acoustic and computer media. She develops real-time methods for spatialization and stochastic algorithms, and studies the aesthetics and history of electronic music. She holds a Ph.D. in Composition from the University of California, San Diego, where she worked with Roger Reynolds, Chaya Czernowin, Miller Puckette, and F. Richard Moore. She also worked with Marc Battier at the Sorbonne as a Visiting Researcher. Current research includes real-time stochastic methods for music composition and sound synthesis, spatialization techniques for 3D sounds, and electronic/electroacoustic musicology.
Personal Website
Email – nicholas.ward@ul.ie / Office – CS2-012 / Tel: +353 (61) 234246
Nicholas holds a PhD from the Sonic Arts Research Centre at Queens University Belfast. His research explores notions of physicality and effort in the context of digital musical instrument performance. Specifically he is interested in movement quality, systems for movement description, and their utility within a design context.
Email – mikael.fernstrom@ul.ie / Office – CS2-033
Dr. Mikael Fernström studied Electronic Engineering and Telecommunication at the Kattegatt Technical College in Halmstad, Sweden (completed 1975), and an M.Sc. by research in Computer Science from University of Limerick 1998. He is a Lecturer, Researcher and Course Director for UL’s Master’s Program in Interactive Media. He has participated in a number of research projects at the University of Limerick, including the Multimedia Browser Project (1995-1998), Sound of Action (1997-2000), Infopolis II (1997-2000), and LiteFoot (1997 -), Z-tiles (2001-2004), EU Sounding Objects (2001-2003), Multimodal Browsing (2002-2005).
Currently he is completing his Ph.D. in Ecological Acoustics and Sound Design.
His research interests cover Computer Science, HCI, Electronics, Sound, Music, Multimedia, History, Archaeology and the Performing Arts. He is a faculty member of the Interaction Design Centre at the University of Limerick, and also affiliated with the Centre for Computational Musicology and Computer Music (CCMCM) at the University of Limerick. He previously worked in industry (1975-1995) as inventor, electronics engineer, industrial designer, manager, composer, and director. He is one of the Irish delegates on the EU COST Action 287: ConGas gesture controlled audio effects. He is a member of the Audio Engineering Society and the International Society of Ecological Psychology.
Personal Website
Email – neil.oconnor@ul.ie / Office – CS2-025
Composer and Producer Neil O Connor has been involved in multi-media, experimental, electronic and electro-acoustic music for the past 20 years and has toured extensively in Ireland, Europe, Australia, Asia and the US. His work was been shown/performed at Resonances Festival @ IRCAM Paris, Kunsthalle, Berlin, Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art, Institute of Contemporary Art, London and has held residencies at the Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art, USA and EMS – Swedish Institute of Electro-Acoustic Music, Stockholm, Sweden.
His research background focused on the development of graphic notation systems for electronic music. As as performer, his compositional background is multi-channel electro acoustic music using spectral music techniques and as a performer – live improvisational electronics using custom modular synthesizers.
Neil has lectured in Music, Composition and Performance Technology since 2005 at Art Institute of California (San Francisco), The Institute of Audio Research (New York City) and Trinity College (Dublin) where he received his Masters in Music Technology and PhD in Composition.
Neil is represented in Ireland by the CMC (Contemporary Music Center), AIC (Association of Irish Composers), ISSTA (Irish Sound, Science and Technology Association), SMC (Spatial Music Collective) and published by IMRO (Irish Musical Rights Organisation).
Email – nora.omurchu@ul.ie / Office – CS2-025
Nora O’ Murchu is a lecturer, researcher and curator at the Interaction Design Centre in the University of Limerick. She has a degree in Electronic and Computer Engineering from NuiGalway and received her Masters in Interactive Media from the University of Limerick in 2008.
She is the founder of Tweak an interactive digital art festival that focuses on promoting the understanding of the use of open source technology within our culture and to explore contemporary issues.
She is a member of Council a think-tank focused on the Internet of Things and in 2019 was announced new artistic director of transmediale starting from 2021
Her current research focuses on the design of open-ended interactive systems and how open source communities can offer unique insights for the development of these interactive systems for the Interaction Design Community.
Email – robindra.parmar@ul.ie / Office – CS2-008
Robin Parmar is a media artist who explores the poetics of place and memory using non-narrative film, generative video, sound installations, and field recording.
Additional research interests include psychoacoustics, audio synthesis, radiophonics, phenomenology, post-punk music, and science-fiction.
Robin lectures at the Digital Media Arts Research Centre at the University of Limerick and is on the board of the Irish Science, Sound, and Technology Association (ISSTA). His website is robinparmar.com .