Centre for Creative Technologies Exhibition
🗓️ Wednesday, 24 June — 5:10pm
- 6:30pm
(80 mins)
Image
Abstract
Alaz Okudan
Title: Handful of Pixels
Format: Video, 4:31, displayed on CRT screen
Description of the Work:
This work inverts the precise identification of bodies through surveillance by playing with pixelation, noise, and de-identification. Using an offline object detection system connected to a webcam, the film captures people detected on photographs and simultaneously reduces them to a handful of pixels, replacing the common aim of precise identification in surveillance technologies with ambiguity. Compressed video reduces recognisable traces even further. In a world where machine learning and computer vision technologies increasingly rely on clean data, high processing capacity, and precise labels, coarse pixels and increasing compression introduces a gritty way of resistance.
Hermano Luz Rodrigues
Description of Day-Night Photos: Backyard:
What if you could adjust a photo's lighting in real time, transitioning seamlessly from day to night just like a smart light?
In this interactive art installation, the viewer controls the passage of time within a still photograph. Using a dial, viewers rotate the dial to seamlessly shift the lighting conditions through morning, noon, and night, while the depiction itself remains immobile.
The work was developed using a blend of new digital and AI visualisation tools, creative coding software, and Luz’s photographs.
Hua-Chun (Fionn) Fan
Title: Sonic Proxemics: The Hidden Symphony of Intimacy and Play
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped our sense of personal space, revealing how proximity reflects comfort, trust, and relationships. Building on Edward T. Hall’s proxemics model, this project examines desire, loneliness, and emerging spatial relations, using immersive theatre to re-examine interpersonal boundaries in post-pandemic public life.
Through sound-responsive sensor wearables — Proximity Wings — the research explores how technology can mediate closeness and the anticipation of trust through shared sonic experience. Sound becomes not only an aesthetic layer, but a relational force — gently modulating intimacy, awareness, and social dynamics.
The study also considers how behaviour shifts when a non-human agent — a robot dog — enters the space, inviting reflection on how we feel, respond, and care.
Developed in Ireland, the Proximity Wings later travelled across borders. The films presented here capture moments of playful encounter, where musicians, architects, dancers, and theatre-makers transformed proximity into shared discovery.
🎧 Every sound in these films originates from the Proximity Wings and is gently sculpted in post-production — flowing through overture, interlude, and finale.
🎧 Curious to “hear your distance” from others? Join the Interactive Session from 3pm.
▪ Play in order:
1.Summer Resonance | Sonic Proxemics ⎯The Hidden Symphony of Intimacy and Play (2025. 4:12)
2. More-than-Human | Sonic Proxemics #ft. Shep (2025 Oct. 2:57)
3. Mountain Resonance | Baden・Austria | Wing no.1 (2025 Jul. 1:48)
4. Urban Echos I: Timeless | Tokyo・Japan | Wing no.4 (2025 Aug. 2:23)
5. Urban Echos II: Modern | Tokyo・Japan | Wing no.3 (2025 Aug. 2:17)
Rocío Grau
Computer Brain Interfaces (BCI) in Creative Practice
Rocío Grau is a multidisciplinary artist working with emergent neurotechnologies able to capture and analyse brain activity. She repurposes electroencephalographic headbands (EEG) to convert brain data into visual and musical forms, opening the scope of alternative representations and interpretations of neural signals. Through this interdisciplinary approach, she bridges art, science, and technology, inviting audiences to reflect on the relationship between mind, machine, and creative expression, as well as the possibilities of reimagining data as a material for creative inquiry.
Jen Hesnan
I am not a Tech(y) Person. How might we sustain creative learning environments for children and young people to thrive with emerging technologies?
Jen invites you to play with technology and to develop discourse through peer-led creative engagement for all ages.
Jen Hesnan’s doctoral research explores the provision of inquiry-based creative learning environments that support children and young people to engage in human-centred learning. Offering space to play with emerging technologies for the development of real-world soft-skill outcomes in civic society.
Research suggests that there is growing concern among policymakers, parents, and educators regarding the well-being of children and young people in relation to consumer-based technologies. New innovative technological applications are emerging at an unprecedented pace. This acceleration has contributed to an increasingly visible gap between the realities of technological change and the capacity of education and youth sectors to uphold the rights of children and young people when engaging in new technologies, as articulated in the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comment No. 25 (GC25) in relation to the digital environment. The title of this research, “I am not a Tech(y) Person,” reflects the self-perception barriers commonly expressed by education providers across Irish non-formal and formal education sectors and the need for space to facilitate intergenerational discourse.
Her six-year part-time PhD. research project at the Centre for Creative Technologies in partnership with the Galway Roscommon Education and Training Board aims to better understand thematic discourse and systematic provision of Creative Learning Environments at all stakeholder levels in Ireland and Europe. Supporting the future navigation narrative of digital transformation whilst maintaining a focus on creativity, youth participation, and the human rights of children and young people. This includes considerations for those most vulnerable from marginalised and disadvantaged backgrounds.
Currently at the stage of a focused, systematic, thematic review of European and Irish Policy. Examining systematic enablers and barriers of thematic discourse across key themes of creativity and digital transformation in the context of youth participation within a European and Irish context. Subsequent phases of research will see the development of creative living lab environments. Inviting stakeholders to play with purpose, generating discourse that supports experimentation within the context of technology-enhanced learning, through creativity, play, and multi-stakeholder collaboration.
Title: Handful of Pixels
Format: Video, 4:31, displayed on CRT screen
Description of the Work:
This work inverts the precise identification of bodies through surveillance by playing with pixelation, noise, and de-identification. Using an offline object detection system connected to a webcam, the film captures people detected on photographs and simultaneously reduces them to a handful of pixels, replacing the common aim of precise identification in surveillance technologies with ambiguity. Compressed video reduces recognisable traces even further. In a world where machine learning and computer vision technologies increasingly rely on clean data, high processing capacity, and precise labels, coarse pixels and increasing compression introduces a gritty way of resistance.
Hermano Luz Rodrigues
Description of Day-Night Photos: Backyard:
What if you could adjust a photo's lighting in real time, transitioning seamlessly from day to night just like a smart light?
In this interactive art installation, the viewer controls the passage of time within a still photograph. Using a dial, viewers rotate the dial to seamlessly shift the lighting conditions through morning, noon, and night, while the depiction itself remains immobile.
The work was developed using a blend of new digital and AI visualisation tools, creative coding software, and Luz’s photographs.
Hua-Chun (Fionn) Fan
Title: Sonic Proxemics: The Hidden Symphony of Intimacy and Play
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped our sense of personal space, revealing how proximity reflects comfort, trust, and relationships. Building on Edward T. Hall’s proxemics model, this project examines desire, loneliness, and emerging spatial relations, using immersive theatre to re-examine interpersonal boundaries in post-pandemic public life.
Through sound-responsive sensor wearables — Proximity Wings — the research explores how technology can mediate closeness and the anticipation of trust through shared sonic experience. Sound becomes not only an aesthetic layer, but a relational force — gently modulating intimacy, awareness, and social dynamics.
The study also considers how behaviour shifts when a non-human agent — a robot dog — enters the space, inviting reflection on how we feel, respond, and care.
Developed in Ireland, the Proximity Wings later travelled across borders. The films presented here capture moments of playful encounter, where musicians, architects, dancers, and theatre-makers transformed proximity into shared discovery.
🎧 Every sound in these films originates from the Proximity Wings and is gently sculpted in post-production — flowing through overture, interlude, and finale.
🎧 Curious to “hear your distance” from others? Join the Interactive Session from 3pm.
▪ Play in order:
1.Summer Resonance | Sonic Proxemics ⎯The Hidden Symphony of Intimacy and Play (2025. 4:12)
2. More-than-Human | Sonic Proxemics #ft. Shep (2025 Oct. 2:57)
3. Mountain Resonance | Baden・Austria | Wing no.1 (2025 Jul. 1:48)
4. Urban Echos I: Timeless | Tokyo・Japan | Wing no.4 (2025 Aug. 2:23)
5. Urban Echos II: Modern | Tokyo・Japan | Wing no.3 (2025 Aug. 2:17)
Rocío Grau
Computer Brain Interfaces (BCI) in Creative Practice
Rocío Grau is a multidisciplinary artist working with emergent neurotechnologies able to capture and analyse brain activity. She repurposes electroencephalographic headbands (EEG) to convert brain data into visual and musical forms, opening the scope of alternative representations and interpretations of neural signals. Through this interdisciplinary approach, she bridges art, science, and technology, inviting audiences to reflect on the relationship between mind, machine, and creative expression, as well as the possibilities of reimagining data as a material for creative inquiry.
Jen Hesnan
I am not a Tech(y) Person. How might we sustain creative learning environments for children and young people to thrive with emerging technologies?
Jen invites you to play with technology and to develop discourse through peer-led creative engagement for all ages.
Jen Hesnan’s doctoral research explores the provision of inquiry-based creative learning environments that support children and young people to engage in human-centred learning. Offering space to play with emerging technologies for the development of real-world soft-skill outcomes in civic society.
Research suggests that there is growing concern among policymakers, parents, and educators regarding the well-being of children and young people in relation to consumer-based technologies. New innovative technological applications are emerging at an unprecedented pace. This acceleration has contributed to an increasingly visible gap between the realities of technological change and the capacity of education and youth sectors to uphold the rights of children and young people when engaging in new technologies, as articulated in the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comment No. 25 (GC25) in relation to the digital environment. The title of this research, “I am not a Tech(y) Person,” reflects the self-perception barriers commonly expressed by education providers across Irish non-formal and formal education sectors and the need for space to facilitate intergenerational discourse.
Her six-year part-time PhD. research project at the Centre for Creative Technologies in partnership with the Galway Roscommon Education and Training Board aims to better understand thematic discourse and systematic provision of Creative Learning Environments at all stakeholder levels in Ireland and Europe. Supporting the future navigation narrative of digital transformation whilst maintaining a focus on creativity, youth participation, and the human rights of children and young people. This includes considerations for those most vulnerable from marginalised and disadvantaged backgrounds.
Currently at the stage of a focused, systematic, thematic review of European and Irish Policy. Examining systematic enablers and barriers of thematic discourse across key themes of creativity and digital transformation in the context of youth participation within a European and Irish context. Subsequent phases of research will see the development of creative living lab environments. Inviting stakeholders to play with purpose, generating discourse that supports experimentation within the context of technology-enhanced learning, through creativity, play, and multi-stakeholder collaboration.
Biography
Alaz Okudan is a PhD researcher at the University of Galway’s Centre for Creative Technologies, working on accidents and failures of contemporary AI. His current interests are in slow media and poor images. He experiments with analogue and digital forms of image-making. https://alazokudan.github.io/
Hermano Luz Rodrigues is a PhD candidate in Creative Technologies at the University of Galway and holds a Master in Design Studies Degree from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. His research explores how visualization technologies shape understanding and decision-making in contemporary urban design and public art projects.
Hua-Chun (Fionn) Fan, a Taipei-born screen composer, creative technology researcher, and transmedia artist, explores the interplay of sound, technology, and urban ambiance. Selected as 1 of 6 Emerging Female Composers at Ireland’s Finding A Voice Festival (2024), her work spans film, animation, games, and award-nominated book design. Since 2023, she has pursued a PhD at the University of Galway, investigating how sound, play, and intelligent machines reshape intimacy, proximity, and collective encounters in shared spaces.
Rocío Grau is an interdisciplinary artist based in Ireland. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Centre for Creative Technologies in the University of Galway (Ireland). Her practice-based research investigates the mediation of emerging technologies in the human experience through critical lenses across art, technology and philosophy.
Grau started her career as a musician, following classical and modern studies in piano, voice, and composition. After 5 published albums and 20 years of collaborations with other artistic disciplines, she focused on audiovisual digital art and completed a degree and masters in Contemporary Art and Creative Practice in the Atlantic Technological Institute (ATU, Galway) with two Academic Excellence Awards.
Her interest in interdisciplinary research manifests through awarded residencies such as Studio Quantum (Goethe Institute) or Art-Science-Technology-Society (Tabakalera, Donosti). Her artistic work interrogates emerging technologies in interactive installations, and she has exhibited across different European cities, such as Barcelona, Berlin, Donosti, or Dublin.
Jen Hesnan
GRETB Creative Youth Coordinator, Galway and Roscommon Education and Training Board
Facilitation Specialist - Digital Media, STEAM, Creative Technology, Music and Visual Arts, Creative Youth Voice Consultation
Current Research - Creative Technology in Education and Youth
mBord Stiúrtha - Áras na nGael
Jen is the Galway Roscommon Education and Training Board (GRETB) Creative Youth Coordinator. She develops creative programmes and partnerships to provide children and young people who are seldom heard, opportunities to engage in creativity in out-of-school settings. She leads creative programmes that focus on STEAM learning, music, dance, arts, and emerging technologies for youth work and education settings. Specialising in strategic partnership development, fundraising, and marketing, to support participants from marginalised and disadvantaged backgrounds to engage in creative experiences. Recognising the potential for creative learning outcomes and technology, her research with the GRETB and Centre for Creative Technologies focuses on developing an understanding of best practice and programme strategies in digital youth work and creative technology in education settings. An experienced Senior Programme Manager, of international and national large-scale education and creativity programmes in community, youth, and arts organisations across Europe, Scotland and Ireland. Past examples of programme development and directorship include, but are not limited to; Misleór Youth with Galway Traveller Movement, Vibes Dance Programme with Galway Dance and IPAS centres, Music Generation Galway City, Creative Communities of Practice for Early Years Settings with Galway Childcare Committee, Creative Tech Fest with Kinia, as well as Clár TechSpace, Tech Féile, and Clár Cruthaitheacthta do Bun Chlubanna Óige with Muintearas Teo., in her native tongue - the Irish Language.
Research Interests:
Her research interests lie in government policy and practice review, strategic development and enhancing learning spaces to include youth voice, based on Article 12 and 31 of the UNRC. This includes policy reviews, profiling local partnership networks, publishing programme case studies, and systems analysis across education and community development structures. An active participant in Digital Youth Work and the Digital Transformation Priority European Commission Erasmus+ programmes and European Solidarity Corp. Having completed research and published policy briefs, working as a core member of Strategic National Agency Co-operations for national Erasmus agencies such as Leargás in Ireland, RAY Network at a European level, Jugend Fur Europa in Germany, Rannis in Iceland, and the Finnish National Agency. A published author in peer-reviewed journals such as Cambridge University Press highlighting innovative youth development practices. Co-developer and lecturer on the level 9 Specialist Certificate in Digital Creativity in Youth Settings with the University of Maynooth.
Hermano Luz Rodrigues is a PhD candidate in Creative Technologies at the University of Galway and holds a Master in Design Studies Degree from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. His research explores how visualization technologies shape understanding and decision-making in contemporary urban design and public art projects.
Hua-Chun (Fionn) Fan, a Taipei-born screen composer, creative technology researcher, and transmedia artist, explores the interplay of sound, technology, and urban ambiance. Selected as 1 of 6 Emerging Female Composers at Ireland’s Finding A Voice Festival (2024), her work spans film, animation, games, and award-nominated book design. Since 2023, she has pursued a PhD at the University of Galway, investigating how sound, play, and intelligent machines reshape intimacy, proximity, and collective encounters in shared spaces.
Rocío Grau is an interdisciplinary artist based in Ireland. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Centre for Creative Technologies in the University of Galway (Ireland). Her practice-based research investigates the mediation of emerging technologies in the human experience through critical lenses across art, technology and philosophy.
Grau started her career as a musician, following classical and modern studies in piano, voice, and composition. After 5 published albums and 20 years of collaborations with other artistic disciplines, she focused on audiovisual digital art and completed a degree and masters in Contemporary Art and Creative Practice in the Atlantic Technological Institute (ATU, Galway) with two Academic Excellence Awards.
Her interest in interdisciplinary research manifests through awarded residencies such as Studio Quantum (Goethe Institute) or Art-Science-Technology-Society (Tabakalera, Donosti). Her artistic work interrogates emerging technologies in interactive installations, and she has exhibited across different European cities, such as Barcelona, Berlin, Donosti, or Dublin.
Jen Hesnan
GRETB Creative Youth Coordinator, Galway and Roscommon Education and Training Board
Facilitation Specialist - Digital Media, STEAM, Creative Technology, Music and Visual Arts, Creative Youth Voice Consultation
Current Research - Creative Technology in Education and Youth
mBord Stiúrtha - Áras na nGael
Jen is the Galway Roscommon Education and Training Board (GRETB) Creative Youth Coordinator. She develops creative programmes and partnerships to provide children and young people who are seldom heard, opportunities to engage in creativity in out-of-school settings. She leads creative programmes that focus on STEAM learning, music, dance, arts, and emerging technologies for youth work and education settings. Specialising in strategic partnership development, fundraising, and marketing, to support participants from marginalised and disadvantaged backgrounds to engage in creative experiences. Recognising the potential for creative learning outcomes and technology, her research with the GRETB and Centre for Creative Technologies focuses on developing an understanding of best practice and programme strategies in digital youth work and creative technology in education settings. An experienced Senior Programme Manager, of international and national large-scale education and creativity programmes in community, youth, and arts organisations across Europe, Scotland and Ireland. Past examples of programme development and directorship include, but are not limited to; Misleór Youth with Galway Traveller Movement, Vibes Dance Programme with Galway Dance and IPAS centres, Music Generation Galway City, Creative Communities of Practice for Early Years Settings with Galway Childcare Committee, Creative Tech Fest with Kinia, as well as Clár TechSpace, Tech Féile, and Clár Cruthaitheacthta do Bun Chlubanna Óige with Muintearas Teo., in her native tongue - the Irish Language.
Research Interests:
Her research interests lie in government policy and practice review, strategic development and enhancing learning spaces to include youth voice, based on Article 12 and 31 of the UNRC. This includes policy reviews, profiling local partnership networks, publishing programme case studies, and systems analysis across education and community development structures. An active participant in Digital Youth Work and the Digital Transformation Priority European Commission Erasmus+ programmes and European Solidarity Corp. Having completed research and published policy briefs, working as a core member of Strategic National Agency Co-operations for national Erasmus agencies such as Leargás in Ireland, RAY Network at a European level, Jugend Fur Europa in Germany, Rannis in Iceland, and the Finnish National Agency. A published author in peer-reviewed journals such as Cambridge University Press highlighting innovative youth development practices. Co-developer and lecturer on the level 9 Specialist Certificate in Digital Creativity in Youth Settings with the University of Maynooth.