Creative Practice

School of Communications

Creative practice is central to research and teaching in the School of Communications, both as a mode of research and as professional media production. Our staff and students create work across a wide spectrum, from art installations, sound compositions and live performance to documentary film, photography and podcasts. Through practice-based research, we use creative making as a rigorous form of scholarly inquiry, contributing to national and international cultural conversations.

The Last Balkan Cowboy - Dragana Jurišić

The Last Balkan Cowboy Dr Dragana Jurišić

The Last Balkan Cowboy is a long-term project by Dragana Jurišić that follows the footsteps of cult Yugoslavian film director, Hari Džekson. Renowned for his interpretation of Wild West genre archetypes, Džekson lived a cowboy fantasy inspired by the rugged landscapes around Bijeljina in present-day Bosnia-Herzegovina. Using local people as his crew and cast, Džekson conjured worlds far from his reality and brought together people of different ethnic backgrounds, whom the Yugoslav Wars would bitterly divide. A photographic exhibition at Dublin's Temple Bar Galleries + Studios

Nhenety - AI/AI: Artificial Intelligence, Art and Indigeneity - Andreas Rauh

AI/AI: Artificial Intelligence, Art and Indigeneity Dr Andreas Rauh

AI art is a hot topic right now. Some people are horrified by what AI art tools can do; others see fascinating applications and real potential. But these tools are only as good as the people who design them and the images they're trained on, and that's where bias can creep in.

Andreas Rauh, via the AIAI project tested MidJourney to see how well it represented Indigenous peoples and cultures. We ran online focus groups with 17 Indigenous participants, all with a strong interest in art and technology, generating prompts around imagined scenes of community life in 2050 and discussing the results from an Indigenous perspective. Visit the project online at aei.art.br

Macalla - Declan Tuite

Macalla Dr. Declan Tuite

Macalla (Irish for resonance/echo) is a practice-based research project exploring how architecture shapes and is shaped by sound. Original choral compositions, recorded in studio, were reintroduced to acoustically significant Irish sites, including Kilmainham Gaol, former Magdalene Laundries, churches, and civic buildings, creating immersive Ambisonic works. These site recordings revealed how spaces actively participate in composition, generating new sonic possibilities beyond the original intentions. Disseminated via VR/360 video, octophonic concerts, and immersive headphone listening, Macalla invites audiences to navigate spatial soundscapes and shape their own listening experience. The project also engages with Ireland's institutional history, using voice and architecture to create "impossible choirs," sound filling spaces once designed for silence and control, offering new ways to remember and reflect on difficult heritage through immersive sound.