Composition and creative audio; musical HCI, embodied and ecological models of sound, electroacoustic music, experimental music, sound installation practices; spatial/immersive media; music and image; sound studies; microtonality and drones; interdisciplinarity in arts and technology
Please see my Ulster University staff profile for full information on my current research profile activities.
Current projects include leading the DfE Presence Lab capital project, and being a Co-Investigator on the AHRC CoSTAR project. For further info, see our research unit website.
I have included older research resources here, as well as some selected recent publications.
2025 CHAPTER (with S. Roddy). Cybernetic Resurgences: Machine Music Beyond AI Slop. In: Zagalo and Keller, eds. Artificial Media. Springer.
2024 CHAPTER (with A. Melvin). Cinematic Crosstalk and Psychotechnological Spaces: understanding the soundtrack’s materiality, multimodality and embodiment through conceptual blending. In: Filimowicz, M., ed. Routledge Handbook of Sound Design. Routledge.
2021 PAPER, PUBLISHED PROCEEDINGS. Electroacoustic Music as Embodied Cognition. Electroacoustic Music Studies Network annual conference, De Montfort University, UK, November ’21. Available at: https://zenodo.org/record/5981466 (published 6/2/22)
2021 PAPER, PUBLISHED PROCEEDINGS (with S. Roddy). The Design of a Smart City Sonification System Using a Conceptual Blending and Music Framework, Web Audio and Deep Learning Techniques. Proceedings of the International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD), 2021.
2021 CHAPTER (with A. Melvin). Mapping Space and Time in the Soundtrack: embodied cognition and the soundtrack’s spatiotemporal contract. In: Filimowicz, M (ed), Doing Research in Sound Design. Routledge.
2021 CHAPTER (with S. Roddy) Meaning-making and Embodiment in Sound Design Research. In: Filimowicz, M (ed), Doing Research in Sound Design. Routledge.
2020 ARTICLE (with S. Roddy). Mapping for meaning: the embodied sonification listening model and its implications for the mapping problem in sonic information design. Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces. 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12193-020-00318-y
2019 CHAPTER (with E. Bates and A. Melvin) Installations: Sound Spatialization. In: Filimowicz, M (ed). Foundations in Sound Design. Routledge
2019 CHAPTER (with A. Melvin) Music Theory for Sound Designers. In: Filimowicz, M (ed). Foundations in Sound Design. Routledge
2018 ARTICLE (with S. Roddy).‘Addressing the Mapping Problem in Sonic Information Design through Embodied Image Schemata, Conceptual Metaphors, and Conceptual Blending‘, Journal of Sonic Studies, 17 (2018) https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/515156/515157/0/0
2018 CHAPTER (with S. Roddy). ‘Sound, Ecological Affordances and Embodied Mappings in Auditory Display’. In. Filimowicz, M. & Tzankova, V. (eds.). New Directions in Third Wave Human–Computer Interaction. Vol. 2, p. 231-258 27. Basel, Switzerland: Springer.
2017 PAPER, PUBLISHED PROCEEDINGS, (with R. Graham, W. Brent and C. Manzione). ‘Exploring Pitch and Timbre Spaces in VR: Virtual Reality as an Incubator for Performance Systems Design’. NIME 2017, Aalborg University, Denmark, May 2017
2016 PAPER, PUBLISHED PROCEEDINGS (with S. Roddy) ‘Sounding Human with Data’. MusTWork16 Conference, University College Dublin, 10th June, 2016. Proceedings: http://www.ucd.ie/mustwork2016/
Doctoral research on microtonality:
My PhD (National University of Ireland, Maynooth, submitted 2012) was on microtonality:
Towards a Perceptually-grounded Theory of Microtonality: issues in sonority, scale construction and auditory perception and cognition.
The project comprised a c. 100,000 word dissertation on theoretical aspects of microtonal music along with a composition portfolio which explored microtonality in acoustic and electronic/electroacoustic music. PDFs of the thesis are now available to download from Maynooth library: http://eprints.maynoothuniversity.ie/6737/
Master’s degree work on NY Downtown/Experimental Music and Alt. Tuning/Microtonality.
Thesis: Amplified Art-Noise: amplification, alternate tuning and acoustical phenomena in the music of La Monte Young, Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca
MPhil (taught) Music and Media Technologies, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin, 2003
Transcripts of interviews conducted as part of this research:
See also: ‘Product of Culture-Clash: the Theatre of Eternal Music and the early New York Downtown Scene’, Irish Association for American Studies annual conference, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, April 2008. (Version published in Maynooth Musicology, vol. 1, 2008.)