Trinity College Dublin today officially opened a new state-of-the-art research facility that aims to combine the disciplines of the arts, technology and science, and provide for postgraduate research in these areas.
The new lab has been developed by Trinity’s School of Drama, Film and Music in collaboration with the Schools of Computer Science & Statistics and Engineering.
It will have the multimedia resources and digital arts technologies to give students involved in art, music, drama and film the chance to further their research, mixing traditional arts training with digital expertise.
This means that aside from the software and infrastructure for audiovisual multimedia, there will also be facilities for live art and installations.
The Arts Technology Research Laboratory will take up 650 sq metres on two levels of the Trinity Technology and Enterprise Campus on Pearse Street.
It will contain a multi-purpose and multi-media auditorium/theatre for performance, recording, installations, lectures and symposia; a sound, ‘live’ recording studio; two post-production digital-editing suites; a seminar room; and workstations for up to 30 postgraduate research/PhD students.
This postgraduate course will not kick off until autumn 2010, but right now Trinity has an MSc in Interactive Digital Media, whose graduates have a chance to display final-year projects in the Science Gallery – Trinity College’s platform for a mixture of technology, science, culture and the arts.
Professor Kevin Rockett, head of the School of Drama Film and Music, said of the new lab: “Bringing together the ‘two cultures’, creative arts and science/technology, is one of the great challenges for Ireland’s modern smart economy.
“The goal is to stimulate a new generation of arts technologists, of high academic standard and entrepreneurial in spirit, who will be an essential element in the future of Irish artistic practice and the information economy, as part of the next phase of this country’s economic development.”
If you are still wondering how the art and digital world collides check out siliconrepublic’s article from last year’s art-meets-technology installations in the Science Gallery, where Canadian artist exhibited her wearable LED ‘electric skin’ .
By Marie Boran
