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Dr. Maura Mc Donnell
Assistant Professor Part-Time, Electronic & Elect. Engineering

Biography

Dr Maura McDonnell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, delivering two modules on Visual Music for the M. Phil in Music and Media Technologies course. Maura also supervises several masters student dissertation projects on topics that relate to visual music and audiovisual practice and research. Maura's primary degree is in Music, Mathematics and History that she completed in NUIM (Maynooth University). She has two masters degrees, an M.Ed in Adult Education in Professional Development from Ulster University and an M.Phil in Music and Media Technologies from Trinity College, Dublin. Her skill level in music and media technology subjects consists of digital sound synthesis programming, digital signal processing, adventurous music composition, algorithmic music composition, multimedia systems, psychoacoustics, and audio and video production.

For twenty years, Maura engaged in independent arts practice research into the topic of visual music, approaching her research from the perspective of a practicing visual music artist. She was very influenced by the field of Musique concrète in initiating her research into visual music, and initially applied such methods, aesthetics and approaches from Musique concrète to dynamic moving image art processes. This research culminated in the completion of her PhD in 2019, titled: 'Finding Visual Music in its Twentieth Century History'. Maura is an active contributor to an international network of arts practice researchers in the field of audiovisual culture, synaesthesia and visual music in particular. She is involved at committee level in several symposiums and has been regularly invited as reviewer for selection committees both for research publication projects and for film screening programmes. Her academic writings have been published in chapters in books and have been presented at national and international conferences and symposia and in journals, exhibition and festival catalogues. Recent academic outputs include a chapter titled: 'Inventing Instruments: Colour-Tone Correspondence to Colour-Music Performance (pre-1900)' for the Routledge publication, 'Live Visuals' (July 2022) and a chapter titled: 'Visual Music Expression - Digital Technology Methods' along with a visual music video work published in 'MuVi6 International exhibition of videos on synesthesia and visual music' (November 2022).

Maura creates moving and dynamic visuals that are based on a visual interpretation of musical expression. She works with digital manipulated video effects in digital video effects software, as well as using computer generative processes and programming to craft her visuals. She also crafts her own sounds and music but also collaborates with contemporary music composers and musicians. Her visual music works work well in music concert settings, as standalone fixed media film screenings and also as audiovisual immersive installations. She creates standalone visual music works and digital abstract films and also collaborates with artists, musicians and composers to create visuals for a variety of settings. Maura's visual music works have been screened, presented at music concerts and in art installations all over the world, such as Australia, Canada, China, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Spain, UK, US. Her visual music works have won several awards. A collaborative work with the composer Linda Buckley was awarded a Visual Music Award in Frankfurt. Her work with musician and producer Bebhinn McDonnell had an honorary mention in the annual MuVI contest in Spain/Italy. Recent collaborations have also been with Concert Pianist Dr Svetlana Rudenko and the US based Ensemble Parallax.

Publications and Further Research Outputs

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Inventing Instruments: Colour-Tone Correspondence to Colour-Music Performance (pre-1900) in, editor(s)Steve Gibson, Stefan Arisona, Donna Leishman, Atau Tanaka , Live Visuals History, Theory, Practice, London, Routledge, 2022, pp9 - 40, [Maura McDonnell] Book Chapter, 2022

Maura McDonnell, 'Punto Y Raya Festival 2021, Abstract Art in Motion', Digital Alchemy, Live Streaming, Spain, Barcelona, 2021, - Film production, 2021

Maura McDonnell, The "art" of visual music, SECOND INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC AND PRACTICAL CONFERENCE "THE ART OF SOUND AND LIGHT", Russian Institute for the History of the Arts, St Petersburg, Russia, 18-20 October 2021, edited by The Department of Organology , 2021 Conference Paper, 2021

Maura McDonnell, 'Visual Dérive', Seeing Sound Symposium, Online, Bath Spa University, UK, 2020, - Music Production, 2020

McDonnell, M and Rudenko, S, Synesthesia: Cross-sensory Aspects of Cognition Across Science and Art, Proceedings of the IASAS Moscow Synaesthesia symposium, 2020 Journal Article, 2020

Constructing Visual Music Images with Electroacoustic Music Concepts in, Sound & Image: Audiovisual Practice and Aesthetics, Routledge, 2020, pp20 pages , [McDonnell, Maura] Book Chapter, 2020

The Question of Form in Visual Music in, editor(s)Hill, Andrew E. , Sound & Image: Audiovisual Practice and Aesthetics, Routledge, 2020, pp20 pages , [McDonnell, Maura] Book Chapter, 2020

Maura McDonnell, 'Digital Alchemy', SeenSound Livestream - Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices, Online, 2020, - Film production, 2020

Maura McDonnell, Artists Write History - The Case for Visual Music, Seeing Sound Symposium, Online, 12/12/2020 - 13/12/2, 2020 Conference Paper, 2020

Maura McDonnell and Cobi van Tonder, 'Digital Alchemy', klingt gut! symposium on sound , , 2018, The Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany, 2019, - Music Production, 2019

Maura McDonnell, Finding Visual Music in its Twentieth Century History, Trinity College Dublin, 2019 Thesis, 2019

McDonnell, M. and Rudenko, S., Cognitive Musicology via Synaesthesia & Cross-modal Associations: Scriabin Sonata N5 op.53, Synaesthesia: Cross-Sensory Aspects of Cognition Across Science and Art, Moscow, Russia, 16 - 21 November 201, 2019 Conference Paper, 2019

McDonnell, Maura, The expansion of a cinema concrete method towards the exploration of new techniques for manipulating imagery in the development of a visual music cinema, klingt gut! symposium on sound, 2018, The Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, 7th - 9th June, 2018, 2018 Conference Paper, 2018

The visual music imagination: the sounding of images and the imaging of sounds in, editor(s)Dina Riccò María José de Córdoba , MuVi5: Video and moving image on synesthesia and visual music, Granada, Spain, Artecittà International Foundation, 2018, pp71 - 78, [McDonnell, Maura] Book Chapter, 2018 URL

Maura McDonnell and Cobi van Tonder, 'Digital Alchemy', Electronic Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, 2018, - Visual art production, 2018

Maura McDonnell and Cobi van Tonder, 'Digital Alchemy', Sound Image 2018, Greenwich University, UK, 2018, - Music Production, 2018

Maura McDonnell and Cobi van Tonder, 'Digital Alchemy', Seeing Sound 2018, Bath Spa University, UK, 2018, - Music Production, 2018

Maura McDonnell and Bebhinn McDonnell, 'Duel Tones', Videomusic Concert, Seia, Portugal, 2017, - Music Production, 2017

Maura McDonnell, A Music Technology Paradigm for Visual Music Cinema, SOUND/IMAGE: Exploring sonic and audio-visual practice, University of Greenwich, London, UK, 10-12 November 2017, 2017 Conference Paper, 2017 URL

Maura McDonnell and Bebhinn McDonnell, 'Duel Tones', Punto y Raya Festival 2016, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), Centre for Culture and Media Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2016, - Film production, 2016

Maura McDonnell and Bebhinn McDonnell, 'Duel Tones', MMT 20 Concert, Beckett Theatre, Trinity College Dublin, 2016, - Music Production, 2016

Maura McDonnell and Bebhinn McDonnell, 'Duel Tones', Seeing Sound Symposium 2016, Bath Spa University, UK, 2016, - Film production, 2016

Maura McDonnell and Bebhinn McDonnell, 'Duel Tones', ATRL, School of Drama, Film and Music, Trinity College Dublin, 2016, - Visual art production, 2016

Maura McDonnell and Linda Buckley, 'Silk Chroma', Sound/ Image Colloquium 2015, University of Greenwich, UK, 2015, - Film production, 2015

Maura McDonnell and Cignol/Sean Reed, 'Variegated Beat', Punto y Raya Festival Showcase: Melbourne International Animation Festival (MIAF) , Melbourne, Australia, 2015, - Film production, 2015

Maura McDonnell and Linda Buckley, 'Silk Chroma', Klingt Gut! Symposium, Fakultät Design, Medien und Information (DMI), Hamburg, Germany, 2015, - Music Production, 2015

Maura McDonnell and Linda Buckley, 'Silk Chroma', Music and Multimedia Concert, Solas Nua Capital Irish Film Festival, Goethe-Institute, Washington DC, US, 2015, - Music Production, 2015

Maura McDonnell and Bebhinn McDonnell, 'Duel Tones', Videomusic Concert, Seia, Portugal, 2015, - Music Production, 2015

Maura McDonnell and Cignol/ Sean Reed, 'Variegated Beat', SoundImageSound 10, International Festival of New Music and Visual Image, Conservatory of Music, University of the Pacific, USA, 2014, - Music Production, 2014

Maura McDonnell and Linda Buckley, 'Silk Chroma', Crash Ensemble - A little bit of Linda Buckley, The Courthouse Arts Centre, Tinahely, Co. Wicklow, 2014, - Music Production, 2014

Maura McDonnell, 'Visuals for Catalogue', Fractal Concert with Philip Lawson, ATRL, Trinity College Dublin, 2014, - Music Production, 2014

McDonnell, Maura, A Composition of the "Things Themselves" Visual Music in Practice, eContact, issue 15.4 Videomusic, Canadian Electroacoustic Community, 15, (4), 2014 Journal Article, 2014

McDonnell, Maura, Seeing Sound Symposium 2013 Report, eContact, issue 15.4 Videomusic, Canadian Electroacoustic Community, 15, (4), 2014 Journal Article, 2014 URL

Maura McDonnell, Visual Music, eContact! The electronic journal of electroacoustics, 15, (4), 2014 Journal Article, 2014 URL

Maura McDonnell and Linda Buckley, 'Silk Chroma', Audiovisual Installation, New Music Dublin Festival 2014, National Concert Hall, Dublin, Ireland, 2014, - Music Production, 2014

Maura McDonnell and Linda Buckley, 'Silk Chroma', Cork French Film Festival, Cork, Ireland, 2014, - Film production, 2014

Maura McDonnell and Linda Buckley, 'Silk Chroma', Synthesis, Irish Film Institute, Dublin, 2013, - Film production, 2013

Maura McDonnell, 'Visuals for Catalogue', Commissioned by Fractal, ATRL, Trinity College Dublin, 2013, - Visual art production, 2013

McDonnell, Maura, Visual Music - The Colour Tone Analogy and Beyond, Seeing Sound Symposium 2013, Bath Spa University, Bath Spa, UK, 23-24/11/2013, 2013 Conference Paper, 2013 URL

McDonnell, Maura, Visual Music at the Crossroads of Performance Environments, VIMMA Project (Virtual, Intermedial and Mixed Reality Performance in Live Production and Creative Contexts), Reactive Residence Seminar, Centre for Practise as Research in Theatre, School of Communication, Media and Theatre, University of Tampere, Finland, 02/09/2013, 2013, VIMMA Project Invited Talk, 2013 URL

Maura McDonnell and Linda Buckley, 'Silk Chroma', I Hear a New World, Exhibition, Luan Gallery, Athlone, Ireland, 2013, - Exhibition, 2013 URL

Maura McDonnell, Philip Lawson and Conal Ryan, 'Catalogue', Fractal on Tour with Philip Lawson, The Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Fractal, 2013, - Music Production, 2013

Maura McDonnell, 'Towards One', Concert: International Symposium on Visual Music, School of Art, Design & Media (ADM), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore , 2012, - Music Production, 2012

Maura McDonnell, 'Installation', International Symposium on Visual Music, School of Art, Design & Media (ADM), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore , 2012, - Exhibition, 2012

McDonnell, Maura, From painting, film, analogue video to contemporary digital video: remarks towards the development of visual music, International Symposium on Visual Music, School of Art, Design & Media (ADM), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore , Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 12-13 October 2012, 2012 Conference Paper, 2012

Maura McDonnell, 'Silk Chroma - three screen installation', Expanded Abstraction: Animated Film and Digital Art Exhibition, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), US, 2012, - Exhibition, 2012

McDonnell, Maura, Visual Music Research Topic', Symposium on Creative Technologies, Science Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin, 17 April 2012, 2012 Conference Paper, 2012

Maura McDonnell and Linda Buckley, 'Silk Chroma', Video Art for All (VAFA), International Video Art Festival, Casa Garden and Art 21, Fundação Oriente, Macau, China, 2012, - Film production, 2012

Maura McDonnell and Linda Buckley, 'Silk Chroma', SoundImageSound International Festival of New Music and Visual Image, Conservatory of Music, University of the Pacific, California, USA, 2011, - Music Production, 2011

Maura McDonnell and Linda Buckley, 'Silk Chroma', Sensorium, Project Arts Centre, Dublin, 2011, - Music Production, 2011

Maura McDonnell and Linda Buckley, 'Silk Chroma Installation', Sonic Pop Up Event, Dublin Contemporary 2011, National Concert Hall, Dublin, 2011, - Music Production, 2011

Maura McDonnell and Linda Buckley, 'Silk Chroma', Visual Music Show: Understanding Visual Music 2011, DB Clarke Theatre, Hexagram-Concordia Centre for Research Creation in Media Arts and Technologies in collaboration with the Department of Music, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, 2011, - Music Production, 2011

Maura McDonnell and Linda Buckley, 'Silk Chroma', Award Ceremony: Visual Music Award 2011, Institute for New Media (INM) and Institute for Synaesthesia and Cocoonclub, Frankfurt, Germany, 2011, - Exhibition, 2011

Maura McDonnell, Linda Buckley, Dermot Furlong, Gavin Kearney, ' 'Silk Chroma' - Spatial audio and video installation ', Innovation Dublin Festival, 2010, Printing House, Trinity College Dublin, 2010, - Exhibition, 2010

McDonnell, Maura and Buckley, Linda, , 'Silk Chroma', Electronic Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, 2010, - Visual art production, 2010

McDonnell, Maura, Visual Music - A Composition of the things themselves, Sounding Out 5 - "Soundworlds - Sonic Arts, Film and Radio", International Sound Symposium, Bournemouth University, UK, 8-10 September 2010, 2010 Conference Paper, 2010

Maura McDonnell, 'Towards One', Visual Music Marathon, Visual Arts Theater, School of Visual Arts, New York, 2009, - Film production, 2009

McDonnell, Maura, Visual Music - Integrated Composition, Seeing Sound Symposium 2009, Bath Spa University, UK, 8-10 September 2009, 2009 Conference Paper, 2009

Maura McDonnell, 'Towards One', Visual Music Marathon, Egan Research Center, Northeastern University, Boston, 2007, - Film production, 2007

Maura McDonnell, An Analysis of the Concept of Harmony in the Audiovisual Composition 'Towards One', Trinity College Dublin, 1999 Thesis, 1999

Maura McDonnell, 'Towards One', Concert: Sounds Electric 2 Music and Image Festival, Queens University, Belfast, 1999, - Music Production, 1999

Maura McDonnell, 'Towards One', Darklight Digital Film Festival, Irish Film Institute (IFI), Dublin, 1999, - Film production, 1999

Maura McDonnell, 'Edges', Darklight Digital Film Festival, Irish Film Institute (IFI), Dublin, 1999, - Film production, 1999

Maura McDonnell, 'Towards One', Trinity College, Dublin, 1998, - Visual art production, 1998 URL

Maura McDonnell, 'Towards One', MMT Graduate Show, Beckett Theatre, Trinity College Dublin, 1998, - Music Production, 1998

Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications

Svetlana Rudenko, Maura McDonnell and Mads Haahr, 'Jack B. Yeats AR and other Art Music', National Concert Hall, Ireland, National Concert Hall, Ireland, 2022, - Theatre Production, 2022 TARA - Full Text URL URL URL

McDonnell, Maura, My Research Topic: Visual Music - Dissertation and Arts Practice Research, DAH Open Evening, ATRL, Trinity College, Dublin , 2014 Conference Paper, 2014

McDonnell, Maura, The Colour Tone Analogy - Towards a Visual Music, Postgraduate Research Seminar, School of Drama, Film and Music, Trinity College Dublin, 21 October 2013, 2013 Conference Paper, 2013

McDonnell, Maura, Colour-Tone Analogy in Visual Music, DAH International Advisory Board, Trinity Long Room Hub, Trinity College Dublin, 10 December 2012, 2012, DAH structured PhD organising committee Invited Talk, 2012

McDonnell, Maura, Exploring Correspondences in Visual Music, DAH Institute Symposium, Huston Film School, NUI Galway, 2012 Conference Paper, 2012

McDonnell, Maura, What is Visual Music?, DAH Seminar, Huston Film School, NUI Galway, Galway, 2012 Conference Paper, 2012

McDonnell, Maura, Exploration of Musical Influences on the Visual in Visual Music, History and Theory of Digital Art Seminar, ATRL, Trinity College Dublin, 2012 Conference Paper, 2012

McDonnell, Maura, My Research is Visual Music, Conceptual Introduction to Digital Humanities and Digital Arts Seminar, ATRL, Trinity College Dublin, 20 February 2012, 2012 Conference Paper, 2012

Maura McDonnell and Linda Buckley, 'Silk Chroma', Seeing Sound Symposium 2011, Bath Spa University, UK, 2011, - Music Production, 2011

Research Expertise

Keywords

Aesthetics; Art Criticism; Art Works/Artifacts; Choreography; Cinema/Video; Composition and Algorithmic composition, spectral music; Computer Arts; Computer Music; Continental philosophy; Creative Arts; Cultural Activities; Culture; Dance; Design Arts; Drawing; Electro-optics; Expansion Arts; Film Theory; Fine Arts; Graphic Design; Harmonic Analysis, Wavelets; History & Appreciation of Art; History & Appreciation of Music; Installation Art; Inter-Arts--Interdisciplinary Art Forms; Media Arts; Mixed-Media Art; Modern Art; Modernism, postmodernism; Multimedia; Music; Music Composition; Music Criticism; Musicology/Music Theory; New Music; Opera/Musical Theatre; Painting; Performance and technology; Performance Theory; Performing Arts; Philosophical Literature; Poetry; Stochastic Processes; Video art; Video Installation; Videoart; Virtual Reality; Visual art; Visual Arts; Visual Culture; Visual Music; Visual perception

Recognition

Representations

Selection Committee: Video Music Category, International Computer Music Conference 2011 (ICMC), Huddersfield, UK 2011

Peer Reviewer: Composing Motion: A visual music retrospective' Organised Sound Journal, Vol. 17, Issue 2, Cambridge University Press, 2012 2012

Guest ATRL Research Observer: Motion capture theatre performance workshop, invited by the VIMMA project (Virtual, Intermedial and Mixed Reality Performance in Live Production and Creative Contexts), LUME, Helsinki, Finland 2013

Selection Committee: Seeing Sound Symposium 2016, Screening Programme, Bath Spa University, UK 2016

Paper reviewer: Second Workshop on Speech, Music and Mind: Detecting and Influencing Mental States with Audio, TU Wien, Vienna, Austria, September 14, 2019 2019

Programme Committee: KLG 2020: klingt gut 2020 International Symposium on Sonic Art and Spatial Audio Arts and Media Campus, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences Hamburg, Germany, May 14-16, 2020 2020

Awards and Honours

Honorable Mention for Creative Work - MuVi5 video and moving image on synaesthesia and visual music 2018

Honorary Award - Visual Music Award (VMA) 2011

Irish Realex Web Award for the design and development of a primary school website. 2012