CREW is thrilled to collaborate with Galway Culture Company to announce the launch of the Creative Practitioner Residency Programme, is a unique initiative for creative practitioners working in the digital creative industries. This programme will provide a dynamic platform for Galway-based creatives to collaborate, innovate, and contribute to the CreaTech ecosystem through the exploration of the theme Creative Communities.
The Open Call was announced in April, and four creatives have been selected for participation in the programme. Rocio Romero Grau, Conor Maloney, Jane Cassidy and Miguel Escobar will be exploring a diverse range of projects over the coming months, and will be hosting a series of Creative Talks throughout their residency to share more about their work.
Meet the creative practitioners:
Rocio Romero Grau
Rocio is an emergent multidisciplinary creative practitioner exploring the intersection of technology, art and science. In addition to her experience in Visual Arts, Rocio is a professional musician, having completed studio is piano, voice and composition. Her creative practice focuses on new technologies applied to the aesthetic experience, working with Virtual Reality, interactive devices, sensors, and computational art. The application of these technological mediums to philosophical and phenomenological theories on art experience, exploring new forms of audience engagement and agency within the exhibition space. Rocio explores how new technologies can offer alternative and innovative ways of perceiving the world.
While participating in the Creative Residency Programme, Rocio will be developing a projects relating to the plasticity of the human brain and how it changes, and adapts, under different sensorial stimuli. She is utilising an EEG headset that reads brainwave data, and will be materialising that data into digital media such as sound or visual outputs. The goal is to visualise this data in alternative ways than the scientific, facilitating new comprehensible ways of understanding how our brain performs.
Conor Maloney
Conor is an audio-visual artist and music producer; his work combines digital media and sound design to create installations around themes such as memory, destruction and the passage of time.
He is currently developing an exhibition that involves scanning 100 ash trees and creating a digital archive of 3D models that can be viewed and manipulated in real time by an audience. While participating in the Creative Residency programme, Conor will be testing leading software to develop interactive prototypes, and will also be exploring the potential use cases for this CreaTech software across industries.
Jane Cassidy
Jane Cassidy creates time-based, audio-visual works with a partciular focus on immersive environments. Her work is multi-disciplinary and encompasses animation, sculpture, surround-sound, electronics and experimental approaches to projection. Jane’s intention to engage a wide audience in a comforting, accessible, playful and meditative atmosphere.
While participating in the Creative Residency programme, Jane will be developing prototype interactive touch sculptures that incorporate capacitive touch sensors. A central part of Jane’s practice is working with various organisations that support adults with Intellectual Disabilities in the Galway community; in working with these artist organisations, she collaborates with the artists, teaches new skills and technologies and helps to bring ambitious projects to fruition.
Miguel Escobar
Miguel Escobar is a visionary creative technologist, writer-producer, and Mekkato CreaTech Studio LTD founder. Blending technological innovation with the art of storytelling, his entrepreneurial spirit and expertise shine through in the studio’s digital solutions and international feature films and series.
During the residency, Miguel will advance the development of ScriptGuru MVP, a groundbreaking, project-based screenwriting SaaS designed to guide screenwriters, enhance creativity, boost motivation, and improve performance with a human-centered AI approach that protects authors’ IP and sets limits for new technologies in creative processes—allowing creative communities to embrace new tech while safeguarding human creativity.
Leveraging the residency, he will refine the second draft of his feature film, Blinding Truth, to identify key human inputs and apply these insights to ScriptGuru R&D. The residency will enable insightful discussions about CreaTech challenges and foster dynamic dialogue with key industry partners on the direction of new tech in creative fields.
Read more about the project here.
