Nuacht agus Imeachtaí

John Carney, one of the most acclaimed and successful contemporary Irish film directors, has been appointed an Adjunct Professor with the Huston School of Film and Digital Media at NUI Galway. Mr Carney will give talks and workshops in the Huston School over the next three-years, including the forthcoming BA in Film and Digital Media, and will also contribute to the increasing integration of the school’s programmes with the film and audio-visual industry in Ireland and internationally.    John Carney will visit the Huston School of Film and Digital Media on Thursday, 9 November at 5.30pm to give an inaugural lecture as Adjunct Professor. John’s talk will be preceded by a directing workshop in the Huston School at 4pm for leaving certificate students interested in the School’s forthcoming BA in Film and Digital Media, enrolling from September 2018. Dr Seán Crosson, Acting Director of the Huston School of Film and Digital Media at NUI Galway, said: “We are delighted that such a distinguished director as John Carney has agreed to join us in Huston as an Adjunct Professor. John has been a key figure in Irish film over the past twenty years. His award-winning work, particularly in the musical genre, has helped to reimagine the parameters of Irish cinema and brought Irish stories and characters to wide international audiences. John will make an important contribution to the Huston School programmes in the coming years, and allow us to further develop our connections with the film and audio-visual industry in Ireland and internationally.”  Speaking about his appointment as Adjunct Professor, John Carney, said: “I’m thrilled with the appointment. Galway holds a special place in my heart as a film maker, and I look forward to many months of work with the NUI Galway students, discussing, developing and making films.”   John Carney was born in Dublin and was educated at De La Salle College Churchtown and at Synge Street CBS. He was bassist for Irish rock band The Frames between 1991 and 1993 and also directed some of their music videos. Carney also co-wrote and co-directed the hugely successful RTÉ TV series Bachelors Walk. In recent years Carney wrote and directed the 2006 global hit movie Once, which went on to win numerous awards including an Academy Award for Best Original Song. It has since been adapted as one of the most successful theatrical musicals of recent years, including award winning runs on Broadway and the West End. Subsequent films directed by Carney have enjoyed considerable critical and commercial success. Begin Again (2013) grossed over $63 million worldwide and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Lost Stars. His most recent film, the Irish set coming of age musical Sing Street (2016), was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the 74th Golden Globes in January 2017. With a core focus on the development of creative and critical skills, the BA in Film and Digital Media equips graduates for a career in today’s rapidly changing media environment. Employing over 6,000 people nationwide, and generating an estimated €550 million annually, the creative industries are central to Ireland’s economic and cultural achievements on the global stage. At the heart of the industry’s success lie the creative talents of the individuals working within it. The exciting new BA in Film and Digital Media undergraduate degree offers students a unique combination of theory and practice across the areas of film and digital media, providing them with practical skills in filmmaking, screenwriting, and digital development and design, and positioning them to become the next generation of content creators. The event is free and open to the public on Thursday, 9 November and students interested in attending John Carney’s inaugural lecture can email hustonfilmschool@nuigalway.ie. For further information on the Huston School and its programmes, visit: www.filmschool.ie   -Ends-

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower” Steve Jobs NUI Galway in partnership with Blackstone LaunchPad hosted its inaugural Innovation at Play Symposium, today (26 October). The one day experiential symposium focused on exploring play for the purpose of innovation and featured award winning game designer, Brenda Romero, and astrophysicist, Dr Iain MacLaren, Director of CELT at NUI Galway. The symposium also featured a spellbinding one woman live interactive performance by Ada.Ada.Ada that told the story of Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron and the world’s first computer programmer. Using an LED dress and wearable technology operated live on stage by performance artist and technology professional Zoe Philpott, the show aims to inspire future generations to follow in Lovelace’s footsteps and push boundaries. Offering a series of workshops throughout the day, the symposium created a time-out for people to pause, reflect and play, and to think about how study and work can be enhanced by being more open to all forms of innovation and seeing it as the calling card of the future. In addition to participants from industry and academia, the event was opened up to local secondary schools. According to Sarah Geraghty, Student Recruitment and Outreach Manager at NUI Galway, said: “It’s important for the University to share innovations, small and great, with the wider community. By involving secondary schools in ‘Innovation at Play’ we hope to inspire the next generation of innovative thinkers.” Workshops included: Parallel Hands-on, Minds-on Workshops. Creativity Through Mask Making - A workshop tool for reflection on the process of the person as inventor and innovator. Innovation Through Lego Serious Play - A hands-on workshop in Lego Serious Play to enhance innovation in communication, creativity and building shared mental models. Story Telling Through Sound - Exploring ways of telling a story using only sound instead of words. Innovation through Performance: a Practice-based workshop - How to use theatre skills to inspire and foster creativity in yourself and the people you work with. Fireside Chat – Innovation Knows No Boundaries – a panel and intergenerational conversation on innovation and the contributions that each generation can make by truly embracing innovation. Mary Dempsey from the College of Engineering and Informatics at NUI Galway, said: “NUI Galway’s education mission is to build communities of contemporary innovators who will imagine and realise the world as a better place for all society, and the Innovation Symposium we hope will encourage people to explore how the spirit of innovation can be nurtured through playful methodologies.” -Ends- 

NUI Galway in conjunction with the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) will host a public lecture by Fintan O’Toole entitled ‘Bernard Shaw and the Uses of Celebrity’ to mark the publication of Judging Shaw on Tuesday, 7 November at 6.30pm. The event will take place in the Aula Maxima at the University and will be followed by a panel discussion on “Making Judging Shaw” moderated by Professor Patrick Lonergan, NUI Galway with Ruth Hegarty, RIA, Barry Houlihan, James Hardiman Library and Fintan O’Toole. Judging Shaw is the fourth book in the Royal Irish Academy’s award-winning ‘Judging’ series and looks at the legacy of George Bernard Shaw (GBS), Nobel prize-winner for literature and internationally renowned playwright, intellectual and commentator. The book, written by Orwell-prize-winning journalist Fintan O’Toole, traces the growth of ‘GBS’, the first great global brand, and discovers how Shaw created this most modern of concepts. Judging Shaw brings together a new insights on the making and invention of GBS, the complex relationships Shaw had with both England and Ireland, through times of revolution and after; reconsiders the ‘dark side of GBS’ as well as his death, commemoration and legacies. The illustrated volume features over one hundred digitised archival documents, sourced from institutions around the world, including NUI Galway’s digital theatre collections at the Hardiman Library, many published for the first time and which visualise the great achievements and also wide range of networks Shaw lived and worked in. Also being unveiled is a new exhibition to coincide with the publication of Judging Shaw. Co-curated by Barry Houlihan of NUI Galway, Ruth Hegarty and Jeff Wilson of the Royal Irish Academy and Fintan O’Toole, the exhibition brings a wealth of archival images and stories from Shaw’s remarkable public and private life, drawing on many experiences such as time spent in the West of Ireland at Coole Park, the home of Lady Isabella Augusta Gregory, Shaw’s political and socialist writing, his theatre as staged in London, Dublin and also in Belfast after his death. The legacy of Shaw is considered in the ‘afterlife of GBS’, how his work was staged in contemporary times and how his life was commemorated. Before he died, Shaw noted those around him were ‘going Shaw-mad!’ The exhibition will be open to the public at the O’Donoghue Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance, NUI Galway. George Bernard Shaw has left a vast legacy of theatrical, fictional, polemical, critical and philosophical writing. The first person to win both a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award, Shaw bridges the Victorian era and the contemporary culture of celebrity. The GBS brand came to be recognised globally as referring to an Irish provocateur with a red beard and startling opinions. He was a master of self-invention, a nobody who captured the zeitgeist and one of the first private individuals to understand fully how to generate—and how to use—global fame. Speaking in advance of the public lecture, Professor Patrick Lonergan, said: “We are delighted to welcome Fintan O’Toole and the Royal Irish Academy to NUI Galway to explore and celebrate the life and work of George Bernard Shaw. This university is deeply committed to preserving our nation’s theatrical heritage through our work in archives, allowing us to offer courses that give our students a unique behind-the-scenes perspective on Irish theatre.  We also are strongly committed to promoting awareness of that heritage through talks, publications, and other activities. This beautifully produced book and the fascinating exhibition that accompanies it will bring huge pleasure to readers and theatre-makers around the world, ensuring that Shaw’s legacies – as a dramatist and a political thinker – will have an impact for generations to come.”   Fintan O’Toole said: “Shaw had an ambivalent relationship with Ireland, but Ireland had a very ambivalent relationship with Shaw. He is by far the most influential, famous Irish person who has ever lived. There is no other Irish person that had the global reach that Shaw had. He is a vast terrain. It is a pleasure to see the book translated into an entirely different medium in the exhibition and one of the things that you see in it is that as well as being a great thinker, a great political activist, great dramatist, as well as that he was one of the world’s great posers.” Admission is free but places are limited so please register go to www.conference.ie    ENDS