Dr Kieran Nolan
Biography
Dr Kieran Nolan is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist, researcher, and lecturer working across interactive art, games, and creative technologies. He is a lecturer in Creative Media at Research Centre at Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT).
He holds a PhD (TCD), two Master’s degrees (DkIT, UL), and a BDes (Hons) (ATU/LYIT). His practice spans interactive art, game-based media, and digital visual culture, including AI-driven machinima, immersive networked XR, graffiti archiving in and through video games, and platform preservation. His research has been presented through leading international peer-reviewed venues including SIGGRAPH, DiGRA, Replaying Japan, ROMchip Journal, Milan Machinima Festival, and Beta Art and Technology Festival.
He is Working Group 1 Lead for COST Action 21141 (Grassroots of Digital Europe) and Co-President of the History of Games International Conference. He is also co-editor of the upcoming collected edition Silicon Dawn: Histories and Cultures of Creative Computing in Europe, 1970-2000 (De Gruyter Brill, 2027). Dr Nolan was appointed to the Royal Irish Academy's Languages, Literature, Culture and Communication Committee in 2026.
You can find out more about his work at kierannolan.com
Teaching
MA in Creative Practice New course
BA (Hons) in Creative Media
Qualifications & Awards
Qualifications:
- PhD (School of Computer Science and Statistics, and Digital Arts and Humanities PhD Programmes) (2019, TCD)
- MA in Learning and Teaching (2012, DkIT)
- MA in Interactive Media (2002, UL)
- BDes (Hons) in Digital Media (2001, LYIT)
- NDip in Design Communications (1998, LYIT)
Honours and Awards (Selected):
- Finalist Exhibit, Maxell Kuse ga Aru Award: Painting (塗). An AI + human co-creation art award. Kuse ga Aru Art Studio, Kyoto, 2025.
- Official Selection, Milan Machinima Festival, Los Angeles, 2025.
- Elected as Co-President for the History of Games International Conference Series, 2023.
- Winner, Experience Design Category, 21st IDI Awards, Institute of Designers in Ireland, 2020.
- Awardee, Top-Ranked LABS Abstracts, Leonardo / The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, 2020.
- Selected Exhibit, Indie Game Arena, Tokyo Game Show, 2020.
- Jury Selection, 23rd Japan Media Arts Festival, Tokyo, 2020.
- Winner, Technical Achievement Award, Imirt Irish Game Awards, 2019.
- President’s Award for Research Excellence, Early Career Researcher (Creative Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences), Dundalk Institute of Technology, 2017.
- Official Selection, International Symposium on Electronic Art / ISEA, Hong Kong, 2016.
- Official Selection, Out Of Index Experimental Games Festival, Seoul, 2015.
- Finalist, A MAZE International Independent Game Awards, Berlin, 2014.
- Shortlisted, Upstart Nokia N-GAGE Game Design Challenge, 2003.
- President’s Award for Academic Excellence, University of Limerick, 2002.
- Design Student of the Year, Letterkenny Institute of Technology, 1998.
- Winner, Multimedia Category, Glen Dimplex Graduate Design Awards, IDI / Institute of Designers in Ireland, 1998.
Research & Interests
My research explores the intersection of creative technologies, game design, and visual culture. Topics I’ve worked on recently include the collision of AI and machinima movie making, graffiti photography in and through video games, retro game modding and glitching, hidden histories of the Irish games industry, video games in anime and manga, and arcade game platform preservation through networked WebXR.
I'm Co-President for the History of Games International Conference series, a member of the board of reviewers for Game Studies journal, and Workgroup 1 lead for the EU funded COST action Grassroots of Digital Europe: from Historic to Contemporary Cultures of Creative Computing (GRADE). In 2026 I was appointed to the Royal Irish Academy's Languages, Literature, Culture and Communication Committee.
An up to date index of my research publications is available online at https://kierannolan.com/publications.
Publications
The publications listed below represent my 10 most recent works as recorded on ORCiD
2026 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Adjunct (ISMAR-Adjunct)
October 2026
Type: Conference paper
ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting 2026
July 2026
Type: Conference paper
History of Games 2026 Book of Abstracts: The Ages of Games, Epochs and Periodisations
June 2026
Type: Conference paper
History of Games 2026 Book of Abstracts: The Ages of Games, Epochs and Periodisations
June 2026
Type: Conference paper
2026 DiGRA International Conference
June 2026
Type: Conference paper
History of Games 2026 Book of Abstracts: The Ages of Games, Epochs and Periodisations
June 2026
Type: Conference paper
May 2026
Type: other
SCMS 2026 - Society of Cinema and Media Studies Conference
March 2026
Type: Conference paper
Beyond GAME-ER: Historical Pathways of Video Game Production in Europe
March 2026
Type: Conference paper
Invited talk for the College of Social Sciences Communication Program
January 2026
Type: Conference paper
Videos
