Dundalk IT hosts GRADE Grassroots of Digital Europe conference

Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) says it was delighted to recently host over 40 international visitors for the GRADE Grassroots of Digital Europe conference. This event was organised by Dr Kieran Nolan, lecturer from the School of Informatics and Creative Arts, DkIT in conjunction with fellow GRADE management committee member for Ireland Dr. Aphra Kerr.

The event facilitated a diverse and engaging schedule of talks and workshops over the two days for the Dundalk GRADE conference, including keynotes from games development veteran Dr. Steve Collins and award-winning artist Dr. Winnie Soon.

Steve Collins detailed his career journey so far which includes founding Trinity College Dublin's Graphics and Vision research group and the renowned physics middleware company Havok, as well as being CTO for King (of Candy Crush fame). Dr. Collins' industry path started as a self-taught Commodore 64 games developer in 1980s Dundalk, and his first published game was Herobotix for the C64 in 1987.

He learned to code in assembly language in the pre-internet era through gaming magazines and books while working within the dynamics of collaborative software development through the postal service. Steve's talk provided a wealth of valuable first-hand insights into retro games development, while also highlighting the changes that have taken place in the games industry since.

Artist and academic Winnie Soon is a recipient of the Golden Nica from Ars Electronica, and provided day two's keynote linking grassroots computing cultures with digital art practice from feminist perspectives. Their scholarly and artistic practice engages with themes such as Free and Open-Source Culture, Coding Otherwise, artistic/technical manuals, digital censorship and minor technology.

Dr Soon spoke about their projects including Aesthetic Programming: A Handbook of Software Studies. This book about creative coding was created through a public facing GitHub repository, exposing each commit (edit) during the writing process to the world, infusing the process of writing reflectively on coding with coding's material and social practices.

The two-day schedule also included workshops on Grassroots User Privacy Practices for Creative Computing and making a Space Invaders Clone for the Pico-8.

The occasion also allowed for informative discussions on Atari in Turkey and Poland, two very engaging discussion panels centred around digital archiving and preservation, and the launch of the call for chapters for the book Silicon Dawn: Creative Computing in Europe 1970–2000.

South Down Repair Cafe were also on-site outside the DkIT canteen to provide spot repairs to small electrical items and to give advice on how to keep your appliances in service.

Dr Kieran Nolan, event organiser said, “a sincere thank you to everyone who attended, and for all the excellent support from my colleagues at DkIT who helped ensure all ran smoothly. Also, many thanks to Dundalk Tourist Office, Failte Ireland, Sevens Coaches, SEEK Dundalk, McGeough’s Restaurant and the Claremont for making our visitors to Dundalk feel so welcome”.

For more on the GRADE Dundalk Conference see here.