Institute of Art Design + Technology Dún Laoghaire
Ireland’s campus for the Creative Industries

Dean Connolly 

BA [Hons] Creative Music Production

Contemporary electronic composer and audiovisual artist currently based in Dublin. My compositions are experimental in nature, containing deconstructed elements of live instrumentation and samples to achieve a unique sound. Outside of personal projects, my main area of interest lies in creating compositions for film and visual works.

What does grief mean to you?

The following project takes a detailed look at the concept of grief, and the ability to artistically interpret it.
The result is five audio-visual works, portraying 'stages' of grief, based on the work of Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross.



Interpreting Abstraction - To What Extent Can Grief Be Interpreted Through An Audio-Visual Medium?

Research in the fields of emotion, shape, colour, and musical structure have been reviewed, creating a framework to guide an artist's audio-visual interpretation of the complex concept of grief.
Five audio-visual works were created based on this framework, which were then shown to various participants. These participants were then ask to interpret what they saw and heard, with levels of interpretation and emotional impact measured.
Results show that a such a personal and complex concept such as grief, is difficult to accurately and consistently interpret, due to each individual's personal and varying experience with grief and loss.