Biography
I am an academic and practitioner in the field of sound for film and sound art. I started working at Napier/ Screen Academy with occasional lectures and workshops in 2014 -1017 and joined as a part-time lecturer and researcher in 2017.
I currently feed into curriculum development and delivery on BA and MA Film programmes.
My teaching is based in my practice as a sound designer and my ongoing research and exploration in this area and her quest to keep the curriculum closely connected with industry practices in Scotland and abroad. I am also an Avid Certified instructor (Specialist and Dolby Atmos).
In addition to sound design for film, I work as an artist and experimental filmmaker in several different contexts. For example I have developed and produced a number of large-scale participative sound art projects including 900 Voices, with the collaboration of Lindsay Perth, public artist and Jules Rawlinson, sound designer and composer, (University of Edinburgh), which was part of the Edinburgh International Festival in 2024 and This Evening’s Performance Has Not Been Cancelled in 2020, Produced by Bergen National Opera which was part of Bergen International Festival and also the Holland Festival in 2020. This Evenings’ Performance connected people involved in cancelled opera productions in 9 European Opera houses with international audiences live by telephone. A short radio doc created from conversations recorded as part of This Evening’ Performance, titled The Lockdown Oratorio of a Call Centre Operator, was commissioned by Lux Scotland and BBC and aired on BBC Radio 3 in 2022.
At the core of these works is ongoing research into voice, conversation, oral history, archives, and archival search as compositional methodology. New work and a number of papers are in development.
Working as Irvine & Spence, in collaboration with artist Pernille Spence (University of Dundee), we have created, exhibited and screened a variety of films and audio visual installation works, winning The Prix DeVarti for funniest film at the Ann Arbor Film Festival in 2024 for Getting OK with Not Being OK that Everything is Not OK, and also receiving the Royal Scottish Academy Lens Based Media Award in 2024, which combined with a Creative Scotland Award means we are developing a body of new work through 2025 under the title Disproportionate Impacts and Everyday Agitations.
For more information on current sound design work, my creative projects and current research see
zoeirvine.net,
insta @soundslikezoe & @irvine_spence_space
Bluesky @soundslikezoe.bsky.social