Dr. Marcos Dias

Marcos Dias is Assistant Professor and Research Convenor in the School of Communications, Dublin City University. He completed a PhD in Media Studies in the University of Melbourne, Australia in 2015 and a MSc with Distinction in Interactive Digital Media from Trinity College Dublin. He also holds a BA in Architecture and City Planning (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil) and a BA in Digital Media Design and Production-First Class Honours (Atlantic Technological University - formerly Letterkenny IT).

He conducts research on citizen wellbeing, performance art and the impact of digital media on contemporary urban living. In The Machinic City: Media, Performance and Participation (Manchester University Press, 2021), Marcos investigates the potential of performance art to help us reflect on contemporary urban living and its assemblages of human and machine agency.

Marcos is PI on the Community Engagement Through Performance Art (CEPA) project funded by the Irish New Foundations 2022 award. He was also the DCU coordinator and partner on the Digital Media Network Doctoral Experience (Dimendx) project funded by the ECIU SMART-ER Seed Programme and PI on the SATLE-funded project The Social Impact of AI (SOCIAI), a collaboration with artist Aisling Phelan to develop a student-led public exhibition on AI.

He was vice-chair (2020-24) and chair (2024-26) of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) Media, Cities and Spaces (MCS) Section. As a member of the MCS Section , he was the local organiser of the Synthetic City Conference (DCU, 2023) that explored the impact of AI and digital media on urban living and with his section's colleagues he published The Synthetic City Dossier (2026) in Mediapolis.

Prior to joining DCU, Marcos was Lecturer in Media Studies in Maynooth University and Assistant Lecturer and Programme Director for the BA in Communications in Creative Media in DkIT.   Marcos has previously worked as an architect and web designer and was an Editorial Board Member of the Platform Journal of Media and Communications (2010-2011).

Research Interests

Marcos conducts research on citizen wellbeing, performance art and the impact of digital media on contemporary urban living. His research involves multiple aspects of urban living, including parks, drones and bathing water quality. As a member of the DCU Water Institute, he was involved in the SFI-funded Restart project to improve bathing water quality communication.

In his recent book The Machinic City: Media, Performance and Participation(Manchester University Press, 2021), Marcos investigates the potential of performance art to help us reflect on contemporary urban living and its assemblages of human and machine agency.

He is available to supervise multidisciplinary PhD projects in media and communication studies, with a particular interest in citizen wellbeing, the impact of digital technologies in urban space and also the role of public play, participatory art interventions, urban activism and artificial intelligence on urban living.

Teaching Interests

Marcos teaches on the BSc in Multimedia programme across a range of modules, including Media Spaces, Major Production Project, Information Design and Emerging Media, and coordinates the yearly DCU Multimedia Graduate Exhibition.

CV

Academic Qualifications

PhD, University of Melbourne
Field of study: Humanities and the arts
Project: Rethinking Urban Space Through Mediated Performance
Award date: 23/12/2015
Bachelor's Degree, Atlantic Technological University
Project: BA (Hons) with First Class Honours in Digital Media Design and Production
Master's Degree, Trinity College Dublin
Field of study: Humanities and the arts
Project: MSc Interactive Digital Media - Distinction