Scottish Arts Council grants
Four artists at Duncan of Jordanstone have been successful in winning prestigious Scottish Arts Council grants.
From diving for treasure to genetically modified images, Gina Czarnecki, tutor in the school of television and imaging and the school of fine art's Wendy McMurdo have received a total of £50,000 from the highly competitive Creative Scotland awards.
The third national awards - billed as Scotland's Oscars - endorsed the projects of 14 Scottish artists whose fields range through visual arts, literature, dance, film and music.
The dean, Professor Georgina Follett said: "I am absolutely delighted that once again the talents of our staff at Duncan of Jordanstone have been recognised and rewarded. Both Gina and Wendy are consummate practitioners in their respective fields of digital technology. An outstanding result."
Gina Czarnecki, will be working on digital work exploring genetic issues.
Visitors to her 2002 exhibition, AlterNative, can become genetic engineers in an instant by touching life-sized screens to alter the "genetic make-up" of digital humans. Random mutations, or recessive genes, added by the computer will add unexpected changes to their evolution.
Gina is currently seeking advice from life science and mathematics experts at the University as she explores the moral issues raised by AlterNative.
"AlterNative gives the audience the power to create, eliminate and stare and it raises the question, how far are we prepared to participate in all that we have made possible?'" she said.
School of fine art lecturer Wendy McMurdo is donning the unlikely outfit of mask and flippers during her latest project. She will be diving into the cold waters of Scapa Flow to photograph and produce digital images of the famous Wrecks of Scapa - ships that were wrecked during the second world war.
Developing new ways of fusing traditional lens-based technologies with digital techniques, Wendy will produce a number of large-scale and high-resolution photographic works representing the unique atmosphere on the sea-floor.
Meanwhile, the school of fine art is also celebrating the success of another two of its lecturers, Tracy Mackenna and Cathy Wilkes, in the SAC's visual arts awards.
Tracy Mackenna's award will fund a year in which she will research and develop her collaborative work with Dutch artist Edwin Janssen. Encompassing film, video installations, publications and a website, central themes include communication and identity. Public participation plays a significant role.
Tracy said, "We recently completed the video installation Differences Under the Skin about the nature of "Scottishness" for our exhibition at Glasgow's Centre for Contemporary Arts. Immediate plans are to develop new work using video."
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