28 August 2006

Projects on display at the Dundee Masters Show 2006

An animation programme used to teach patients the dangers of diabetes will be one of the projects on display at the Dundee Masters Show 2006.

Emma Fyfe, 22, worked closely with staff at Ninewells Hospital to develop the website for the Scottish Diabetes Group as part of her year-long course for the University of Dundee.

"I wanted to look at how animation can be used to achieve a different outcome than traditional entertainment. I developed the programme to help people with diabetes to understand the effects the disease can have if not treated properly and warning signs to look out for."

"Animation is a great way of doing this as there are no language issues and people often understand words better than medical terms, which can confuse them."

"I started the project as I had friends who work in the medical profession and they had discussed how hard it was to get information to people. I realised that my work would cross many barriers, and it does: language, age, literacy."

Emma’s work should soon be available online and in a variety of accessible forms through the Diabetes Unit and Ninewells outlets. It will also be playing on plasma screens in surgery and clinic waiting rooms across Tayside.

The Dundee Masters Show will include work from all four Masters degrees offered by Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art: Masters of Science Electronic Images, Master of Science Animation and Visualisation, Master of Design and Master of Fine Arts.

Another of Emma’s projects will be on display at the Show, which is being staged at Duncan of Jordanstone College Of Art and Kangaroo Self Storage. The second piece of work is an Egyptian head that Emma helped reconstruct in conjunction with the University of Dundee’s new Forensic Art unit.

"I was looking at the reconstruction of the non-essential features of models that have been created. Faces can be constructed based on the skull bones, but things like hair are interpretive, rather than based on hard and fast facts. I was examining whether adding these features to a recreated face adds to the overall picture of the person, or perhaps hinders it as nobody is 100 per cent sure if you’ve got the image right."

Emma had already completed an undergraduate degree at the University of Dundee and plans to stay for a PhD if she receives funding.

INFO:
The Dundee Masters Show runs from the 2nd to 14th September

Kangaroo Self Storage
52 - 54 East Dock Street
Dundee
DD1 3JX

Cooper Gallery, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art
13 Perth Road
Dundee DD1 4HT

For more information:

Anna Day
Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: a.c.day@dundee.ac.uk