19 May 2008

Interact with design at Degree Show 2008

New board games, the latest technology you might see gracing the local pub and pioneering tools for helping teach autistic children highlight the diversity of cutting-edge interactive media on show at the University of Dundee’s Degree Show this week.

Graduates on the Interactive Media Design course have produced a hugely inventive range of products and media tools with potential applications across many aspects of our everyday lives.

`Meet people, make music’, for instance, is the simple rationale behind Rob Black’s interactive table, a new social music-generating tool that has already created a stir on its first public appearance at a Dundee bar.

The table-top is a surface on to which a mix of eight marked cubes can be placed - each cube acts as a different instrument. The cubes have four symbols on them with each one representing a different beat, riff or section that work together to complete a musical composition, giving the users there individual control and a feeling of being part of a group.

As the cubes are then moved around the surface, they can manipulate volume, tempo, pitch and a myriad of other effects.

"The idea behind it is to have a new social interaction tool, but the potential applications extend right across the leisure industry," said Rob (25), from Dundee.

"We set it up for a night at Drouthy Neebors bar in Dundee and it didn’t take along before there were people gathering around it, starting to play with it and speaking about it."

An emerging domain of art, design, computing and engineering; Interactive Media Design evolves both technologically and culturally. Interactive Media Design bridges the gap between traditional creative design, futurist technology and practical technical skills required to build interactive spaces, objects and screen based media.

Interactive Media Design is a collaborative degree programme situated within both Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design and the School of Computing at the University of Dundee.

Interactive media designers are found in many settings and industries: entertainment and interactive TV, mobile services, product and industrial design, interior and environmental design, web-based commerce, e-learning, games development, advertising and the public sector.

"Our students are already making waves both at home and abroad by gaining publicity in mainstream media and in cult technology design blogs," said course leader Shaleph O’Neill. "Bruce Sterling, the science fiction writer and visionary, recently described our students as `the awesomest’ and I think our degree show explains why."

Degree Show 2008 at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design and the School of Architecture runs all this week until Saturday. Admission is free and all are welcome to view the exhibition.

For more information on interactive media design at the University of Dundee see:
www.weareabitdifferent.com
http://imd.dundee.ac.uk.

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk