23 January 2009

Artificial intelligence captured on video!

Event/Photo opportunity - 12.15 pm, Monday January 26th
Queen Mother Building, University of Dundee

The winners of a competition which challenged young people around the UK to create their own Youtube films will be presented with their prizes and have their films screened at the University of Dundee on Monday January 26th.

The Interactive Media Design programme at Dundee asked 15 to 21-year-olds to make a three-minute video on the theme 'Artifically Intelligent' and post it on the Youtube website (www.youtube.com.)

The competition was split into two age groups - 15 to 17-year-olds and 18 to 21-year-olds, with the winners in each category receiving a prize of £500.

The winners in the older age category were Fergus Cruickshank and Ewan Fletcher, both S6 pupils at Alford Academy in Aberdeen, for their film 'Vegetable Horror'.

They looked to answer the question 'What if vegetables could talk and feel like living beings?' and the judges loved the humour, comic timing and sound design present in their film.

The younger age category was won by Graham Love, a 15-year-old pupil at Aberdeen Grammar School, with his entry 'Lampenstein' which depicted a lamp coming to life and turning into a teenager.

The judges loved the charm of the animation and the way Graham imbued the lamp with intelligence and character. They described his film as 'engaging from start to finish'.

There were also 'Highly Commended' projects from Kingussie High School, and from Broughton High School in Edinburgh.

'Interactive media design is all about matching creativity with the technical know-how to do something like putting together a video and placing it on the web,' said Morna Simpson, lecturer on the Interactive Media Design degree programme at Dundee.

'The entries these young people produced for our competition displayed all those qualities and we have been really impressed by them.'

The competition winners and other entrants are joining the IMD students in Dundee on Monday 26th of January for a special screening, lunch and a personal tour of the Interactive Media Design Studios.

NOTES TO EDITORS
Interactive Media Design is a collaboration between Duncan of Jordanstone College and the School of Computing at the University of Dundee. This unique blend of disciplines gives students the wide range of tools to meet the design challenges of the 21st century. .

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