1 September 2011
Gillian hits the back of the net with unique forensic identification project
Photo opportunity: 11am on Thursday, 1st September at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. Dundee FC Chief Executive Harry MacLean will be joining forensic artist Gillian Barrie to see how many of his team’s players he recognises.
A student from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design has collaborated with Dundee Football Club on a unique project that could help improve forensic investigation and identify criminals.
Gillian Barrie enlisted the help of the Dens Park club for her MSc Forensic Art project. She is examining whether the order in which witnesses describe facial features has an effect on the sketch produced by a forensic artist, and whether the resulting image is more or less successful in stimulating memory and recognition.
She showed photos of Dundee players past and present to non-football fans before asking them to describe them from memory as she sketched. She then visited Dens for the club’s first game of the season earlier this month and asked 30 Dundee diehards if they could then identify their heroes from the sketch.
Visitors to this year’s Dundee Masters Show will have the chance to see if they can identify the players from the witness sketches Gillian produced. Her project is exhibited at the Masters Show, which takes place at DJCAD until Saturday, 3rd September.
The players have been invited to see the sketches for themselves, and will no doubt be keen to find out who witnesses described as being a 'trendy boy about town' rather than a 'Scottish, tattie-faced kinda guy', and who has a 'wee perfect mouth'.
When investigating crimes, police artists produce sketches based on interviews with witnesses, who describe suspects as best as they can despite the fact they may have only seen them for a matter of seconds. The resulting images are then released in the hope that a member of the public recognises the suspect from the sketch.
In order to carry out her research, Gillian (32), from Ladybank, needed subjects who were instantly recognisable to some people but not to others. She used different sketching techniques to see how that influenced the final result, and Gillian says the fans were reasonably successful in identifying the players.
'Like myself, the participant witnesses were unfamiliar with the players,' she said. 'The non-football fans randomly selected one of the images of Dundee players and studied the facial image for one minute and the following day we worked together to produce the facial sketch.
'The participant witness recalled a clear mental picture of the target and described the face to me in order to produce a composite facial sketch which looked like the face in the memory of the witness.
'The composite sketches were constructed using three different methods as I was interested to discover whether the order in which facial features are sketched would have an effect on the recall, recognition and identification of a suspect.
'I did not see any photographs of the players until after all 30 composite sketches were completed. I was invited up to Dens Park to complete the project where 30 Dundee fans took part in the naming test and asked if they were able to identify the players from the sketches. Some were more successful than others, but they all seemed to enjoy the process!
'Everybody at the club was fantastic and so welcoming. It was brilliant to collaborate with the club for the project and I’d like to thank everyone for the time, help and work they have given to my research project.
'It has been a very interesting and fascinating area to research. Not only the end results, but discovering how similarly and, in some cases, how differently witnesses can recall and describe a face from their memory. Some witnesses who studied the same face gave very similar descriptions, while other varied slightly.
'The more I have worked on this project, the more questions I have about composite art, which I would like to research further to discover ways which could improve forensic investigations. Identification of criminals is definitely an area of forensic art I would like to work in.'
Visitors to the Masters Show will be able to see the finished sketches for themselves and compare them to photographs of the players.
Dundee FC Chief Executive Harry MacLean is among those who will be viewing the exhibition and trying to identify his side’s players. He says the club were happy to help Gillian out with her project.
'I'm used to seeing these guys on the pitch and around the ground so it’ll be interesting to see if I can pick them out right way from the sketches,' he said.
'What Gillian is doing is a very worthwhile project and we were delighted to be able to help. Helping students with research that could ultimately help police carry out forensic investigations and identify criminals very much fits with the club's community ethos and I’d like to congratulate Gillian on her work on behalf of everyone at Dundee.'
The 2011 Dundee Masters Show features conceptual, thought-provoking and vibrant work from around 50 postgraduate students from DJCAD, part of the University of Dundee.
The exhibition of work from six courses, some of the UK’s most exciting and innovative arts programmes will conclude on Saturday, September 3rd.
More information about all the exhibiting graduates is available by calling 01382 388630, emailing DJCAD@dundee.ac.uk or by visiting www.dundee.ac.uk/mastersshow.
Notes to editors:
Dundee Masters Show
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design
13 Perth Road
Dundee
DD1 4HT
Graduate work on display from:
- MSc Animation & Visualisation.
- Master of Design.
- Master of Fine Art.
- MSc Forensic Art.
- MSc Media Arts.
- MSc Medical Art
Dates:
Saturday, 27th August - Saturday 3rd, September
Opening Times:
Monday - Friday 10am-8pm
Saturday - Sunday 10am - 4pm
Free Admission
www.dundee.ac.uk/mastersshow.
For media enquiries contact:
Grant Hill
Press Officer
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: g.hill@dundee.ac.uk
MOBILE: 07854 953277 |
