Graphic designs on Teesside's Digital City

A Digital Showcase: University of Teesside 10 March, from 4pm to 6pm

MICHAEL Dinsdale has created an interactive digital city inspired by the giant Teesside chemical works and blast furnaces that light up the night time skyline.

The same graphic vision was the inspiration for film director Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Like the acclaimed North East film-maker, Michael draws on the striking Tees Valley industrial landscape for his first foray into the world of digital film-making - a digital city that is a computer game which can be adapted by software to include people and moving objects.

The original concept 'Ether' earned him a First Class degree in Graphic Design from the University of Teesside and for the last six months the 30-year-old from Norton, near Stockton, has developed the project into a 24-hour interactive production - thanks to a University of Teesside £6,000 Digital City Fellowship.

The finished production of 'Ether' gets darker and lighter during the day and is one of eight digital works of art being shown at a Digital Showcase to be held in the University of Teesside's Centuria Building, Victoria Road, Middlesbrough, on Monday 10 March, from 4pm to 6pm. Anyone interested in attending should book a free place by phoning Carol Cooke or Neil Walker on 01642 384422 or e-mailing n.walker@tees.ac.uk.

The event on 10 March will also mark the launch of this year's Digital Fellowships, which have been boasted by a £200,000 grant from One NorthEast to expand the scheme to other North East universities. The Fellowships are for recent graduates and Masters students who want to develop their degree projects further or work with a range of partners such as Granada Media, Northern Stage, Newcastle/Gateshead Partnership; Virtual Reality Ltd on Teesside; Photonorth and Middlesbrough Art Gallery. Up to £6,000 is available. Applications should be made by 23 May, 2003 to Carol Cooke, University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, TS1 3BA. See www.tees.ac.uk

Carol Cooke, Cultural & Creative Industries Development Manager at the University of Teesside, said: "We are delighted by the standard of work created by Michael and the other graduates who won Digital Fellowships in our first year and we now look forward to expanding the scheme across the region thanks to the support received from the European Social Fund, One NorthEast and the Streets Ahead SRB Partnership."

Another project at the Digital Showcase has been developed by two Canadian students, Doug Wolff and Paul Dolhai, who graduated from the University of Teesside's Computer-Aided Graphical Technology Applications MSc. The North American duo have recently set up their own business, Onisoft, on the campus. Their product is a computer program that can be 'grafted' on to existing games to change weather and other conditions. The Canadians intend to develop their 'middleware' for a fantasy games demo.

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