Scotland’s biggest free anime convention, March 6th-7th

Free. Fun. For Everyone. D-Con Scotland is the only free manga/anime art exhibition of its kind to be held in Scotland. Now in its second year, this accessible anime convention is attracting more attention and high profile exhibitors and sponsors. This year’s hotly anticipated gathering is taking place on Sat 6th- Sun 7th March in the Dundee University Students Union. Held across four floors, the weekend long event will contain guest speakers, tutorials, stalls of artwork, anime screenings, cosplay, competitions, games tournaments, live entertainment and much, much more. Read the rest of this entry »

Public lecture Tuesday 9th February 7pm

Professor Lachlan MacKinnon, in association with the British Science Society, will present an open lecture on the role of computer games and interactive entertainment technologies in ‘serious business’ tonight (Tuesday 9th February) at 7pm at the University of Abertay Dundee.

The computer games industry and its importance on the local, UK and global economies has featured heavily in the media in recent months.  Worldwide, the industry is worth over US$40 billion, with the UK industry share being over £4 billion.

As home to 12 of Scotland’s biggest games developers and the University of Abertay Dundee, a recognised world-leader in the field of computer games and interactive media, Dundee is well positioned to play a leading global role in this booming industry.  There is potential for further serious growth and development in the UK as a whole and Dundee in particular, if the right conditions can be provided.

More information.

Central Stn have some more information on their blog regarding the new V&A museum to be built in Dundee.

Georgina Follett has been seconded from her position as Dean of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design to lead the V&A at Dundee project which will deliver a Victoria & Albert Museum on the waterfront at Dundee. The project is a collaboration formed between University of Dundee, University of Abertay, Dundee City Council and Scottish Enterprise with the V&A Museum in London and is a 20 year partnership.

There is also an article on the Guardian website.

The Dundee project is being led by the University of Dundee, supported by Abertay University – the Dundee-based institution pioneering digital technologies, the city council, the investment agency Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish government.

It emerged today that the centre will be built over the water of the Tay, next to the RSS Discovery, the Dundee-built research ship used by Captain Scott and Ernest Shackleton’s expedition to Antarctica in 1901 now berthed on the river. The site will be about half the size of the Baltic gallery in Gateshead, at 7,000sq metres. The Hilton hotel chain plans to build a hotel beside it.

Finally the long overdue redevelopment of the city’s waterfront area looks to be in full swing. A truly exciting time for Dundonians as well as for Scotland as a whole.

One of the rising stars of Silicon Valley will visit Dundee next week to meet with other women hoping to make their mark in the traditionally male-dominated world of technology.

Shanna Tellerman, named the world’s Best Young Tech Entrepreneur by Business Week magazine, will help to launch the Girl Geek Speaker Series 2010.

The Girl Geek Scotland organisation helps women to succeed in creative technology fields, and was formed in late 2008 by Morna Simpson, a lecturer in Interactive Media Design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, part of the University of Dundee, and colleagues.

Taking place at Dundee Contemporary Arts on Tuesday, February 9th, the launch event will see Shannatalk about how she became ‘an accidental entrepreneur’, and how her company, Wild Pockets, has set out to redefine games development. Read the rest of this entry »

Author William Fiennes will visit Dundee next week to discuss his award-winning books and First Story, the groundbreaking scheme he founded to get young people interested in writing.

Fiennes, whose latest book, The Music Room, has received critical acclaim, will discuss ‘The Importance of Words’, the latest installment in the University of Dundee’s Saturday Evening Lecture Series.

The Music Room is the story of his childhood, a tribute to his late brother Richard, and an enquiry into the nature of the brain. It has been described as ‘beautifully written, and by turns lyrical, nostalgic and surprising’. His previous book, The Snow Geese, won several awards, and he has written for several newspapers and magazines. Read the rest of this entry »

Cooper Gallery

Preview : Friday 19th March 6-8pm

20 March – 17 April

An exhibition of video edits from The Attic Archive, an independent artists archive which began collecting in 1976, in Dundee.

The works, on VHS, DVD and digitised Super 8 have been made across the span of the project, with many collaborators. The subject matter drawn upon is diverse, from documenting performative actions in 1980’s London, to urban gull colonies in Dundee, to Andy Murray Flower of Scotland. Read the rest of this entry »

Cooper Gallery, Dundee.

Preview : Friday 5 February 2010, 6-8pm

6 February – 6 March

Philip Braham (UK), Eric Baudelaire (FR), Patricia Esquivias (Venezuela), John Isaacs (UK/DE), Wes Lang (USA), Richard T Walker (USA), Liu Wei (China), Matthew Wilkins (UK)

An international group exhibition of works which explore our relationship with images, what they mean to us personally and within society, how they reflect the past, present and future to us and their ability to comfort, inform and disturb us.

This exhibition bring together a selection of meaningful and works which expose and draw attention to our relationships with images. The photographic image appears in several of the works taking slightly different forms; in Liu Wei and Matthew Wilkins’ video works the photograph features in singular or collective form as a representation of a personal or national archive. Where Wei uses a familiar and shocking image from the Tiananmen Square uprising, Wilkins draws on a sweep of family photographs and the lifeline embodied in them for ‘A series of Disappearances’. Read the rest of this entry »

Dundee Heritage Trust is proud to announce that it will be staging the first ever major retrospective of the work of photographer Iain Macmillan.

It will be exhibited at Discovery Point for three months from Saturday 27th February until Thursday 3rd June 2010.

Iain, who died in 2006, is very much a forgotten son of Dundee who deserves to be more widely- known. His lack of fame is in part down to his being a very humble man who was incredibly modest about his achievements.

The private owner of the Iain Macmillan collection has collaborated with Dundee Heritage Trust in producing the show. In doing so he is fulfilling a promise he made to his late friend that he would arrange an exhibition of his work in his home town.

For more information take a look at imaginepeace.com.