'Savant' - multimedia project on autism wins European award
13 November 2003

Once again, Irish multimedia has been recognised and rewarded on the international stage. A DCU MSc Multimedia project, 'Savant', based on autism and autistic savants, has won the award for best offline/DVD project in the Europrix Multimedia Top Talent Award 2003. The award ceremony took place in the Technical Museum in Vienna.

'Savant' was produced by Oonagh Casey, David Coyle, Mark Matthews, Deirdre Molloy, Damian Polly and Sinead Stafford as their thesis project for the 2002 Multimedia Masters in DCU. The project received the highest mark ever awarded to a multimedia masters thesis in DCU and it has been exhibited twice in the Helix gallery in DCU, and as part of the Dublin Art and Technology Association (DATA) series of talks. It was also selected for display in a three-month international design exhibition called 'Exhibit 3: Design' in the Digital Hub, which ran from July to September this year. As competition winner, 'Savant' will also be displayed in museums throughout Europe during 2004.

The contest consisted of seven categories covering covering all aspects of multimedia. A total of 425 projects from 30 countries were submitted and 19 were chosen to go on to the final stage of the competition. There were 92 submissions in the offline/DVD category, and three entries were finally chosen for the competition.

'Savant' is an interactive artistic interpretation of the autistic mode of perception. The judges were impressed by the extensive research carried out by the group, and the way the project utilised multimedia to its fullest potential to present autism as a distinct and unique mode of being rather than as a disability. 'Savant' profiles four savants with different, amazing abilities; Thristan "Tum-Tum" Mendoza is a musical savant, Jessica Park is an artistic savant, David Kidd has the ability to identify the day of the week for any date from the past or the future, and Temple Grandin can construct and manipulate 3D drawings in her mind before committing them to paper. 'Savant' uses multimedia as a vehicle to open a window into the world of autism and show what daily life is like for autistic people.

The aim of the project was to produce an interactive representation of the autistic experience. It is not to be interpreted as one of disability but rather a unique way of perceiving the world from an autistic point of view. The students based their understanding of what it means to be autistic on the writings of Donna Williams, herself an autistic savant.

Savants have incredible concentration abilities and can focus their complete attention to one specific area of interest - researchers believe that we will never understand memory and cognition until we understand the autistic savant.