Most wanted man in Singapore: Mas Selamat Kastari

All news is on this man Mas Selamat Bin Kastari who escaped from an Internal Security detention facility on 27th February 08, 4.05pm. He is still at large nearing a week. He is the suspected leader of a terror cell that was uncovered after 9-11 for trying to sabotage public facilities. How he managed to escape has baffled authorities. Never have I seen such a massive manhunt. His mugshot is posted all over the place, even the telcos has sent out MMS of the photo to all its subscribers.

Singapore is a very densely populated place where it is almost impossible to avoid contact with people. How a high profile fugitive could elude detection this long is bizarre. As an artist, how could I contribute in this situation? I have read of research in UK proofing that caricatures are more effective at jolting peoples memory of a face than the existing police photofits system. Read the article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/nov/26/ukcrime.humanbehaviour

There are photographs of him off course, but a mild caricature seems to help in memorizing the features. Here is my quick take of the most wanted man in Singapore with watersoluble Graphitone.

Extract of article from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/nov/26/ukcrime.humanbehaviour

• Ian Sample, science correspondent
• The Guardian (UK), Monday November 26 2007

Police urged to drop photofits for caricatures

Police forces should issue comical caricatures of the criminals they are hunting instead of standard photofits, according to a team of scientists who found that cartoon-like faces are better at jolting people’s memories.A study at the University of Central Lancashire found that over-emphasising prominent features on people’s faces made them twice as easy to identify than before.

The researchers used computer software to alter the faces of 18 celebrities which had been created using three standard photofit techniques. The faces were then turned into caricatures by exaggerating certain features, such as the size of a person’s ears, forehead or nose, by as much as 50%.

In tests, volunteers were asked to identify people from the standard photofit of their face and from their caricature.

On average, a photofit face was correctly identified 20% of the time, compared with 40% for the caricature, according to a report in this month’s Visual Cognition journal.

In a second test, the team led by Charlie Frowd asked volunteers to make photofits of international footballers two days after being shown a picture of them. The delay was introduced to reflect the typical amount of time that passes from a crime being committed and a witness being asked to create a photofit.

When the images were shown to volunteers, only 3.4% of them were correctly identified, a similar success rate as that reported for police photofits. After animation, the composites were correctly named 26.0% of the time. The researchers are in discussions with police over the possibility of trying out the technology after future crimes.

This article appeared in the Guardian on Monday November 26 2007 on p14 of the UK news and analysis section. It was last updated at 17:35 on November 29 2007.

Tags: Caricature, crime, Singapore, Singapore caricature, wanted man