An experiment to share work by rural artists and a tool that captures the impact of community arts are among five projects funded by the Digital Innovation Fund for the Arts in Wales, it was announced today.

Run by the Arts Council of Wales and innovation foundation Nesta, the Fund is supporting arts organisations to partner with technology providers to grow audience reach and develop new business models.

Each project will receive up to £75,000 and additional business and research support over nine months and follows a three month ideas development phase for the teams.

The five projects funded by the Digital Innovation Fund for the Arts in Wales are:

• Arts Alive Wales (£35,000) will explore how they can share artworks and performances in remote, rural locations like the Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons National Park using tools such as satellite broadband to overcome connectivity issues.
• Artis Community (£54,345), a social arts group, and Proper Design will create a platform to share the social impact of community arts interventions, in areas including health and wellbeing, education and community regeneration, to demonstrate the benefits of their work.
• Dance theatre group Bombastic (£73,080) and Moon, will develop a platform that combines education and interactive digital experiences to be able to offer more frequent and impactful engagement with schools.
• Hijinx (£35,916), an inclusive professional theatre company, and Proper Design and Dunne and Daisy will explore how they can use digital technology to track the progress and development - including future employment - of 60 professional actors with learning difficulties.
• G39 (£63,195), a gallery space based in Cardiff, and Golant Media Ventures will develop a data capture system for their visitors who, unlike those of ticketed or paid-for events, are little understood in terms of their age, gender and motivation.

The findings from each project will be shared with the wider industry on the Arts Council of Wales and Nesta websites.

Lisa Matthews, Portfolio Manager for the Digital Innovation Fund for the Arts, comments: “We're delighted to be supporting these organisations on what will be an exciting, challenging and often intense opportunity to explore how digital can transform the way they work in the future. Equally important is how the lessons we learn on the way can be shared with and encourage the arts sector to engage in wider innovation. We look forward to doing this in the coming months.”

The Digital Innovation Fund for the Arts in Wales follows on from the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts in Wales which funded seven arts organisations to work with technology and research partners on digital technology projects.

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The Digital Innovation Fund for the Arts in Wales: The Digital Innovation Fund for the Arts in Wales is a partnership between the Arts Council of Wales and the UK’s innovation foundation Nesta. The Fund supports arts organisations in Wales to work with digital technologies to expand audience reach and engagement and/or explore new business models. The Fund aims to support arts organisations to identify challenges and opportunities, develop novel solutions and test these solutions through rigorous experimentation, working with a technology partner. The findings will offer evidence for the wider industry.

For media enquiries, please contact Laura Scarrott in Nesta’s press office: [email protected] / 0207 348 2697