10 arts projects that bring together digital technology and research to extend their reach and/or offering are to receive funding from the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts. The Fund is a partnership between Arts Council England, Arts and Humanities Research Council and Nesta to support innovative digital projects that enable new audience experiences and sustainable business models for the arts.

The Fund aims to support the arts industry to find sustainable operating models for the future, while demonstrating the value of risk taking and sharing successes and failings to innovate. Each of the projects supported by the Fund is looking at the power of digital technology to change the roles and boundaries between audiences and organisations through creating new platforms for audience and artist dialogue.  

The 10 projects are the second cohort to be backed by the £7m Fund which made its first awards to nine projects in January, following a yearlong pilot programme.  
One of the newly funded projects, Digital Art², will run on 14 and 15 June 2013 at the Sheffield Doc Fest. Alongside technology partner EE and research partner Sheffield Hallam University, the project will create a live interactive event with Blast Theory to connect audiences and artists.  

Campbell Glennie, Business & Development Director at Sheffield Doc Fest said:  "Digital Art2 will revolutionise how arts organisations think about what constitutes a stage beyond the tradition of a four-wall theatre experience and how they can work with local stakeholders to realise ambitious digital outdoor performances. The end result will be a roadmap that will expand what can be achieved using pre-existing resources, providing enormous value to audiences, cities and artists."

Other projects include:

  • Miracle - Live & Digital, a Cornwall based touring theatre that will stream live performances to audiences everywhere from pubs to village halls.
  • Talking Statues, a project that will bring 40 London statues to life using mobile technology, playwrights and actors.

Alan Davey, Chief Executive, Arts Council England, said: "As always the Digital R&D fund is getting involved in some really exciting and innovative new projects. Not only will these projects shed a light on new ways for artists and performers to interact and work with audiences but they're creating a wealth of learning around digital technology that the whole arts and culture sector can benefit from."

The Fund is open for expressions of interest and applications until 30 December 2013. More information on the application process, including key eligibility criteria, is available here.

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Notes to editor:

For further information please contact Natalie Hodgson on 020 7438 2614 or[email protected]

About the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts

The Digital R&D fund for the Arts is a £7 million fund to support collaboration between organisations with arts projects, technology providers, and researchers. It is a partnership between Arts Council EnglandArts and Humanities Research Council and Nesta.

We want to see projects that use digital technology to enhance audience reach and/or develop new business models for the arts sector. With a dedicated researcher or research team as part of the three-way collaboration, learning from the project can be captured and disseminated to the wider arts sector.

Every project needs to identify a particular question or problem that can be tested. Importantly this question needs to generate knowledge for other arts organisations that they can apply to their own digital strategies. 

Awardees:

FormsXtended
Partners: Dance Digital, University of Bedfordshire, Moviestorm Ltd
East of England
FormsXtended is an interactive, animated digital learning tool that allows children and young people with and without physical needs to create and devise dances.  This project will see the development of an application in which an animated character, with or without physical disabilities, can move, dance and interact with the teachers and children.  

RIOT 1831@Nottingham Castle
Partners: Nottingham City Museums and Art Galleries, Nottingham Trent University, University of Nottingham, Hot Knife Digital Media Ltd 

East Midlands
RIOT 1831@Nottingham Castle aims to provoke debate, support learning about protest and rebellion through time and encourage participation by creating a new, exciting way to tell the story of an attack on the Castle, made during the national Reform Bill Riots in 1831. The project will develop a mobile augmented reality (AR) app that will offer visitors an active role in creating their narrative experience. 

CultureQuest
Partners: The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, Deep Visuals, Knowledge Integration Ltd, Gooii Ltd, The Collections Trust
East of England
CultureQuest will create a mobile app that uses images to encourage visitors to visit variety of art forms and objects in a town or city. The idea for the app is to focus on things (which might be museum objects, artworks or art events) rather than venues or places. 

Talking Statues  
Partners: Sing London, University of Leicester, TimeOut London, Google
London  
If statues could talk, what would they say?  Talking Statues uses playwrights, actors and mobile technology to put words into the mouths of statues.  Pass a talking statue, swipe your phone on a nearby tab and presto, your phone rings and...it's Joan of Arc on the line.  

TILO
Partners: MeYouandUs, Amaze, Pixel inspiration, FACT, IOCP and CX at Lancaster University
Northwest
TILO is a hybrid display system for Arts and Cultural venues. It uses digital screens situated in the public spaces of a venue and combined with live feeds and sensors displays engaging, interactive and personalised content. TILO aims to create a dialogue between the arts organisation, the building and its visitors, and will allows artists to carry out their own interventions. The system will be piloted at FACT in Liverpool, the UK's leading media arts centre.

The Culture Experiences Project
Partners: CultureLabel.com, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Salford, Fusion Research + Analytics, Design Museum, Barbican Centre, ENO, Whitechapel Gallery, Dulwich Picture Gallery
London
Consumer expenditure on premium experience packages has increased dramatically in recent years. While the consumer demand is clearly there, the supply of innovative premium cultural experiences is not keeping pace. The project will identify then leverage common, untapped cultural assets across the group of partner organisations, such as exhibitions, curatorial expertise, education programmes and events. These will be developed to engage new consumer segments including gift, corporate and tourist markets.

Miracle Theatre - Live & Digital
Partners: Miracle Theatre Company, Falmouth University, Golant Media Ventures, Dogbite Film Crew
South West
Miracle Theatre, a small-scale touring company based in Cornwall, will explore whether digital technology can be used to capture, recreate and distribute small-scale productions in innovative and economic ways, while retaining the unique intimacy, engaging quality and 'liveness' of these performances. 

Digital Hat
Partners: Albow, University of the West of England, University of Exeter, Calvium, Isotoma
South West
An app for sharing, finding, and supporting live events. Find out what's on near you, what your friends are going to, list your own events, or see what new projects your favourite companies are working on. Review, share, recommend, and then support via sharing data, or by donating money; on your mobile, on the go, as you watch something happen in front you. 

Digital Art²
Partners: Sheffield Doc/Fest, Sheffield Hallam University, EE (Everything Everywhere), C3RI, Doc/Fest and Blast Theory.
Yorkshire & Humberside
Digital Art² will use Blast Theory's "I'd Hide You" to investigate what is needed to connect audiences and artists, investigate what constitutes a stage for art in an interactive and digital context. Utilising high-speed broadband and 4G at a specific location will encourage audience participation, feedback, engagement and make Digital Art² the first super-connected stage for digital artists.

Artellite
Partners: DegreeArt.com Ltd, Snowflake Digital Ltd, Kingston University
London
Today, understanding the importance of having an effective online presence, for those involved in the Arts, is at an all-time high. However funding is limited. Artellite is a centralised platform, uniquely geared towards online marketing and Ecommerce, from which satellite websites are provided to users, from artists to publicly funded bodies.