domain

DIGITAL ARTS
The programme Digital Arts refers to the (r)evolution in the cultural domain due to the increasing use of new media. More particularly it is about the way new media are changing existing practices in the creation, preservation, presentation, distribution and consumption of art and culture. Indeed artists and cultural institutions are rethinking their roles in society and the way they interact with potential audiences.

These changes are characterised by several global trends:
• The increasing digitisation of cultural heritage and the birth of digital born art and culture are transforming the way we preserve and experience culture and arts. Worldwide institutions are looking for the most appropriate strategies to preserve this digital content in a sustainable way. This is not only a technological matter (finding the formats which guarantee an easy transformation into newer formats) but is also related to sustainable organisational, societal and economic models.
• The relation between artists and institutions that control the cultural content and the audiences are changing. First of all new media creates opportunities to connect cultural content beyond the boundaries of traditional institutions. Secondly audiences can increasingly interact with online content and they create content themselves. This results in a kind of new defintion of users and producers in which roles and profiles are mixed.
• Cultural participants experience arts and culture both offline and online. Digital arts and culture is increasingly becoming available always and everywhere. Cultural participants switch easily from offline environments (e.g. a concert in real life, a museum) to online spaces (streamed concerts, virtual museums). The next generation of cultural participants is experiencing arts and culture in a kind of ‘no-line’ way which goes beyond offline and online worlds. This hybrid way of cultural participation is challenging existing practices, structures and policies.
• The cultural canon has always been a way to preserve and exchange the core elements of a cultural identity towards sequencing generations. In a digital landscape in which exsiting dominant roles are challenged, this cultural canon is also under pressure. Empowered online cultural participants are reorganising themselves in ad hoc interest groups, creating and reshaping cultural identities. Moreover the digital cultural sphere, characterised by unlimited possibilities to copy and remix cultural content, is challenging existing concepts of authenticity and cultural value.
• The digital context is forcing producers of cultural content to rethink existing business models. Both financing and pricing models are increasingly questioned. The market of arts and culture is being reconstructed by old and new stakeholders. How is the enormous consumption of online music, movies, books, etc. changing the way producers are doing business now and in the future?
The aforementioned trends regarding arts and culture are also challenging existing cultural policies. The new cultural reality goes far beyond the traditional scope of cultural policy. In this landscape in which arts and culture are increasingly touching upon economic, social, educational, innovation and media issues, policy makers have to create a new interdependent and interrelated policy structure.