Digital Ideas Camp is an initiative by Arts Council England to boost digital development skills across the South East of England. Blast Theory developed a series of workshops, meetings and mentoring sessions to share practices and develop different approaches to working through digital ideas, assisting cultural organisations to better scope, develop, fundraise for and launch digital artistic projects.
Taking place from November 2012 – June 2013, a series of workshops and mentoring sessions were held across the South East of England in Oxford, Faversham, Brighton and Portslade.
The sessions provided briefings about different funding streams, case studies of successful bids and offered development work on some proposals brought to the sessions. The sessions also addressed some of the key challenges that are faced by arts organisations today:
- How do we develop strong digital ideas that require the fusion of technical & creative skills?
- What are the funding opportunities available to us?
- How do we develop our project ideas?
- Which software developers should we work with?
- What are the more formal and well-established techniques for testing and improving ideas – widely used in industries such as film and software development?
- How do we develop broader organisational digital development?
Digital leaders such as Matt Locke, Tom Dolan and Rachel Coldicutt shared practical ideas about the ways in which new technology and digital platforms can inform the work artists make.
Digital Ideas Camp also offered the rare opportunity for one-to-one mentoring for organisations to develop their ideas and for help with funding applications.
The workshops were free to attend and open to all arts practitioners in the South East of England.
A full report can be downloaded here.