ACuTe – Culture Testbeds for Interactivity, Performance and Technology

ACuTe – Culture Testbeds for Interactivity, Performance and Technology is a trend setting, large-scale European innovation project aiming to revolutionize the way theatre and performing arts are produced and performed with emerging technology and new forms of cultural collaboration and competence development. ACuTe will be delivered via a strong partnership of 14 leading theatres, universities and creative arts organizations including Ars Electronica, the European Theatre Convention, and Europe’s first Academy for Theatre and Digitality. From 10 different European countries, this consortium will achieve new approaches and models for testing of new technology leading to audience development, co-creation, and capacity development within performing arts and theatre institutions. With an interdisciplinary approach integrating digital technology and co-creation methodologies, a new type of ‘culture testbed’ will be created. These testbeds will lead to the testing and tangible prototyping of new technologies within performing arts productions under three themes: 1. new dramaturgies, 2. stage design and 3. audience engagement – innovations on how we tell stories on stage, how they are produced, and the way audiences interact and engage with them. Specifically, a series of nine (9) separate experimental theatre productions will be designed, produced and performed as the core of the testbed outputs. Other activities include a series of Expert in Residencies to support prototyping, European level knowledge transfer events, online content for professional communities, training workshops and online and face-to-face activities offered with the partnering institutions focusing on developing professional capacity in the deep integration of technology in the long-term theatre production process. Culture testbeds will also enable meaningful communication with and engagement of audiences across Europe and within the European theatre sector. The project will offer a new level of integration across dozens of institutions by building upon short-term training projects previously funded by the EU which introduce emerging technologies among performing arts institutions to create a more robust, long-term methodology for integrating technologies in public performances at institutions – testbeds have been chosen as the approach to support this deep innovation process. With a wide range of diverse activities until 2025, the four-year project applies testbeds as a proven process of innovation in other industries to address the diverse needs of the performing arts sector. Furthermore, the project will support co-creation within existing performance production teams at each participating institution and exposes European creative professionals and thousands of audience members to new live cultural experiences through various emerging technologies. Activities specifically aim to encourage audience development amongst under-represented audience groups. Outreach and accessibility will be the key elements of this approach. With a focus on change management and an emphasis on cultural mediation, the project will result in increased capabilities for digital technology usage within a cultural, performing arts context across European theatres. Project evaluations and (digital) audience development strategies will be shared at conferences, in research blogs, within European theatre networks and help to further contribute to the future viability of audience development in the cultural sector post-COVID-19 among performing arts institutions, policy makers at the EU level. Six different work packages and associated milestones will be delivered throughout five project stages by experienced performing arts professionals, external experts and academic advisors from the consortium, the three research partners – The Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonia; Saxion University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands; and Oulu University of Applied Sciences, Finland as well as the theatre network organization – European Theatre Convention (ETC). [Source: FTOP.]

SNG Nova Gorica

(Partner)

All projects of Slovenian producer

ID : Babylon

Foreign producers in the supported project

Coordinated by OULUN AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU OY - OULU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES (leader)

Finland (EU)
ARS ELECTRONICA LINZ GMBH & CO KG (partner)

Austria (EU)
EUROPEAN THEATRE CONVENTION EV (partner)

Germany (EU)
CENTRO AZKUNA DE SOCIEDAD Y CULTURA CONTEMPORANEA SA (partner)

Spain (EU)
EESTI KUNSTIAKADEEMIA (partner)

Estonia (EU)
STICHTING SAXION (partner)

Netherlands (EU)
THEATRE DE LIEGE ASBL - CENTRE DRAMATIQUE DE LA FEDERATION WALLONIE-BRUXELLES - CENTRE DE CREATION THEATRALE ET CHOREGRAPHIQUE (partner)

Belgium (EU)
OO THEATER UND ORCHESTER GMBH (partner)

Austria (EU)
STICHTING DE TONEELMAKERIJ (partner)

Netherlands (EU)
LL DET NORSKE TEATRET (partner)

Norway
SCHAUSPIELHAUS GRAZ GMBH (partner)

Austria (EU)
TEATRUL NATIONAL MARIN SORESCU DIN CRAIOVA (partner)

Romania (EU)
STADT DORTMUND (partner)

Germany (EU)

Funded projects

Shadow Pandemic: Hidden Voices

Open House Europe (OHEu)

Third Stage

VERSOPOLIS – WHERE POETRY LIVES

Uncomfortable Beings, Azra, Best Imaginary Friends Forever

LINA - Learn, Interact, and Network in Architecture

Reactivating unused urban spaces through architecture and arts (ReCITYing)

Art Nouveau: a new EUtopia

Creative Industries Development Centre (KUL)

Web 3.0 Accelerator for Sustainable Cultural Tourism (Web3Tour)

Studiotopia: Enter the Symbiocene with Arts and Science (Studiotopia 2)

Bio Awakening - developing bio-art practices in Western Balkan

TestArt

GREENSTAGE

Climate Art Fusion Caravane (CARAVANE)

Connecting Emerging Literary Artists (CELA)

Cultural BEES

Transmedia stories of insularity (TRAST)

Female Digital Creativity (FLUX)

Planet Hope (New European Fiction) (PH)

More than a Story (MTaS)

Our Little Library: Through literary bridges to reading adventures (OLLLB)

Connected with Books (CWB)

Operation Nova

Moving Balkans

Exploring Expanded Publishing: EX-Pub

Thinking Publishing (ThinkPub)

Novel Europe (NovelEU)

REVIVE

Temporama: Mini Slate 2023

Studi Virc: Mini Slate 2023

The 10th and 11th edition of FeKK - Ljubljana Short Film Festival

The 20th and 21st Kino Otok - Isola Cinema International Film Festival

20. and 21. ANIMATEKA International animated film festival

Film in Hospital 2.0

EU Youth Cinema: Green Deal 2024-2026

Cinema without barriers (CWB)

Literary Agent Platform: Capacity building (LAP CB)

Tramal Films Mini Slate 22 (TFMini22)

Vertigo Slate 2022: Chestnuts, Memory of Autumn Mists, OHO, Splashing around

Staragara slate 22

Our Little Library: Literary exchanges

Testing Ground (TestG)

Better Live

Variola - Dark Spring TV series

SEMA

Paradiso

Leave the door open

The Big Green

The Long Way Down

New approaches for local media (NEWLOCAL)

Life Long Burning – Futures Lost and Found (LLB3)

Time For Live Art (LIVETIME)

Our Little Library: Literary Exchanges

Women Power in Comics (WOMCOM)

Movement, Digital Intelligence and Interactive Audience (MODINA)

Fortissimo. An interactive digital tool that brings kids closer to classical music (FF)

Spring Cleaning

Animation Festival Network

CulturalDeTour - Sustainable Cultural Tourism by Design Driven Innovation

Building the future of democracy through art, science and technology (EUDigitalDeal)

The Museum of the Commons. Towards a Healthier Arts Ecosystem (MoC)

ACT: Art, Climate, Transition

Baths, gothic churches and miners’ houses

Fake Lies

THE FILM CORNER RELOADED - A CULTURAL APPROACH

CINEMINI EUROPE

FC Freedom

Body

Movies in Motion

Voix de la Poesie Europeenne

Trust me, I'm an artist

The Faces Behind the Nose - Promoting Hospital Clowning as a Recognized Genre of Performing Arts

SYMBOLS - Culture of Death& Cultural Life: New audiences and creations around European Cemeteries!

SWICH - Sharing a World of Inclusion, Creativity and Heritage

SPECTRUM 14|15

Small Size, Performing Arts for Early Years

Performing the Museum

Masters & Servers: Networked Culture in the Post-Digital Age