Digital Inter/Section (DI/S), a European project for digital art and cultural organisations.
DI/S aims at exploring new business models for cultural organisations in the digital arts sector and at a European level. This project aims at diversifying the revenue streams and business models of these types of organizations and promote sustainable, ethical and inclusive economic growth. A further objective is to develop and test innovative business models and recommend tools for increasing economic resilience.
Our
activities
The aim of the project
The aim of the project is to experiment and diversify the revenue streams and business models of digital art organizations.
DI/S also promotes a sustainable, ethical and inclusive economic development, essential for a digital shift in line with European values. This allows to:
- Improve the economic resilience for these organizations in a post-covid context;
- Improve the economic resilience and sustainability for digital artists and creators, and boost the production and circulation of digital and new media art;
- Inspire the cultural & creative structures to engage into business model transitions.
Alongside carrying out four pilot projects experimenting the diversification of the economic models of four digital arts and culture organisations, Digital Inter/Section enables the whole sector to experiment in their own local contexts by publishing European-wide macro and micro studies, reports, toolkits and how to’s. By developing and disseminating methodologies and preconisations amongst the pan-Europan community of digitals arts structures and CCS, DI/S acts as an inspiring and useful key tool for these organisations’ business model diversification.
Innovation of the sector and its competitiveness
By experimenting and developing new innovative business models for digital arts and culture organisations, Digital Inter/Section increases these organisations’ competitiveness, their economic resilience as well as their employees and the artists’ they produce and curate. By doing so, DI/S inspires the whole CCS sector to take the leap.
Throughout Europe, cultural organisations and private companies want to develop their business relations. However, often the cultural organisations lack the time and means to work in depth to concretize these opportunities in alliance with private companies.
Nowadays, there is a concrete need to create a favorable context in which the public and private sectors can mutualize their skills, leading to a joint economic development.
The current context led the consortium partners to join their forces and design Digital Inter/Section, in order to experiment with alliances between digital arts organisations and private businesses in each partner country (Germany, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, France, Czechia).
As a matter of fact, artworks, events and scenarios developed by digital artists and digital arts organisations appeal to the commercial sector in several ways by:
- inspiring and generating innovation and new services or products;
- encouraging new modes of commercialization, in markets that are not yet much invested by the CCS;
- Improving their brand identity and their team’s engagement.
Carrying out four local projects
Each of the four artistic partners (CHRONIQUES, Kontejner, Signal, Kikk) will conduct pilot projects in their own territory, working together with private companies that will help the diversification of their revenue streams. These experiences are shared among the consortium in order to inspire each other and generate collective convergence. The whole process is documented, case studies and methodologies drawn from it are shared with the entire sector, also thanks to the four artistic consortium partners' network of digital art organisations.
These local experiments help prove that digital art organizations and private companies can meet around several stakes and can guide one another through new narratives, opportunities and knowledge, contributing to their respective economic development and proposing new ways to implement their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policy.
Methodology for fostering environmentally sustainable alliances and digital sobriety
Taking into account the environment is crucial for the long term well being of humanity and all living things. All human activities (throughout the artistic, economic and social sectors) must now have a sustainable approach.
Moreover, merely considering the economic development strategy - which is at the heart of the DI/S project - the organisations can use their social and environmental responsibility to improve their brand identity, as it will be of major importance for their partners (B2B, third party funders), clients and users (general audience). Every production, service and cultural event will soon be discredited by the public if it does not take sustainability into consideration.
Therefore, the partners are very concerned with taking into account these aspects in the implementation of the project, caring about the ethical, inclusive and sustainable aspects of its outcomes.
The dedicated DI/S Corporate Responsibility work group cares about delivering ethical, inclusive and sustainable project outcomes. This is done in several ways:
- Experts on these topics are invited to take part to workshops and conferences, so to raise awareness among all internal and external stakeholders;
- Specific guidelines are published to allow cultural organisations to develop new ethical, inclusive and sustainable business models.
The Digital
Inter/Section
network
The consortium partners and their networks:
- 4 digital art organisations on 4 local territories (Marseille, Namur, Zagreb, Prague);
- 1 third-country partner (Montreal);
- THE CATALYSTS, expert in business design, offering a complimentary, wide network outside the digital art sector.
The associated partners and their networks:
- private companies, engaged during pilot projects;
- professional national and international networks.
The five partners cooperate as a pan-European organisation, joining their forces in order to operate:
- in a collective way (peer-to-peer learning, experience sharing and group coaching);
- in an open source and replicable way, so that the whole European CCS sector can benefit from the project outcomes (publication of guidelines, case studies, toolkits for capacity building).
The Digital Inter/Section project’s impact can be observed at several scales:
- the 5 European partners countries (France, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Germany);
- the 6th associated partner country (Canada);
- the 27 European countries that will be able to join the international online community for business development alliances and benefit from the global studies and methodological guidelines for business development;
- Asia, America and Africa, where the initial studies are carried out and who will benefit from the results of the project.
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