The arts sector in England is aiming to improve its handling of large data sets, supported by funding from the innovation charity Nesta. Inspired by research in the charity’s report ‘Counting what counts’, the ‘Big Data’ project is looking to fund consortia of arts organisations working with a technology partner and a research partner who wish to investigate Big Data in the arts. Professor Andrew Prescott, AHRC Leadership Fellow for Digital transformations, said Big Data was usually associated with science projects, but was becoming increasingly relevant to the arts and humanities: “The servers holding family history data are among the biggest on the planet, while artists are starting to use big data to create new types of scientific visualisation. Movies, TV, Facebook, and Twitter: all these everyday activities are producing data on a vast scale which offer new opportunities and challenges for researchers in all disciplines.” Research+ will provide research funding for projects that are in early stages and are currently not being supported by the Digital R&D fund for the Arts in England, with the aim that the research done will go on to benefit the wider sector.
At the same time, Nesta , the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Arts Council Wales have launched a new £400k Welsh Digital R&D fund, nearly one year on from its English counterpart, which will support Welsh cultural organisations to innovate, aiming to help them increase their audience reach and revenues.
http://www.nesta.org.uk/areas_of_work/creative_economy/digitalrndwales.