The role of digital technology within artistic and cultural practice is an increasingly central one, with the changing cultural landscape making knowledge and application of digital tools and approaches indispensable in contemporary practice. In particular, digital tools are now integral in the production of artistic works, as well as in nurturing collaborations, engaging audiences, developing business models, and generating new knowledge across the arts. In light of this, it is necessary for artists, practitioners and organisations to operate effectively using digital tools and to have the skills, resources and opportunities necessary to do so.
The aim of this fund is to provide the opportunity for artists to develop these skills and engage with digital technology through their work through research, development and practice. The fund will encourage stronger intersectionality between technology, research and the arts.
This fund seeks to increase the digital capacity in creative and cultural practitioners and organisations by developing greater knowledge of what is possible with digital and how to apply digital technology in practice.
Creative professionals/individual artists; Entities registered with the Malta Business Registry (including companies, partnerships, foundations and organisations/associations); Groups, Collectives and Consortia; Registered Cooperatives; Voluntary Organisations enrolled with the Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations.
The deadline to apply is Monday 11th October 2021 at noon. Late applications cannot be accepted.
Click here to download guidelines. Click here to download application form template.
Applicants are required to register a new profile as from January 2021.
To apply for this scheme click here.
Guidelines for the call deadline - 29th January 2021
Click here to download guidelines.
Applicants are required to register a new profile as from January 2021.
To apply for this scheme click here.
Results
Application Deadline: 11th October 2021
Applicant: Noċemuskata
Reference number: DRD11-21-897
Project Title: Inkontru
Amount awarded: €20,000
Inkontru is a video-based magazine-style digital platform designed to be an online arts and culture hub that promotes, investigates, and critiques the local arts scene for both regional and foreign audiences interested in Malta’s artistic output. The platform’s main content features will include: an extensive repository of video featurettes that offer exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes access into various artistic practices, performances, and projects happening around Malta and going back seven years. The team aims to build an extensive database of people interested in the local arts scene. The project plans to encourage audiences to engage and interact with local arts and cultural events, while also enabling people to find performances that resonate with their personal tastes.
Applicant: Margerita Pule
Reference number: DRD08-21-895
Project Title: Farfara 2031
Amount awarded: €19,908
Referring to an island that appeared sporadically on maps of the 16th century, this is a project and research process using the procedure of bidding with this fictional island for the title of European Capital of Culture (ECoC). Designed as an artistic experimental platform, Farfara2031 aims to push the boundaries in thinking, practising and experiencing what an ECoC may be if virtuality is considered as a new form of cultural ‘physicality’. Farfara2031 takes the model of ECoC as a working template for investigating innovative structures and improved relations of creative and systemic thinking to develop models of collaboration, common curation and hybrid/blended models of training, capacity building, informal education and artistic production with participants and audiences. The project believes that arts programming and producing art in the digital realm should go beyond a process of digitisation of an analogue format. This requires a shift in creative practice and, in particular, thinking and conceptualisation.
Applicant: Ivan Coleiro
Reference number: DRD19-21-904
Project Title: Memory and Perception_03
Amount awarded: €20,000
The main aim of this project is to further the ongoing research into digital art composition through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In keeping with current tendencies of international art exhibitions, visitor experience is designed to be a multi-sensory, interdisciplinary event that combines technology with artistic vision. This project involves the fine tuning of a core unit that translates stimuli from its surroundings into sculptural/digital art compositions. The inclusion of movement and sound is considered to be an integral part in heightening the visitor experience. Through the application of research carried out in this field, it is intended to bring Maltese art on a level with that of the international scene.
Applicant: Sezzjoni Żgħażagħ Pawlini Munxarin
Reference number: DRD12-21-898
Project Title: Embracing Today’s Technology in Artistic Projects
Amount awarded: €20,000
In view of the current Covid-19 situation, the team intends to analyse and study the technology that exists out there in order to facilitate its artistic and cultural projects. It will work in collaboration with ICE Malta and Trech.MT to promote Malta as a tech centre for innovation technologies. The beneficiaries plan to purchase CNC machinery, a camera and other machinery necessary for carrying out their projects, both online and in person.
Applicant: Wesley Ellul
Reference number: DRD14-21-899
Project Title: Making Digital Audience feel more than passive viewers in Live Performance
Amount awarded: €20,000
This is a research project that will be looking into how one can bridge the gap and make audiences a more integral part of digital experiences. The beneficiary will be creating a series of test performances for which he will work with a technical development team to create a series of digital tools which will be designed to make the audience feel more part of a digital experience. Through the use of elements such as live chats, live videos of audience members as well as live audios for sound, the beneficiary intends to help replicate some elements of the live experience when attending an event in person.
Applicant: Charles Paul Azzopardi
Reference number: DRD18-21-903
Project Title: Malta Image Preservation Archive (MIPA)
Amount awarded: €20,000
The project’s concept idea is to form the first holistic repository of all photographic material pertaining to Malta and Gozo in one centralised hub, where the material will be digitised at highest technical grade possible and made available to all researchers and audiences free of charge. MIPA’s long term vision is to ensure that the material will form part of a National Photographic Collection, and to advocate for the professionalisation of cultural heritage digitisation in Malta and Gozo.
Applicant: Fondazzjoni Soċjo-Kulturali Ambjentali
Reference number: DRD16-21-901
Project Title: CHIPED: Cultural Heritage Interpretation Portal for an Enhanced Digitized Experience
Amount awarded: €16,016
This project aims to drive and implement the Interpretation Plan for the St. Augustine’s Community Interpretation Centre. Between 2017 and 2020, the Fondazzjoni Soċjo-Kulturali Ambjentali Augustina (FSKAA) compiled a set of documents to spur a sound Interpretation Plan targeting full-access, equal opportunities and a community-based experience. The main objective is to provide and develop an integrated platform for all the systems in place and apply digitisation to enhance the experience of the Community Interpretation Centre by: extending reach; enhancing meaning; digitizing the physical space and digitizing the landscape.
Application Deadline: 29th January 2021
Reference Number: DRD25-20-050
Applicant: Solid Eye Ltd
Project Title: The Time Traveller's Dilemma
Allocated funds (EUR): €20,000.00
The Time Traveller’s Dilemma is about a series of artistic installations where visitors at Heritage Malta sites can travel through time. The installations were originally conceived as time machines for users to enter a defined physical space (modular pods) to interact and engage with a triad of variables, people, objects and places from different eras, both in the past and in the future. It’s at once a fully immersive storytelling space and an interactive platform for study, entertainment and reflection.
Reference Number: DRD45-20-105
Applicant: Gordon Calleja
Project Title: Digital Vengeance
Allocated funds (EUR): €20,000.00
Some years back, the beneficiary had released Vengeance, a boardgame which attained commercial success. The aim of this project is to research, and subsequently create, a digital adaptation of this boardgame. Digital boardgames are becoming more and more popular - players want more control over where and when they can play, COVID-19 has made social gatherings harder, and digitising the analogue comes with significant design advantages. However, while most digital boardgames focus on "porting" their games, recreating them bit for bit, there is a lack of digital adaptations: digital works which aim to replicate the feel of the game without necessarily making it an exact replica of the original boardgame. The project research what makes a digital adaptation successful, analysing sensory feedback, narrative adaptation, automated setups, and many more design avenues.
Reference Number: DRD42-20-090
Applicant: Christopher Gatt
Project Title: The use of Mobile pHones, AR, BinauralSound and Geolocation apps in the creation of a theatrical performance suitable for indoor and outdoor spaces
Allocated funds (EUR): €18,000.00
Ever since the dawn of theatre practitioners have used technology as a major tool in telling stories. Whether it was the natural acoustics of hillsides to create Greek amphitheatres, or the rope technology of sailing to create flies, or the use of gas and eventually electric lighting to separate audience from the picture frame of the proscenium theatre, theatre makers have always used technology to their advantage. Along the way they have worked with engineers, sailors, inventors and scientists to appropriate and understand new tools are they came into general usage, often being the vanguard for new knowledge and new technology. It is with this background in mind that a group of creators would like to joining forces to investigate an area which has been little thought of in the past.
Reference Number: DRD41-20-088
Applicant: Daniel Grech
Project Title: Ballet Online Courses
Allocated funds (EUR): €2,179.00
The project will develop a set of online Classical Ballet and Spanish Dance courses. The multimedia courses include text, images and videos. The courses are based on a purpose-built online training platform. Each course will include all the exercises of the syllabus of the respective grade and will be organised in sections - one section per exercise. Each section will include a descriptive text covering all the steps of every exercise and a video showing a student demonstrating the exercise with the help of a teacher who will be explaining the steps. Where needed, images will also be used to describe the exercises. The platform offers administrators a set of tools to manage users and monitor student progress. The platform offers users and students a personal login space, progress monitoring and various features such as saving one's progress to continue at a later time. The courses can be accessed from any device which is connected to the internet.
Reference Number: DRD08-20-011
Applicant: Angelo Dalli
Project Title: CSAI Community Digital Collaboration and Research Site
Allocated funds (EUR): €13,890.00
This projects aims to develop a collaboration site and platform focused on the collection of data about AI Art and create a network of ultra technologists and scientists . The data collected from this project will be of academic nature and can be utilised as academic reference by students. The question this research tries to answer is - How far can AI and Human creative collaboration go? The projects aims to explore the intersection between science, creativity and technology and attract world-class researchers, experts and practitioners to collaborate, partner and/or form part of CSAI. It also calls for rethinking the referential frameworks that so have far have been shaping the thoughts of academics, artists and scientific researchers in AI art. Finally, the project will explore questions related to the meaning of aesthetics, informed by science, art and philosophy.
Reference Number: DRD05-20-006
Applicant: Tyrone Grima
Project Title: Zoom
Allocated funds (EUR): €15,156.00
This project will focus on the use of space in a high-quality theatre performance in a sustainable manner through technology in the challenging Covid scenario. It is a hybrid project which uses the digital medium as a way of reaching to a wide variety of people in an innovative and dynamic manner. The funding will enable the practitioners and the collaborators involved in this project to reach their objectives as they are exploring how to make use of the digital medium to increase and deepen audience engagement. This project is a hybrid project since in it live-performance encounters online performance. The play offers three interconnected scenarios happening simultaneously. It is through the digital medium that these three scenarios will be connected and accessible to the audience watching the performance.
Reference Number: DRD20-20-034
Applicant: Joeaby at I+A
Project Title: Reframe
Allocated funds (EUR): €19,782.00
This is a research project that aims at combining industrial-grade robotics, digital modelling and Computer Assisted Manufacturing (CAM). Through this research, using these tools, the beneficiary will develop an iterative digital workflow to explore physical geometries for architectural-scale sculptures. Although robotics have been used in the manufacturing industry for over forty years, only recently have they been adopted into the design world. The purpose of this research is to overcome the technical and artistic challenges in rapidly prototyping complex structures, and explore new geometries. This project will allow these ‘tools of production’ to become ‘tools of design’, shifting the attitude from a linear process to one which is cyclic and iterative.
Reference Number: DRD47-20-108
Applicant: Toni Gialanze
Project Title: Interactive Spatiality in Sound and Light through Contemporary Dancing and Body Movements
Allocated funds (EUR): €19,115.00
This project aims to take three forms of art and combining them into one. It is an intensive research on the real-time interaction between Spatial Sound, Light & Visuals and Body Movements from professional dancers. These will be carried out and observed in the most detailed way. This project is of significant importance to each artist and collaborator involved and apart from being a project that will greatly enhance knowledge and challenge common ideas, it will also be a research project where the end goal will be to create a new immersive experience that can be applied in various ways to entertain an audience.
Reference Number: DRD33-20-070
Applicant: Chelsea Sciortino
Project Title: Flabbergasted! A digital-first tabletop roleplaying game
Allocated funds (EUR): €18,000.00
Flabbergasted! is a digital-first tabletop roleplaying game (shortened to TTRPG) that takes inspiration from literary themes that are not often explored within this area of gaming. The setting of Flabbergasted! is that of the 1920’s social club scene and references heavily the comedic works of P. G. Wodehouse. Flabbergasted! will be released to the public through Kickstarter and after it’s debut, on DriveThru RPG. This project seeks to innovate in two key areas. The first is in the presentation and publication of TTRPGs. Tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) are a hybrid form of gaming that draws elements from board games and theatre improvisation. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is one of the most well-known examples of this type of game.
Reference Number: DRD44-20-093
Applicant: Zoe Farrugia
Project Title: Around the World with 80 Actors - A Prickly Pear Podcast
Allocated funds (EUR): €8,636.00
Through this project, the company aims to to expand outside of theatre and begin to create projects in different artistic fields. The beneficiary will be researching and working on the best ways to produce a podcast to be able to take this next step towards expanding the company into a production house. A lot of focus in the artistic industry is on British and American plays and films, but great theatre is happening all over the world. The goal of this podcast is to celebrate the arts sector across continents, so the plan is to interview international actors about the complexities of the global theatre and film industry in their respective home country. Every episode will explore a new country’s industry and how to navigate within it as an artist.
Reference Number: DRD40-20-086
Applicant: Christian Heinrichs
Project Title: Reveries
Allocated funds (EUR): €9,905.00
The proposed project is an intense 5-month research and development phase for an anticipated VR and/or web-based project with the working title ‘Reveries’. Reveries is an envisioned production comprising a series of introspective digital interactive scenes of Malta for the web. Each reverie is an immersive scene based on Maltese life or nature that can be controlled with simple interactions such as mouse movements, touch gestures or head movements in the case of virtual reality. Real sound and visual captures will be blended and integrated with generative audio-visual content to create a seamless transition from real to imagined, concrete to musical, space.
Reference Number: DRD10-20-018
Applicant: Renzo Spiteri
Project Title: Attaining New Digital Creative Skills in Spatial Sound Technologies
Allocated funds (EUR): €18,099.00
The project proposes a research and development period that focuses on attaining new creative skills to produce acousmatic and immersive audio experiences in physical and virtual auditory spaces. Through this project, the beneficiary would like to research and develop new skills in immersive audio aesthetics and to research ways in which he can combine this field of practice with his knowledge, skill and knowhow as a creative practitioner. The beneficiary would like to gain the necessary knowledge and skills to enable him to create artistic works that are shaped as transferable products that can be experienced online or in physical spaces in a more dynamically and virtually realistic manner. During this research process he intends to gain insights into new creative possibilities, observe how his methodologies and skills mutate and how his relationship with sonic creations develop.
Reference Number: DRD37-20-082
Applicant: Michael Quinton
Project Title: Spooky Monkey Live in VR
Allocated funds (EUR): €17,238.00
The research question that has been formulated for this study is: How effective is Virtual Reality as an innovative and experimental platform for live musical performance? The local band Spooky Monkey would like to explore the possibility of performing their next concert live in virtual or extended reality. This will lead to the first ever virtual reality live music concert to be performed by a local Maltese band! Since both band members have returned to Malta after living in different countries since 2013 they plan to come back to the Maltese music scene with an innovative approach, rebranding the band, working on a new image and sound and performing live in a totally new and radical way. The virtual reality platform allows musicians to explore new methods of live performance, going beyond the boundaries of the normal stage format and offering endless possibilities. Spooky Monkey will be teaming up with two local entities, MAD about Video and Culture Venture, to create a live music concert that will take place in a virtual reality environment. This show will be about 30 minutes long and the music will be accompanied by visualisations that have been designed to match the music which will be especially composed for this event.
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