Digital Arts becomes tenth supported discipline, defined as practice where digital technology fundamentally shapes conception, making and experience.
Arts Council England has introduced Digital Arts as a new discipline, the first to be added in over 20 years. It becomes the Arts Council’s tenth artform discipline, joining Collections and Cultural Property, Combined Arts, Dance, Libraries, Literature, Museums, Music, Theatre and Visual Arts.
Following consultation with National Portfolio Organisations, Digital Arts has been collaboratively defined as creative practice where digital technology fundamentally shapes how work is conceived, made and experienced. It will include digital storytelling, socially engaged digital practice, immersive installations, interactive and game-based art, virtual production, AI and generative systems, data-driven art, digital craft and decentralised technologies.
A new report on artist-led uses of AI by BRAID fellow Dr Oonagh Murphy, published today, shows the Arts Council invested almost £4m in 200 projects using AI technologies between 2019 and 2025 via National Lottery Project Grants and Developing Your Creative Practice grants.
Examples include In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats, a multi-award-winning VR experience reimagining acid house and rave culture, the Immersive Arts programme supporting artists to explore work with immersive technologies, and organisations such as Studio Wayne McGregor and Serpentine embedding digital innovation within cultural institutions.
The introduction is hoped to help the Arts Council track the scale and impact of investment in this area, supporting future policy and funding decisions. It is also hoped to create more opportunities for sharing ideas and developing practice across the sector, opening the door to greater cross-sector collaboration.
Tonya Nelson, Executive Director, Enterprise & Innovation, Arts Council England said: “With the rapid expansion in digital technologies in recent years, I have witnessed first-hand the pivotal role artists and arts organisations play in harnessing their creative potential and how this can help our country’s creative industries to flourish. This is an exciting move in furthering how our investment can nurture innovation.”
Owen Hopkin, Director of New Technologies, Arts Council England added: “Today’s announcement marks an important shift in placing Digital Arts on an equal footing with our other supported disciplines and it shows that this work is already playing an integral role in the future of our creative and cultural sector. This has been a collaborative process and I am grateful to the artists and organisations who have helped shape this, their shared insights and endorsement have been vital.”
The Arts Council’s Digital Culture Network will welcome an AI Tech Champion to their specialist team as part of wider transformation work to adapt to the changing needs of a creative and cultural sector operating in a tech-enabled world.
