Rudman Consulting client and AmbITion Scotland participant Stellar Quines theatre company is venturing into the world of live streaming. They are live streaming on Thursday 26 January from the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. The List by Jennifer Tremblay will be rehearsed during the day by directors Muriel Romanes and Emma Faulkner and actress Maureen Beattie, then given a rehearsed reading in the evening followed by a discussion in Traverse Two. Stellar Quines continue to uphold their aspirations of making the most of digital opportunities for increasing the reach and scale of their work – watch this case study of their experiments so far.

The sections being live streamed are two hours of the rehearsal in the afternoon, 2pm – 4pm, and the evening performance and discussion which will start at 7.30pm and end by 9pm. There will be an attached moderated chat room, linked twitter etc., and you can view it all through the website for Stellar Quines’ next show ANA. Do join them online or in person!

HiBROW.tv has launched, with over 9 hours of High Definition (HD) arts content, filmed by documentary and film maker Don Boyd, curated by culture sector professionals. The website aims to become a social network (using the power of ning) for people who love a quality, high-brow cultural experience – for a certain clientele, the “high art” demographic, a brilliant website that aims to programme 7 hours of fresh content per month from all over the world.

Digital 2012, the national conference for the creative and digital industries in Scotland is about to launch its registrations. Co-produced by Interactive Scotland and Rudman Consulting programme AmbITion Scotland, Hannah Rudman will be opening the conference on 29th March at an evening networking party at the SECC before the conference commences on 30th March, also at SECC.

Nesta Scotland have launched their Digital R&D Fund this week – part of the digital programme of support for Scotland, alongside AmbITion Scotland (and Sync) – if you’re a Scottish arts, cultural, creative, media or digital company, this call for proposals is worth checking out.

Here’s my annual roundup of the most impactful digital developments we’ve seen in the arts over 2011. Its been a fascinating year: some of these digital developments increase reach, scale, impact, and access to work creating massive opportunity; some create new economic models for better sustainability; some challenge our traditional notions of participation with an artistic experience or piece of work. Conventions and practices which are socially embedded rituals are being impacted, our perceptions of proximity and intimacy are being altered, and our organisations are in need of capacity, capability, and confidence in order to be able to reflect, respond and create.

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Innovation funding needs to meet the specific needs of cultural organisations and that isn’t always about creating something radical and new. This article for Arts Professional stems from my thinking over the summer, crystallised here and in a talk I presented at Creative Entreprenuership, a European conference on the future of the Creative Industries held in Tallinn, October 2011.

In a country with a deficit as bad as it was in 1945 after Britain had endured six years of world war, it is not surprising that innovation is seen as an essential component of helping Britain regain economic stability and achieve growth. Government and its arms-length agencies are investing heavily in innovation, hoping to unleash radical, transformatory creations. The nation’s universities are incentivised to innovate jointly with private and publicly funded businesses. NESTA’s research and development programmes further catalyse the notion of knowledge exchange for innovation. Innovation Lab and Culture Hack activities are increasing, opening up possibilities and encouraging cross-sector collaboration. Discovering the new, radical and transformatory is the focus of funding which is underwriting the risk of the research and development. Developing collaborative relationships that enable nascent products to become economically viable is another purpose of current innovation investment. The innovation-specific investments available for the creative and cultural sector are explicitly for stimulating radical innovations (defined as bleeding-edge nascent products and processes that the world needs – or does not know it yet needs).

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