Investing in Future Cultures

Investing in Future Cultures looks at the way funders can invest in and support innovation and transformation in the culture and performance sector. The report is the result of the input of 70+ people from across industries - including performance and wider culture, technology and digital production, broadcast media, social innovation, climate change, policy, and academia and more.

As Visiting Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London I hosted a series of conversations around recurring themes about technology, the culture space and the shape, direction and potential for collaboration and new approaches. Mirroring the iterative processes of my artistic work; the themes and topics emerge from the conversations - each stage of development informing the next. 

The report looks at the ecology as a whole, identifies the needs for investment to allow it to grow and soar and makes recommendations and impact predictions. What is abundantly clear is that the UK has a world-leading, vibrant cultural and creative industry.  One that is full of innovators, and creative mavericks that are responding to a changing world and changing technologies. Currently it is a loose but interconnected ecology that has started to emerge organically. It is a diverse ecology of experts and creatives working across gaming, theatre, broadcasting, film, innovation design, engineering, technology and more. They work together at this immensely productive intersection between traditional culture, digital entertainment and technological innovation: a new and unique hybrid industry; a cultural innovation nexus. 

Although much extraordinary work is happening, it is currently still fragmented. Too often high-quality and innovative work happens in relative isolation, and with massive disparities in access to resources and opportunity. Although there are many instances of successful collaborations across silos, there is no investment in the infrastructure to build an industry and identify, sustain  and build on these one-off successes.  

We need more spaces that connect across siloes to create a sophisticated and connected approach to collaboration, shared R&D and learning. We need to talk more, but we also need to DO more. We need to put some of our theories in practice, show it to each other and audiences. We will still host conversations. We need reflection and research. Ultimately, only through the act of making and doing, trial and error, can we start developing new ways forward together.

Audiences are always at the heart of these conversations. There is a lot of ambition to see culture change to reflect our 21st century society better - to be more open, more democratic, more about dialogue,embracing new ideas,  away from didactic approaches towards meaningful exchange. And joy.  

Just as video didn’t kill the radio star, so also the internet won’t kill the theatre star. Technology holds many possibilities. As new forms of digital storytelling and culture emerge over the next decade, the cultural sector has all the ingredients to expand and explore these new tools to make new work and reach new audiences. But we can’t chase quick fixes and force-fit processes and solutions from existing formats onto new technologies. We need to figure out how we navigate change while staying rooted in our ethics and values and missions. We must work, learn and develop together, and become part of a wider network of partners across art forms, technologies and social and civic change makers.