In this article
DaDa is an innovative arts organisation that delivers festivals and other cultural events to promote high quality disability, Deaf and neurodiverse art from unique cultural perspectives. It also creates opportunities for disabled, Deaf and neurodiverse people to access culture and creativity, including training and a young people’s programme.
DaDa won the Digital Transformation category in the 2023 Digital Culture Awards for their Holograms research and development project.
DaDa’s Holograms research and development (R&D) project aimed to improve accessibility for Deaf audiences in alternative theatre formats, such as immersive theatre, non-traditional seating arrangements, and digital theatre. These formats are historically challenging to make accessible, and the cost can be prohibitive for small arts organisations. With funding from The Space, DaDa undertook research to explore whether innovative technologies like volumetric motion capture, projection mapping, and augmented reality could make these formats accessible to Deaf audiences, and remain budget friendly.
They created and road-tested BSL interpretation applications across three phases, each focusing on a different theatre style, demonstrating that:
This project showed DaDa’s impressive commitment to embedding upskilling and knowledge-sharing into their commissioning and producing frameworks. DaDa staff, collaborators and partners received training to better understand the needs of Deaf audiences and augmented reality, and how to incorporate this type of work into programming. Project findings were shared with collaborating artists and presented at an industry day for theatres, arts organisations, and producers.
DaDa’s innovative and thoughtful approach to research and ideation, through to design and delivery has created not only a transformative digital product, but a human centred, transformative experience for audiences.
Liam Darbon, Digital Transformation Judge
The DaDa Holograms R&D project has the potential to revolutionise the way Deaf audiences experience live theatre and has transformed the way DaDa commissions and produces their work. Its findings demonstrate the potential of technology to promote the importance of inclusivity in cultural experiences, and positions DaDa as pioneering digital trailblazers in the field.
Let’s hear what DaDa Executive Producer, Joe Strickland, has to say about the potential technology has to create a more equitable and inclusive creative sector.
That using technology to try and overcome accessibility issues doesn’t have to cost a huge amount, and a lo-fi approach that could be afforded by any level of theatre company or arts organisation can be very effective. Money doesn’t have to be a barrier to creative, ambitious, access.
We would have run more examples of the augmented reality solutions for different types of cultural presentation. We managed to make creative access solutions for immersive/promenade theatre, but never got to test them in other settings, like museums and galleries or audio tours. We created on demand tabletop AR theatre but never got to try live streaming it. We tried projected BSL performers in person but only in one location and without any extended creative elements. There’s much more to investigate and uncover about this area of creative access.
That this project was only possible because organisations like DaDa truly understand the value of digital work in the arts. It doesn’t have to just be about creative digital facsimiles of your in person cultural output, but realising that the new realm has brand new opportunities for overcoming problems that have persisted throughout time for in-person cultural performance or exhibitions.
Whilst many organisations are yet to deliver on their lockdown promises of digital access to their cultural output, DaDa and The Space – both funders of this project – remain steadfast in their belief in the opposition of this consensus. These beliefs are desperately important for ensuring a varied and inclusive digital cultural landscape.
Who knows, the world is our oyster at the moment. The one thing I know for certain is that DaDa has a huge amount of learning about digital culture and access and I’d love to keep being able to pass that on to other organisations and creatives to make sure more people making artwork are doing so in ambitious, creative, and accessible ways.
The Digital Transformation category celebrates an organisation’s successful integration of digital technology into processes, systems, or other organisational structures resulting in measurable growth in efficiency and digital skills or maturity. DaDa won the category in the 2023 Digital Culture Awards for their entry Holograms research and development project.
Meet and be inspired by more of the brilliant Winners in the 2023 Digital Culture Awards. The nine categories celebrate innovation in areas including digital content creation and distribution, online audience engagement, digital income development strategies, data-led decision-making and overall commitment to digital skills development and capacity building.
The Digital Culture Network can help! Our digital experts can provide free 1-2-1 support to all creative and cultural individuals and organisations who are in receipt of, or eligible for, Arts Council England funding. If you need help with a specific issue or would just like to chat about your digital ambitions, please get in touch.
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