Digital transformation

Digital offers

An exhibition you can visit from home via a remote-controlled robot. An advent calendar with a digital mini performance behind each door. Festivals on an imaginary island or in a virtual hotel. These are just some of the many creative ways the cultural sector can share digital work with a large audience.

An important added value of online offers and digital presence is international reach. This applies, for instance, to museums and presentation institutions. Interestingly, some smaller institutions see this reach as one of the main reasons not only to (continue to) organise hybrid cultural events where online and offline visitors can experience the programme together, but to even go completely online. An example is The Hmm, platform for inclusive internet culture. Their freedom in hybrid experiments, including the event The Hmm @ 4 locations (organised simultaneously at four locations in the Netherlands and online) led to admiration from larger cultural institutions, which see it as a seedbed for their own digital portfolio.

Besides a wider international reach, the possibility of virtual experiences also increases the accessibility of events and offers opportunities to reduce the ecological footprint of speakers and visitors. Esther van Rosmalen of Witte Rook in Breda observes that this can also play a role in artist residencies. Their artists realised that during the (initial) research phase, it is perfectly possible to work digitally, which increases the flexibility of time, space and context, as well as enabling greater reach among artists who are not based in the Netherlands or Europe.

In the Literature sector, for example, the value of digital content offers is recognised: organisations such as The Writers' Centre (De Schrijverscentrale) have, since the Covid pandemic, discovered how enriching online could be. They offer numerous online initiatives to promote reading culture, such as Writer on Your Screen, launched in 2020. Literary festivals are also programming more online. In addition, there are some new players on the market that are looking at digital reading in a novel way: for example, the much-used Wattpad, a platform that attracts mainly readers between the ages of 12 and 26, on which conversations regarding (mainly) fiction are actively conducted via chat. Furthermore, BookTok, a community on the popular platform TikTok in which young people exchange numerous book tips, has gained a foothold in the sector.

Research into the wants and needs of various target groups of online cultural offers revealed, among other things, that audiences have different needs online than in physical form. In addition, there are some preconditions for online culture to be a valuable addition to physical culture. For instance, the digital offer must provide additional value and the platform must work well.

Finally, digital content offers can play a role in increasing accessibility. For example, people with poor eyesight or hearing can still experience the content via special software. From June 2025, the European Accessibility Act (EEA) will come into force. This act obliges organisations to make certain products and services, such as ticket shops, accessible to people with disabilities. In line with this, DEN advises cultural institutions to test their entire website for accessibility (DEN 2024a).
In the sector, there is already frequent work on accessibility. The Dutch Dance Days, for example, is developing a digital platform that, in addition to its annual physical festival, makes its programme available to the widest possible target group.

Digital technologies

Digital transformation is not only about making collections or performances available online, but also about creating other audience experiences, for instance through new technologies. Several institutions are already using digital technologies to reach wider audiences.

One example is immersive technologies. In an immersive experience, the audience is taken into a (mostly) digital world. Immersive technologies are already widely used, for instance in museums or theatres, but also in cinemas and games. Some examples are Vincent Meets Rembrandt, Remastered or the show It Went Dark (DEN 2024b). To support the knowledge, application and valorisation of immersive experiences (IX), the CIIIC programme is being developed. Between 2025 and 2030, the National Growth Fund will allocate a total of 275 million euros for this programme to position the Dutch IX field as a frontrunner.

In 2023, the Immerse\Interact Scheme, a collaboration between the Creative Industries Fund NL and the Netherlands Film Fund, was launched to encourage the development of immersive or interactive media productions. In addition, a voucher scheme aimed at improving the visibility of such productions was launched in December 2023.

How the new digital techniques are applicable varies by domain. In the performing arts, for example, the physical, live experience is very important. The energy of a room, the interaction with the artist, the music you hear and feel. Nevertheless, in the performing arts too, the digital experience increasingly complements and enriches the physical experience.
For instance, digital technologies offer new opportunities for performances in terms of images, light, sound and special effects (SBB 2023). Digital transformation also offers opportunities for productions, for example via an app offering additional information during a performance, or for educational programmes. The digitalisation of ticket systems also offers many opportunities and insights into audience data. For instance, DIP is linking ticket sales systems, making it possible to analyse audience data and sales data on a large scale (DIP s.a.).

The rapid development of digital technologies also plays an important role within other domains. In design, we see increasing emphasis on data-driven work, digital co-creation platforms and circular design chains. For designers, architects in particular, digital technologies offer new opportunities for collaboration, solving so-called wicked problems and contributing to social challenges. For instance, three quarters of architectural firms work with BIM: digital design models in which various disciplines can cooperate and communicate with partners in the construction chain at an early stage. In addition, 23 percent of the architectural firms already have experience with parametric design: a design method in which algorithms based on data and variables (parameters) can generate many variants of a design within a short time. The most (cost-)efficient, sustainable or optimal solution can then be ‘calculated’. Other new opportunities include bringing a design to life through virtual, augmented or mixed reality (utilised by 35 per cent of architectural offices) or using sensors to monitor and optimise the use of a building (utilised by 18 per cent of offices) (Rutten 2021).

There are also plenty of innovative, tech-savvy (social) design projects where digitalisation and digital innovation play a specific role in collaborations. A small selection from the Dutch designers Yearbook 2022 (Kroesbergen et al. 2022) includes, for example, The Solar Biennale/The Energy Show at Het Nieuwe Instituut and acclaimed projects within the Dutch Design Awards such as WTFFF!?, BuyCloud and the work of Cream on Chrome.

Finally, artificial intelligence (AI) is a growing theme in the culture sector. Although artificial intelligence has long been embedded in our lives - think recommendations for the next series, customised playlists or a virtual assistant on your phone - the introduction of generative AI such as ChatGTP and Midjourney made artificial intelligence accessible to a wide audience. However, how to profit from these and other online expressions remains a major question . The rapid development of digital technologies raises more questions and uncertainties. What does artificial intelligence do to concepts like originality and creativity? Who owns the copyright if the creator uses these tools to create? And what does this mean for creators whose work is used by AI to generate new ideas?

In the cultural sector, the conversation about the opportunities and risks of AI is in full force. For example, authors are asking whether AI is a threat, or a useful tool (Auteursbond 2024) and the union supports the international campaign for human creativity (Auteursbond 2024). Sector-wide, the growing general applications of AI additionally raise the question of how AI-generated art relates to the artistic creativity of human creators (Arriagada 2023).
In early 2024, in discussions for and with the sector, DEN is conducting an exploration of what AI means for the cultural sector. Central to this will be the question of what impact AI will have on the cultural sector and how the sector can best be supported.

Digital consumption

Digital transformation leads to additional opportunities to reach audiences. Within many areas of the cultural sector, these opportunities have been seized as opportunities under the pressure of Covid measures. The National Leisure Time Survey (VTO) shows that two in five Dutch people (38 per cent) watched one or more online screenings or performances (of music, theatre, dance, cabaret or other performing arts) in 2022. Almost a fifth of Dutch people (17 per cent) viewed a museum collection or exhibition online once or more in the same year. See the Culture and Participationpage for more information on the VTO.

Digital consumption is nothing new in the music industry: since 2015, the majority of recorded music revenue has come from digital distribution, mainly via streaming platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify (NVPI Audio 2022). Two in three Dutch people (68 percent) listen to music via such streaming services (see the page Culture and Participation). The switch to digital platforms has also made it possible for artists to do more themselves and interact more directly with their audiences. However, these online developments also create new competition for artists, such as influencers with a wide reach who start acting or making music (SBB 2023).

We see a similar situation within the Audiovisual domain: the number and turnover of VOD (video-on-demand) platforms have increased significantly in recent years. Three quarters of Dutch people indicate that they watch films or series via streaming services such as Netflix, Videoland or NPO Start (76 percent) and one in three sometimes rents a film digitally via platforms such as Pathé Thuis or Picl (34 percent) (See also the page Culture and Participation).

Archiving

Cultural creators and institutions often focus on creating new productions, but attention to archiving is also important. Digitisation and digitalisation offer many possibilities for archives.

Several examples of this are already visible in the Heritage domain. Digitisation helps preserve heritage for the future, but above all it ensures that heritage collections can be linked, that they become more accessible, and that they enable users to tell new, more diverse and richer stories about heritage (Netwerk Digitaal Erfgoed 2021). From the National Digital Heritage Strategy - implemented by the Digital Heritage Network (NDE) - the heritage sector is therefore working to connect heritage collections from the perspective of users, to make heritage more retrievable and increase its use. Central concepts here are ‘tenable’, ‘visible’ and ‘usable’.

Another way to get an idea of the extent of publicly accessible digital heritage is to look at some of the major platforms where various digital collections come together. For example, through CollectieNederland.nl, in early 2024, over 7.1 million objects from the collections of around 200 museums and other cultural institutions are searchable. Through Europeana, nearly 58 million digital objects from all over Europe will also be unlocked by July 2022, of which more than 9.6 million came from 94 Dutch institutions (Europeana Foundation 2022).

Major steps are also being taken to digitise the past of performing arts. Work is currently underway from Podiumkunst.net to connect various performing arts collections performing arts collections so that they will eventually all be searchable from one central service platform. In addition, Podiumkunst.net is working in various ways to promote expertise and encourage creative reuse of digitised material to help the performing arts sector in its digital transformation. The main bottlenecks hindering organisations in doing so are lack of time (61.0 per cent of respondents), priority (51.2 per cent) and resources (29.3 per cent) (Podiumkunst.net 2022).

Digital transformation also plays a major role in archiving within the Architecture domain. The Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, for example, is working on digitising the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning. This was given accelerated through the 2019 program Architecture Closer (Architectuur Dichterbij), which focuses on increasing the visibility and accessibility of the architectural collection. Digitisation and making the digital collection accessible are important components.

The same is true for the Audiovisual domain. A 2020 survey shows that the digitisation rate of audiovisual material increased between 2017 and 2019. 42 per cent of respondents - including Sound and Vision and the Eye Film Museum, but also government archives and broadcasters - said they had digitised more than half of analogue audiovisual material in 2019, up compared to 2017's 34 per cent. The digitisation rate is especially high among broadcasters; 55 per cent had digitised more than half of the analogue audiovisual material. Respondents representing other institutions also generally mentioned a high digitisation rate: 64 per cent of them had digitised more than half of the analogue audiovisual material (Mulder et al. 2020).

Within the Games domain, digitisation offers the opportunity to preserve old games - which are often stored on physical carriers with a limited lifespan - for future generations and keep them playable. At the same time, as a result of the digital transformation, modern games have also acquired characteristics that can make archiving difficult, such as the fact that they can constantly change due to updates, sometimes only work when connected to certain online services, or are only offered in digital stores where they can disappear overnight.