Art Meets Science

New perspectives on data science: Through innovative exchanges with the Academy for Theater and Digitality, HIDA enables the exploration of data science and artificial intelligence in the performative arts.

Innovative Exchange Program

Are you an artist? Do you work as a technician? Or you work as a coder or programmer and would like to develop creative formats that open up the topic of data science artistically? Then this offer should be just right for you:

Together with the Academy for Theatre and Digitality, HIDA is launching an exchange programme for artists and technicians in 2021.

AI and Arts & Culture

With the joint project, HIDA and the Academy of Theatre and Digitality want to promote the development of formats that open up the topic of data science artistically to the public and make cutting-edge research based on artificial intelligence accessible to the theatre and the cultural scene of tomorrow.

With the exchange programme, we give artists and technicians (e.g. coders, programmers, etc.) the opportunity to carry out a self-organized research project at the Academy for Theatre and Digitality in Dortmund as well as at one of the 18 Helmholtz Centers of the Association.

Academy for Theater and Digitality

The Academy for Theater and Digitality in Dortmund is committed to reflecting on current developments for the performing arts, especially in terms of technology and the associated consequences, and to offering events for people working in theater and performing arts:

"The world as it presents itself to us has become more complex. (...) The digitalization of all areas of life has played a not to be underestimated part in all this. The tools it creates are used by people today as a matter of course. And we are now faced with the epochal task of investigating the numerous new connections between the digital and analog worlds, i. e. digitality: phenomenologically, sociologically, philosophically, technically and – as a core discipline of the Academy – artistically."

Homepage Academy

The Academy for Theater and Digitality was founded in 2019 by the former artistic director of Schauspiel Dortmund, Kay Voges. Its goal is to accompany the theater and the theater professions into a future that will be increasingly shaped by digital technologies.

Overview of the funded projects

Funded Projects

Bnaya Halperin-Kaddari and Kerstin Ergenzinger: Common Ground: Sounding out arctic warming.

The issue of the climate crisis is so vast and complex that its urgency is often difficult to grasp. The Arctic is currently warming at an unprecedented rate, and terrestrial Arctic landscapes are changing rapidly according to this trend. In the "Common Ground" project, research data from the Arctic will be made audible using sonification techniques and experienced in the context of a performance. The sonified data will be heard through specially created sound bodies and instruments in a walk-in room installation and can be manipulated through interference with the spectators immersing in the sound space. The project will be realized together with Julia Boike from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI).

Martin Hennecke: The (Un)Answered Question - A musical data science experimental set-up

Also qualified for a renewed, revised submission is the research project "The (Un)Answered Question". Based on the composition "The Unanswered Question" by the composer Charles Ives, a prototype performance is to be developed in which bio-data of the audience and participants recorded via human-machine interfaces will be processed in video projections and live orchestra remix. In this way, the project attempts to create an immersive live experience using means and techniques from the field of data science. The projections and compositions are to be coupled via artificial intelligence with the audience data and those of the performers, so that each performance becomes a unique event. Two working groups from different Helmholtz centers are collaborating on this project, Thoralf Niendorf from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) and Andreas Schreiber from the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The project will subsequently be realized through a cooperation with the Saarland State Theater.

Program Structure and Application

In total, the research project comprises 5 months, of which the 1st and 5th month are spent at the Academy in Dortmund and months 2-4 at an individually identifiable Helmholtz Center. HIDA supports the 3-month research stay at a Helmholtz Center with the HIDA Research Scholarship.

The next call for applications is expected to take place in spring 2023. We will inform you about the application procedure here in time.

Detailed information on the completed call for applications 2022 can be found here. If you have any further questions about the program, please do not hesitate to contact us.