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Since its founding in 2019, the Academy for Theatre and Digitality has established itself locally, nationally, and internationally as a central point of contact in culture, science, and teaching. It is recognized as a consultant to a whole range of national (cultural) policy institutions and cultural policy project developers, and acts as a point of contact for expertise and, above all, as an internationally outstanding artistic research institute and network hub.
In 2026/27 the Academy for Theatre and Digitality views digital transformation not merely as a technological development, but explicitly as a field of artistic practice. Through collaboration with local, national and international partners, constellations are emerging in which data ecosystems, creative practice and social responsibility are systematically interwoven. This gives rise to a dynamic space that re-interlinks artistic production, institutional structures and digital innovation.
As cultural institutions position themselves on the threshold of new realms of reality, the Academy’s mission is particularly evident in its approach to data-driven innovation processes and in its exploration of the relationships between humans and AI-driven systems. Projects such as EXCENTRIC are creating an infrastructure that supports cultural organisations in their transition to intelligent and people-centred digital practices. The participants are developing tools that not only technically optimise programme planning, resource organisation and audience engagement, but also reframe these as cultural design tasks. Together with the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra, the Academy is developing a pilot project that uses AI to convert audience data live into compositional elements.
The three-year project [Who] Rules To Encounter explores how future encounters with humanoid robots can be designed in a way that is aesthetically, ethically and physically comprehensible. In collaboration with the artist and choreographer Silke Grabinger, as well as dancers from the NRW Junior Ballet and the JugendTanzTheater (both at Theater Dortmund), alongside students and inclusive groups, new forms of interaction are emerging under changing technological conditions. These expand the spectrum of possible encounters and are analysed, transformed and further developed with the aid of generative AI. At the same time, they form the basis for new choreographic approaches. Researchers from several universities in Dortmund, Vienna and Linz are supporting this exchange between art and science, from which performances emerge that, through the encounter with the machine, bring people into a sensually experiential encounter with themselves: How can we preserve our humanity in the face of a new species?
In the mean time, the Academy is contributing at European level to the development of future-oriented skills for theatres. The ETC Digital Theatre Programme is developing training courses that teach digital technologies as an integral part of contemporary theatre work. At the same time, Theater der erweiterten Realitäten at the Theater an der Ruhr (Mülheim) is opening up workspaces where AI, immersive scenography and virtual reality converge to create a new understanding of stage art.
In this way, diverse fields of research and practice come together to form a whole in which theatre becomes a laboratory, technology a raw material, and society a co-creator. The Academy for Theatre and Digitality plays a mediating role in this process: it works closely with (inter)national partners including Ars Electronica, Bayreuth Festival, Theatres in Mülheim and Gelsenkirchen, as well as the PAD Festival in Wiesbaden and Berlin Science Week, thereby actively shaping these developments for the future of the performing arts. A central component is the internationally oriented Master’s programme in Theatre and Digitality, which the Academy offers in collaboration with Dortmund University of Applied Sciences. It combines theatre, art and computer science, incorporating performers, stories, stages and technology in equal measure. Students research and develop digital technologies for the performing arts and acquire a broad spectrum of theoretical, practice-oriented and professionally qualifying skills – from human-machine interfaces to the use of machine learning on analogue, virtual and hybrid stages. The aim is to directly link research, teaching and artistic practice and to test new formats at the interface of technology and performance.
In addition, the Academy is advising the German Theatre Museum in Munich on its forthcoming exhibition Theatre & Digitality, which will open in autumn 2026 and will feature, amongst other things, projects linked to the Academy. For Ars Electronica in Linz and the Australian media art festival Experimenta, the Academy is supporting the Australian artist Kenneth Lambert with a residency in Dortmund. In his installation Maximum Limit, Lambert creates an unstable weather ecology of light, sound and mist that reacts to the movements of visitors. The work is being presented as part of the world’s most significant media art festival in Linz – made possible through the collaboration between Experimenta, Ars Electronica and the Academy.
Through these partnerships and many other projects, the Academy combines prototypical research, iterative development and artistic practice, thereby laying the necessary foundations for shaping theatre for the future.