Digital Sovereignty for Art Academies

Digital transformation is fundamentally changing artistic practice—but artistic freedom must not be lost in the process.

For art academies, digital sovereignty is therefore not an option but a necessary condition: it enables a self-determined, secure, and conscious approach to digital tools, data, and infrastructures.

The joint project "Digital Sovereignty for Art Academies" aims at designing digital teaching and working environments at art academies in such a way that artistic practice remains free, experimental, and critical in the digital realm.

Objectives

Guided by the principles of sovereignty, openness, empowerment, and sustainability, the project pursues two closely related goals:

  • to develop sustainable, needs-based digital infrastructures for art academies and
  • to foster a culture of digital self-determination among students and staff.

Studio for Digital Sovereignty

At the heart of the project is the Studio for Digital Sovereignty, an inter-institutional development, advisory, and knowledge transfer structure. It brings together expertise, coordinates project activities, and implements the project’s goals. Cooperative work within the joint project creates the conditions necessary to establish digital sovereignty in the long term and effectively embed it beyond the project’s duration.

The Studio focuses on three central areas of artistic higher education:

  • Research data management and interface development (ABK Stuttgart)
  • Collaborative teaching and learning (Kunstakademie Karlsruhe)
  • Documentation, archiving, and publication of artistic practice (HfG Karlsruhe)

In these areas, specific solutions are developed, shared within the network, and documented as best practices. The Studio thus makes a nationwide contribution to the digital transformation of art and design academies.

Practices of Cooperation

Proposals for the collaborative project "Digital Sovereignty for Art Academies"

Symposium at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe in collaboration with the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe and the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart

Karlsruhe, November 4–6, 2026

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