Arts Minister Estelle Morris earlier this month unveiled the next four projects to be commissioned under a new Department of Culture, Media and Sport project to harness new technologies, enhance cultural experience and reach out to those who do not normally participate in arts and culture.
 
Unique projects, funded under the £13 million Culture Online programme will:
· Allow young people to explore and experiment with musical sounds, styles and genres, regardless of their existing experience or social background (SoundWorlds),
 
· Create ten online City Heritage Guides highlighting the best of each area's culture, with unique input from members of local communities (City Heritage Guides),
 
· Give people the chance to watch – by webcam – professional artists and craftspeople in their studios creating work, and then talk to them and take part in online master classes (Artisan Cam), and
 
· Enable older people to help create a unique online archive of memories from the Second World War, to tie in to the 60th anniversary of D-Day (World War Two Remembered).
The projects – which bring the total so far announced to 10 – will mostly go live later this year.
 
Estelle Morris said:
 
"Culture Online has got off to a flying start.  These projects harness cutting-edge technology to offer experiences and opportunities in the arts that, quite simply, could not have happened ten years ago.
 
"Culture Online opens up the arts to people and groups sometimes excluded from conventional channels. Its success so far is a tribute to the innovation and imagination of Britain's creative industries."

For more information, visit www.culture.gov.uk .