Golden Agents: Analysing and Simulating the Creative Industries of the Dutch Golden Age

• In Event: Netherlandish Art and Culture at Home and Abroad

Abstract

Although the Dutch Golden Age is a recurrent theme in renaissance studies, most interpretations are extrapolations based on limited data. Statements about relations between genre, style and taste are mostly limited to the elite of Dutch culture. This paper discusses the building of a large infrastructure in which linked open data and multi-agent technology are used to analyze and simulate interactions between various branches of the creative industries and between producers and consumers of cultural goods. Datasets of large institutions such as the Rijksmuseum, the National Library of the Netherlands, The RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History will be linked. Moreover, the disclosure of two million probate inventories of the Civic Archives of Amsterdam will provide insight in the consumption of cultural goods of all layers of society and contribute to a deeper understanding of the relations between genre, style and taste.

Author

• Charles van den Heuvel, Huygens ING and the University of Amsterdam