Floris Guntenaar

Cultural heritage objects are being described in digital form, along with associated digital images and files. This information is made accessible on the Internet. Generally, the art historical background of a work of art contributes valuable information about its relationship to other works, style periods and artists. This contextual information is often missing in the digital representation of the objects. Particularly when these relationships cross the boundaries of a single collection, the software tools currently used by museums do not typically allow these links to be expressed, even if the curators or other experts are aware of them. Most heritage institutions use software tools that support digitizing objects in a non-contextual way, although software for relational information, or rather, a contextual database model – based on international heritage standards – has been available since 2006. CulturalHeritage.cc Foundation co-developed this model in concert with its active members. In addition, the development of a database for cultural heritage projects within this database model incorporates the full use of the contextual database directly related to the projects inventoried.This results in cross-border projects, which are automatically connected and linked through their objects.

See www.culturalheritage.cc for more information.

About Floris Guntenaar

Floris Guntenaar (florisguntenaar.nl) is a designer and the initiator of CulturalHeritage.cc Foundation. He previously initiated and founded the CINEKID Film and Television Festival, Amsterdam. He has also designed several itinerant exhibitions: Berlin/Amsterdam, The World of Anne Frank, Das Akt Foto, One Hundred Years of Jazz, Art and Kitsch, That’s Jazz: The Sound of the 20th Century and a Science Water Park in Toyama, Japan. Guntenaar has worked as a theater designer for Dutch Television, the Netherlands Opera and numerous Dutch theater companies, as well the Aspen Music Festival in the USA.