This paper will cover some of the aims, key research questions, and early exploratory work of a new Australian Research Council-funded project: The Australian Cultural Data Engine for Research, Industry and Government (ACD-Engine), based at the University of Melbourne with collaborators across Australia and the UK. The ACD-Engine is a collaborative open software engineering project designed to interact with leading existing cultural databases in architecture, visual and performing arts, humanities, and heritage to bridge to information and social sciences. The paper will consider the ways in which the coordinated extraction and analysis of information from arts databases within Australia has the potential to contribute to policy debates, cultural reform, and new ways of understanding and influencing mainstream forms of consumption. It will also briefly consider the role of cultural data in better understanding the geographic diffusion of Arts in Australia, the vibrancy and social impact of local scenes, and the crucial relationship between data, performance, memory and storytelling in the contemporary Australian arts and cultural scene.

Presentation by Tyne Daile Sumner at Ka Renarena Te Taukaea/Creating Communities, Australasian Association for Digital Humanities Conference, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha/University of Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand, 22-25 November 2021