Upcoming: Society of the Query conference
Posted by shirley
on April 28, 2009
Society of the Query conference: 13 - 14 November, Trouw Amsterdam in Amsterdam
With the Society of the Query conference -stop searching, start questioning-, the Institute of Network Cultures aims to critically reflect on the information society and the dominant role of the search engine in our culture. What does the dependency on the engine to manage the complex system of knowledge on the Internet mean? What alternatives exist? How can the increasingly centralized web be regulated? What is the future of interface design? By bringing together researchers, theorists and artists, the conference will examine the key issues that are emerging around web search, and contextualize developments within the fields of knowledge organization and information design.
Introduction
Search is the way we now live. At present, the reality of the information society is one in which we are increasingly confined to the use of information retrieval tools to create order and value in the vast amount of online data. Web search has taken over from (directory based) browsing and surfing as the dominant activity on the web. With this development, the search engine has become the main point of reference, one whose emphasis on efficiency and service tends to cloud the nature of both the underlying technology and (corporate) ideologies.
In what might be dubbed the ‘society of the query’, this conference asks what this dependency on tools to manage the complex system of knowledge on the Internet means for our culture. As the idea of a semantic web unfolds, the human versus artificial intelligence controversy is regarded with renewed urgency. The increasingly centralized computing grid invites critical questions about power distribution, governance, and diversity and accessibility of web content, while on the other hand promising alternatives to the dominant paradigm arise in P2P and open source initiatives. With large investments in media literacy, what role might politics and education play in establishing an informed and technologically literate user base?
This two-day Query conference aims to examine the key issues that are emerging around web search, and to contextualize developments within the fields of knowledge organization and information design. The Institute of Network Cultures aims to do so specifically by bringing together researchers, theorists and artists, creating room for speculation and open questions, as well as concrete projects and research. Continue reading…
Deep Search: The Digital Future of Finding Out // Part 2
Posted by shirley
on November 15, 2008
Session 2: Search Engines and Power
Theo Röhle – Dissecting the Gatekeepers
Theo Röhle is a PhD candidate in media culture at Hamburg University. His dissertation seeks to establish Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) and Foucauldian concepts of power within search engine research.
Where does the power of a search engine exist? One position of power is established in everyday discourse through images of anxiety and fear. Giving power a face however, tends to obscure the complex relations underlying it. As ANT suggests, there is no fixed source of power, just a temporary stabilization of a network.
Deep Search: The Digital Future of Finding Out // Part 1
Posted by shirley
on November 15, 2008
Last Saturday, November 8, I had the pleasure of attending the well organized World-Information Institute conference Deep Search: The Digital Future of Finding Out in Vienna, Austria. With Deep Search, conference editors Konrad Becker and Felix Stalder set out to address the social and cultural dimension as well as the information politics and societal implications of search. An impressive line-up of eight speakers, divided over the sessions ‘Search Engines and Civil Liberties’, ‘Search Engines and Power’ and ‘Making Things Visible’, promised to make it an information-dense and interesting day.
As this will be a rather full report, I will post it in two parts. Be sure to keep an eye on the conference website, as the organizers promise to make a full video archive of the conference speeches available soon.
Keynotes
Paul Duguid - The World According to Grep: Both Sides of the Search Revolution
After a timely start and a word of welcome, Konrad Becker introduced the first speaker of the event: Paul Duguid, former consultant at Xerox PARC (1989-2001) and author of The Social Life of Information (Harvard Business School Press, 2000). Currently, Duguid teaches History of Information and Quality of Information at the University of California in Berkeley.
Google and the Politics of Tabs
Posted by shirley
on October 02, 2008
At the recent Picnic Conference, held in Amsterdam from September 24 to 26, web epistemologist Richard Rogers presented several fairly recent Govcom.org projects in the Virtual Platform e-art Dome.
The e-art exhibition itself featured Govcom’s project elFriendo, interestingly subtitled ‘Taking the Work out of Social Networking’ and a welcome wink to the many social networking themes of the conference. The tool allows for the automated creation of full-blown MySpace profiles by merely naming three of your interests. Mining the existing resource of social network profiles further enables elFriendo to compare your interests with a wannabe-friend, or fix a complete profile make-over that will fit you in with a new crowd in no time.
Switching from the politics of social networking to the politics of the Google Interface, another approach was taken in the Google Politics of Tabs-video, of which a preview is a offered below. Rogers explained that by making use of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine as a website research tool, Govcom.org has been able to visualize the ‘demise of the directory’ in the Google interface since the year 2000. In a way consistent with the current dominance of searching over browsing/’surfing’, the demise of the ‘web librarian’ indicates a change in both user behavior and search engine policy.
See what Govcom.org writes on the research of natively digital objects, or watch the original on crookedline.nl.
