Program 15.30 Coffee, Tea 15.45 – 17.30 Alternative Search 1 > P.07 Speakers: Matthew Fuller, Cees Snoek, Ippolita Collective

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 TrouwAmsterdam

09.30 Doors open, coffee and tea 10.00 Welcome 10.15 – 12.30 Society of the Query > p.02 Speakers: Yann Moulier Boutang, Matteo Pasquinelli, Teresa Numerico, David Gugerli 12.30 – 13.30 Lunch 13.30 – 13.45 Book presentation by Konrad Becker > p.05 Deep Search: The Politics of Search beyond Google 13.45 – 15.30 Digital Civil Rights > p.05 Speakers: Joris van Hoboken, Ingmar Weber Program 15.30 Coffee, tea 15.45 – 17.30 Alternative Search 1 > p.07 Speakers: Matthew Fuller, Cees Snoek, Ippolita Collective

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14 TrouwAmsterdam

09.30 Doors open, coffee and tea 10.00–12.30 Art and the Engine > p.10 Speakers: Lev Manovich, Daniel van der Velden, Christophe Bruno, Allessandro Ludovico 12.30 – 13.30 Lunch 13.30 – 13.45 FLARF poetry performance by Ton van ’t Hof > p.12 13.45 – 15.30 Googlization > p.13 Speakers: Siva Vaidhyanathan, Martin Fuez, Esther Weltevrede 15.30 Coffee, tea 15.45 – 17.30 Alternative Search 2 > p.15 Speakers: Florian Cramer, Antoine Isaac, Steven Pemberton 20.30 – 22.30 Evening program > p.17 TrouwAmsterdam, De Verdieping INTRODUCTION

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 this high dependency on search engines to manage the complex system of knowledge on the Internet mean? What alternatives exist? What is the future of interface design? How do we deal with centralization on the Web and how does this relate to many social media platforms increasingly becoming more syndicated, divorcing content form structure?

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. Search has largely taken over from (directory-based) browsing and surfing as the dominant activity on the Web. With the search engine having become our main point of reference on the Web, its emphasis 3 on efficiency and service tends to cloud the nature of both the underlying technology as the ideologies embedded in its search logic.

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?

In what might be dubbed the ‘society of the query’, this two-day conference aims to examine the key issues emerging around Web search and to contextualize developments within the fields of knowledge organization and interface design.The Institute of Network Cultures aims to do so specifically by bringing together researchers, theorists and artists, creating a space where there is room for speculation and open questions, as well as concrete projects and research. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 > SPEAKER SESSION 1 YANN MOULIER BOUTANG (FR) TrouwAmsterdam INESCAPABLE GOOGLE? ORGANIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE, ECONOMIC VALUE IN COGNITIVE CAPITALISM, 09.30 AND COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE Doors open, coffee and tea Google, the most-used search engine, has conquered a dominant position. For activists the question has become: how to get rid of it? Until research on the Semantic Web 10.00 (P. Levy) or ‘deep Net’ has produced results, Google will enjoy an inescapable monopoly. Welcome and introduction by Geert Lovink Google has become the emblem of cognitive capitalism because it has invented a new economic model relying on the controlled development of collective intelligence 10.15 – 12.30 > SESSION 1 > in networks, a kind of neo or post-market. Google has cleared the path for cognitive SOCIETY OF THE QUERY capitalism as the only way to survive in a world of communization of production MODERATOR: GEERT LOVINK through contribution and pollination. It combines free access as a necessary condition Due to the difficulty of managing the vast amount of dynamic content available for harvesting real economic value. Taking this into consideration is necessary when on the Web, it often lacks editorial review, and finding meaningful content has we want to understand how to cope with major search engines. 4 5 become increasingly dependent on technological resources. The traditional role of the expert-editor has gradually been replaced by the algorithm, introducing a > SPEAKER SESSION 1 specific logic and privileging mechanism for organizing Web content. In recent years, MATTEO PASQUINELLI (IT/NL) the growing dominance of a few main search engines has trigged many people GOOGLE’S PAGERANK ALGORITHM: A DIAGRAM to critically look at the way by which search engines rank and serve their results. OF COGNITIVE CAPITALISM AND THE RENTIER This conference session will focus on ‘searching’ on the level of the software and OF THE COMMON INTELLECT will discuss the notion of the organization of knowledge within the theoretical The origin of Google’s power and monopoly is to be traced to the invisible algorithm framework of both humanities and computer science. Can we trace the history PageRank. The diagram of this technology is proposed here as the most fitting description of knowledge organization, and what is the impact of the back-end algorithm, of the value machine at the core of what is diversely called knowledge economy, attention which is increasingly becoming the dominant means by which users acquire economy or cognitive capitalism. This essay stresses the need of a political economy and make sense of information online? of the PageRank algorithm rather than expanding the dominant critique of Google’s monopoly based on the Panopticon model and similar ‘Big Brother’ issues (dataveillance, privacy, political censorship). FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 (continued)

> SPEAKER SESSION 1 12.30 – 13.30 TERESA NUMERICO (IT) Lunch CYBERNETICS, SEARCH ENGINES AND RESISTANCE: NOTES FOR ARCHAEOLOGY OF TECHNO- 13.30 – 13.45 KNOWLEDGE OF SEARCH BOOK PRESENTATION KONRAD BECKER: Why was Norbert Wiener so worried about cybernetics that he decided to disseminate DEEP SEARCH. it as much as possible, with the precise intent to alert people of its risks? It is very likely THE POLITICS OF SEARCH BEYOND GOOGLE that he foresaw what would have happened to digital technologies once they adopted (STUDIENVERLAG & TRANSACTION PUBLISHERS, 2009) the cybernetics approach, intertwining the concepts of communication and control. As a follow-up to the Deep Search symposium, held in Vienna, Austria on November 8, Search engines are a direct consequence of cybernetics in terms of the history and 2008, The World-Information Institute has now issued the book Deep Search. The Politics philosophy of technology. What we need now is a new ‘archaeology of knowledge’ of the of Search Beyond Google. The volume, edited by Konrad Becker and Felix Stalder, actual developments of the different branches in search engine technologies. It would is a collection of 13 texts that investigate the social and political dimensions of provide an analysis of the techno-scientiﬁc discourse, envisaging its power-knowledge Web search and addresses urgent issues of culture, context and classiﬁcation in connections and its ideological constraints. This critical attitude might introduce information systems. Article authors are Konrad Becker, Robert Darnton, Paul Duguid, resistance against the dominant discourse, both by using other methods of searching Joris van Hoboken, Claire Lobet-Maris, Geert Lovink, Lev Manovich, Katja Mayer, 6 7 and by creating ‘non-communicative’ open areas that are not susceptible to being Metahaven, Matteo Pasquinelli, Bernhard Rieder, Theo Röhle, Richard Rogers, archived or searched. and Felix Stalder & Christine Mayer.

> SPEAKER SESSION 1 13.45 – 15.30 > SESSION 2 > DAVID GUGERLI (CH) DIGITAL CIVIL RIGHTS THE 1974 BATTLE BETWEEN HIERARCHICAL MODERATOR: CAROLINE NEVEJAN AND RELATIONAL DATABASE SYSTEMS In 2005, John Batelle characterized Google as a ‘database of intents’; a valuable archive Since the early 1970s, mathematicians and software engineers have been working on of individual and collective wishes. As the number of services offered by search engines concepts for relational databases. When the ﬁrst commercial implementations became is expanding, large amounts of personal information are gathered, stored and used for available around 1980, they hit a rapidly expanding software market with a global turnover commercial purposes. The current technological climate seems to be one in which the that soon amounted to billions of dollars each year. Relational databases offered two user is virtually unaware of whom or what is behind the Web applications they use on advantages in comparison with the customary, hierarchically structured databases: a daily basis. How, for instance, does the intermediary function of the search engine First, their search procedures were strictly separated from the form of storing data; threaten digital civil rights such as the right to privacy and freedom of expression? and second, databases could be recombined at the will of their users without the support What role can politics play in protecting these rights? How can the way search of professional programmers. Despite these advantages, the conceptual shift in the engines are designed aid in protecting our autonomy, and how will the legal history of software did not occur without an impressive and revealing ‘battle of the framework concerning search engines be shaped? systems’ between the advocates of the two communities of software engineers. I will have a closer look at the debate between Charles Bachman representing the hierarchical and Edgar F. Codd representing the relational database concept during a staged encounter during the 1974 ACM conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 (continued)

> SPEAKER SESSION 2 > SPEAKER SESSION 2 JORIS VAN HOBOKEN (NL) IPPOLITA COLLECTIVE (IT) SEARCH ENGINES AND USER PRIVACY: WHAT IS TO BE DONE? HOW SHOULD IT BE DONE, THE NEED FOR LEGISLATIVE REFORM THAT’S THE QUESTION! The discussion about the protection of privacy for search engine users has matured Talking about ICT, not only activists but also scholars, politicians and common users over the last 5 years. Since the New York Times showed the sensitivity of pseudonymous often ask themselves: so what? Whatever. What is to be done if we all realize that Google, search logs of AOL users, which had been released for research purposes, search engine Facebook and other so-called social networks are spying on us? What if there were such providers have been pressed to improve their protection of user data. The EU’s Article a thing as Big Brother, if we’re all under Echelon’s ear, if both authoritarian and democratic 29 Working Party in particular has pushed the three major search engine providers in governments use digital technologies against the freedom of speech? Here we ﬁnd the US and Europe, to minimize user data processing. The recent privacy discussion ourselves, blogging, and doesn’t it sound ridiculous that we’re tweeting the revolution? with regard to the Google Book Search Settlement, in which EFF and EPIC have taken The Leninist slogan ‘what is to be done?’ is a typical question asked from a hegemonic the lead, is another example of a better understanding of the importance of privacy point of view. Does the question make sense for the kind of counterpower that deﬁnes safeguards for online information seeking and accessing behavior. However, current data itself with the same criteria of the power? For the oppressed, waiting for their turn privacy laws do not acknowledge the importance of a free realm for information seeking. to oppress, for those who want to rule someday? On the contrary, the quest for Even if search companies like Google would be willing to protect their users against a new media literacy for those living the Society of the Query should be: 8 9 access of user data by third parties, they have no appropriate laws to turn to. In this how should it be done? Which methods are suitable for people who want presentation I will argue that the fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of expression neither to rule nor to be ruled? warrant legislative reform to provide for a free domain for internet users to seek and access information. 15.30 – 15.45 Coffee, tea

15.45 – 17.30 > SESSION 3 > ALTERNATIVE SEARCH 1 MODERATOR: ERIC SIEVERTS In response to a growing interest in alternative methods to search the Web, this session will focus on alternatives that highlight vulnerabilities and shortcomings within the currently dominant search engines. Looking beyond the tag as systematizing principle, how is, for instance, the ﬁeld of visual search developing? What can we learn from search methods within different spheres on the Web? Additionally, search methods will be looked that disregard the ‘engine’ as dominant paradigm. How promising are, for example, peer- to-peer and open source technologies with regards to the current search conditions and which alternatives for commercial and centralizing methods have already emerged? FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 (continued)

> SPEAKER SESSION 3 > SPEAKER SESSION 3 MATTHEW FULLER (UK) INGMAR WEBER (NL/FR) DISSONANCE, DOUBLE-ACCURACY IT’S HARD TO RANK WITHOUT BEING EVIL AND PARALLEL WORLDS Google and similar Web search engines are known for collecting detailed logs about Interfaces to search processes and the question of what counts as a search and all incoming requests and for mining this data on a large scale. In this talk I’ll discuss what a result are contentious questions. Image and sound based search engines, whether good ranking is possible without such an approach and whether peer-to-peer those with a linguistic or political project, and those that aim to disrupt or question Web search engines are not always doomed to present mediocre results. First, I’ll discuss the too-quickly established norms of search and display provide numerous possible scenarios where ranking is not required at all. Then I’ll give an overview of the sources redirections for such questions. In a short time this presentation will provide a partial of information used for ranking by current Web search engines. Finally, I’ll try to point survey of tendencies in the development of variant conceptions of search and locate out the relative importance of each information source and how easily accessible it is. its terms within wider considerations on the nature of software development.

> SPEAKER SESSION 3 CEES SNOEK (NL) CONCEPT-BASED VIDEO SEARCH 10 11 Despite the rise of commercial video search engines like YouTube, Truveo, and Blinkx, searching relevant fragments in video collections is by no means a solved problem. Present day commercial systems are mainly based on textual analysis of speech transcripts or closed captions. Unfortunately this approach is futile when the visual content is not mentioned or unrelated to the words spoken. In this presentation, a novel means to search in video content using concept detectors will be discussed. The academic challenges will be highlighted as well as problems, and solutions of concept-based video search. We introduce the MediaMill semantic video search engine and discuss it’s performance in international video retrieval competitions. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14 > SPEAKER SESSION 4 DANIEL VAN DER VELDEN (NL) TrouwAmsterdam PERIPHERAL FORCES: ON THE RELEVANCE OF MARGINALITY IN NETWORKS 09.30 Despite the intricate system of ranking, most engines make search look deceptively Doors open, coffee and tea simple. Initially, ranking seems like a normal, everyday procedure, comparable to the ways we judge between relevant and trivial, foreground and background information 10.00 – 12.30 > SESSION 4 > in everyday life; after all, our own hierarchies of visibility are also shaped according to ART AND THE ENGINE certain needs, beliefs, and limitations. Often, the hierarchy applied by ranking rewards MODERATOR: SABINE NIEDERER what is already popular and suppresses less often viewed currents and opinions in Even during its early stages, artists used the Web as a platform to produce and broad, public topics. Redesigning the search engine begins with challenging the distribute an extensive diversity of media such as animation, programming, video, principles of relevance and popularity inherent to ranking. In this presentation, audio and games. While in the last decennium we have witnessed a shift from the we argue how ranking mechanisms translate as phenomena of sociability, directory towards the algorithm, it is the art database that has been refining the and how a different take on the sociability of ‘weak ties’ may bring a different directory model for years. What influence does Google’s omnipresence have over appreciation of their relevance to networks. 12 13 the production and distribution of Web based art? How does art criticism manifest itself in the era of Google, and how can online artistic experience be preserved and > SPEAKER SESSION 4 ensure it can be found easily? This session will discuss the latest developments within CHRISTOPHE BRUNO (FR) the field of graphic design, art and the architecture of information, presents potential FROM DADA TO GOOGLE outcomes of search result design and investigates how the interface may stimulate I will present some of my artpieces that deal with the hijacking of search engines new and progressive ways for the user to search, find and analyze data. on the net. From the Google Hack, Epiphanies (2001), to my recent Dadameter (2008), which is an attempt to map language at large scale and to ‘measure our distance > SPEAKER SESSION 4 from Dada’. I will also discuss semantic capitalism as described in my performance LEV MANOVICH (USA) The Google Adwords Happening (2002). LEARNING FROM GOOGLE: A SEARCH ENGINE AS A METHOD FOR CULTURAL ANALYSIS Can we translate the principles of search engine algorithms and large scale data analysis in general into a new methodology for cultural theory? In my talk I will discuss what such a methodology would look like, and also demonstrate practical examples drawn from Cultural Analytics research conducted in the Software Studies Lab at the University of California, San Diego. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14 (continued)

> SPEAKER SESSION 4 13.45 – 15.30 > SESSION 5 > ALLESSANDRO LUDOVICO (IT) GOOGLIZATION THE GOOGLE PARADIGM: FOR THE FUNNY INTRODUCTION AND MODERATION: ANDREW KEEN DICTATOR IT’S NEVER ENOUGH For most users worldwide, Google is the primary entry point to the Web. The current Google establishes monopolies. It conquests predominance in strategic net sectors dominance of Google search might be best understood within a larger epistemological with a pervasive coolness and attracting error-proof functionalities. Its empire is easily shift moving away from an expert driven ordering of information towards a growing and vastly acknowledged, and because of its accelerated innovation rate, ‘antitrust’ emphasis on the algorithm. The algorithmic privileging of sources based on popularity sounds like an obsolete and uninteresting word. Google has the power to establish however has important consequences for the type of content reflected in the search rules that are both flexible and effective. Internally they gain more productivity lending results. Issues to be discussed in this session are the influence of the Google hegemony ‘freedom’ to employers in organizing their own working time. Externally its brand on the flow of information on the Web and the way this may affect the way we think, and products are focusing on a sophisticated commodification of knowledge, pursued act and interact with online information. Speakers will address the particular way through the myth of sempiternal searchability and sold with the semi-infinite potential Google ranks and serves its results, the diversity of the results, the accessibility of contextual advertising. This deadly combination is both entertaining through its of niche or local content and the role of the user in acquiring relevant sources. charm and creating a conceptual shield for their growing collection of monopolies. But even if Google wants to sweetly take over a large part of the internet and entertain > SPEAKER SESSION 5 14 15 us forever, there are still chances to debunk their incredibly effective communication SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN (USA) (at all levels) strategy and mass-based economy. Based on the aftermath of THE GOOGLIZATION OF THE GLOBAL STREET Google Will Eat Itself artwork, a parasite strategy can be outlined to conceptually After examining the wide array of reactions to Google Street View and the standard dismantle their seemingly self-referential paradigm. way that Google dealt with each unique cultural, political, and historical context, I wondered whether Google operated with a universalizing ideology. Did the 12.30 – 13.30 company consider local differences and concerns? I didn’t see any evidence of it Lunch in the Street View saga. The tension between universalism and particularism in the age of rapid globalization is well trodden. It’s clear after decades of argument that 13.30 – 13.45 ideologies such as market fundamentalism, liberalism (with its imperative for free FLARF PERFORMANCE BY TON VAN ‘T HOF speech), techno-fundamentalism, and free trade were no longer simply ‘western’ – Flarf poetry is sometimes referred to as an avant garde poetry movement of the if they ever were. It’s too simple (and ahistorical) to tag such ideologies merely late 20th century and the early 21st century. Flarf poets harvest their material on ‘imperialistic.’ But they are universalizing. They do carry strong assumptions that the Internet by typing in combinations of search terms in a Web search engine. people everywhere have the same needs, values, and desires – even if they don’t Whether coming across Shakespear’s Sonnets, Heideggers Sein und Zeit or gross know it yet. Instead, it seems that if there is a dominant form of ‘cultural imperialism,’ stories about animal sex, Flarf poets take today’s society as it presents itself, it concerns the pipelines and protocols, not the products — the formats of distribution and give it back to us; abstracted, enlarged and ridiculed. and the terms of access and use. It is not exactly ‘content neutral,’ but it is less necessarily ‘content specific’ than cultural imperialism theorists assume. It’s not so much the ubiquity of Google’s brand that is troubling, dangerous, or even interesting. It’s that Google’s defaults and ‘ways of doing’ spread and structure ways of seeking, finding, exploring, buying, and presenting that influences (does not control) habits of thought and action. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14 (continued)

> SPEAKER SESSION 5 > SPEAKER SESSION 5 MARTIN FEUZ (CH) ESTHER WELTEVREDE (NL) GOOGLE PERSONAL SEARCH - GOOGLE AS A GLOBALIZING MACHINE WHAT ARE WE TO MAKE OF IT? Google’s mission statement is ‘to organize the world’s information and make it universally History has witnessed a number of attempts to organise the worlds information, accessible and useful.’ The question is: Can a globalizing machine ever present the local? all with their own underlying operation model for doing so. Google’s Personal Search Throughout the years Google has introduced over 150 national domain Googles, with is a more recent endeavour additionally aiming to personalize the search experience Google.ps as its latest addition. The success of Google’s move to the local is based on the while keeping user efforts at a minimum. In its original inception in 2004, the user premise that the relevance of information sources is also dependent on location. But as still could select her topics of interest and selectively adjust importance with a slider. Google’s PageRank algorithm privileges the sources that receive most links, does it end In its latest reincarnation in 2007, profiling has been fully automated as has the enrollment up giving global sources top positions in the local rankings too? How far along is Google’s for the service upon sign-on to a Google account. According to Sep Kamvar and customization on location? The distinctiveness of results for the same query in national Marissa Mayer (Feb 2007), ‘personalization at first is subtle, but over time you’ll see it’. domain Googles formed the starting point for two case studies: ‘The Nationality of Issues: Unfortunately, Google’s search result page neither gives any indications as to when we Rights Types’ and ‘Local and Global Information Sources.’ Both research projects compare are served personalised search results, nor does it point out which ones they are and and reinterpret search engine results across national domain Googles to make claims on what specific basis they were derived. This talk will present my recent research findings about local information cultures. Operationalizing questions are: Do the results tell us 16 17 which allow to get a sense of the delicate specificity with which such personalized search more about a country’s information culture, or about Google’s means of delivering content results surface. The findings will highlight, that giving the user such indications would nationally? What kind of ‘local’ is created in the national versions? Which of the local seem dreadfully adequate. It will do so by reflecting the research findings on concerns Googles have particularly distinctive results? of social sorting, network structuring and reproduction of dominant voices, as well as the mere strangeness of those personalized search results produced and dressed up 15.30 – 15.45 as top entries in ones personal index. Coffee, tea

15.45 – 17.30 > SESSION 6 > ALTERNATIVE SEARCH 2 MODERATOR: RICHARD ROGERS In this second Alternative Search session, some of the latest technological developments in semantic search functionality, as well as their implementation by W3C and European cultural heritage project Europeana, will be presented and discussed. In addition to being understood as enrichments of existing knowledge structures, these developments need to be critically addressed on both the cultural and the software level. Which ideologies make up the foundations for the concept of ‘ontology’? And what role will human expertise play in the era of ‘machine understanding’? SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14 (continued)

> SPEAKER SESSION 6 > SPEAKER SESSION 6 FLORIAN CRAMER (NL) STEVEN PEMBERTON (NL) WHY SEMANTIC SEARCH IS FLAWED DISINTERMEDIATION THROUGH AGGREGATION: The ‘Semantic Web’ and ‘semantic search’ are frequently misunderstood concepts MAKING YOUR DATA YOUR OWN because they are described with words like ‘ontology’ whose meanings in computer The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis postulates a link between thought and language: science diverge from colloquial and humanities understanding. In reality, they simply if you haven’t got a word for a concept, you can’t think about it; if you don’t think about it, boil down to structured keyword tagging of information, which for many reasons does you won’t invent a word for it. The term ‘Web 2.0’ is a case in point: it conceptualizes the not scale beyond very limited collections of information and application scenarios, idea of Web sites that gain value by their users adding data to them. There are inherent and reveals a sometimes astounding naiveté about issues of culture and ontology dangers in using Web 2.0: it partitions the Web into a number of topical sub-Webs, in the original sense of the word. Finally, the false hopes for semantic search result and locks you in, thereby reducing the value of the network as a whole. It also puts from frustrations with design flaws of the World Wide Web that prevent more diverse your data, and its ownership at risk. So does this mean that user-contributed content search methods and technologies. is a Bad Thing? Not at all, it is the method of delivery and storage that is wrong. The future lies in better aggregators. > SPEAKER SESSION 6 ANTOINE ISAAC (NL/FR) 20.30 – 23.30 18 19 SEMANTIC SEARCH FOR EUROPEANA EVENING PROGRAM Europeana is a pan-European initiative to make accessible Europe’s cultural heritage. TrouwAmsterdam, DE VERDIEPING It aims to aggregate millions of digital items, as provided e.g. by museums and libraries. HOST: MICHAEL STEVENSON Allowing users to search among such a wide and heterogenous range of cultural The saturday evening program will feature a selection of artistic and activist projects resources raises huge challenges; it also brings a unique opportunity to exploit the engaging with different elements related to Web search, such as settings, cookies large body of knowledge that relates to these resources. I will present some of the and search results. Many layers of Web search are often overlooked or neglected in latest technological developments that are being tested to provide Europeana users favor of easy and fast results. The evening program will dive into the non-functional with semantic search functionality, using examples from the Europeana Thought Lab. or re-attribution of some popular functionalities, elements and ideas that many In particular, I will sketch how re-using and enriching existing knowledge structures take for granted in everyday Web searching. The works featured range from browser provide with new query and exploration possibilities, beyond simple document search. extensions to alternative uses of the search engine, Web-based art projects and videos. Especially highlighted is the work of Dutch and Netherlands-based artists/developers such as Constant Dullaart, Govcom.org, Erik Borra, Linda Hilfling, De Geuzen, Lernert Engelbrechts & Sander Plug and Andrea Fiore, most of whom will be present to discuss and elaborate on their work with the audience. The evening is hosted by Michael Stevenson and will take place in the downstairs bar area of TrouwAmsterdam; De Verdieping. BIOGRAPHIES Dennis Deicke is an intern at the Institute of Network Cultures. Currently he does research to prepare The Society of the Query conference, which will take place Yann Moulier Boutang is a socio-economist. He teaches intellectual property rights and on November 13-14 in TrouwAmsterdam. After leaving school in 2007, he moved political economy at the University of Technology of Compiègne and contemporary culture from Frankfurt/Main to Friedrichshafen at Lake Constance to begin the study of at the High School of Arts and Design (Saint-Etienne). His fields of research are slavery, Communication and Cultural Management at the Zeppelin University, which will migrations, labour, firms and long run transformations of capitalist systems. He runs the presumably be finished with a Bachelor‘s Degree in the summer of 2010. Last summer Quarterly French Review MULTITUDES (38 issues since 2000), which investigates new he worked for the editorial staff of the German public broadcasting station ZDF. forms of critical thinking and culture. He is also member of the editorial board of the Serie Traces (published in English, Japanese, Corean, Chinese) and Subjectivity Martin Feuz is an independent researcher with a strong interest in human-information (Palgrave). His last book Le Capitalisme Cognitif, (Amsterdam Publishers, Paris, interactions. Specifically, he focuses on exploratory (Web) search and the ways in which 2007 and 2008) is forthcoming in 2010 at Polity Press. such interactions can be meaningfully and experi(m)entially supported. In his recent work, he undertook a critical analysis of Google personal search (http://www.google.com/ Christophe Bruno lives and works in Paris. His polymorphic work has a critical take psearch) to render more interrogable and debatable some of the ways in which on network phenomena and globalization in the field of language and images. He was this surfaces in everyday search behaviour. The findings will be published shortly. awarded a prize at the Madrid Contemporary Art Fair with the ARCO new media prize Currently, he is a researcher for the Interaction Design department of the University 20 21 2007, at the Prix Ars Electronica 2003 and the Piemonte Share Festival in 2007. His work of the Arts in Zurich (iad.zhdk.ch), focusing on the conception and development of has been shown internationally: Jeu de Paume in Paris, Biennale of Sydney, ARCO a visual exploratory search engine which is to support design research and educative Madrid, FIAC Paris, Diva Fair in New-York, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, ArtCologne, MOCA practices. He has been strongly engaged with Dorkbot Switzerland, Digitale Allmend Taipei, Modern Art Museum of the city of Paris, New Museum of Contemporary Art and Creative Commons Switzerland. in New-York, Tirana Biennale of Contemporary Art, HMKV Dortmund, Gallery West in The Hague, Vooruit Arts Center in Gent, Share Festival in Torino, Transmediale in Berlin, Matthew Fuller is author of a number of books including ‘Media Ecologies, materialist Laboral Cyberspaces in Gijon, galerie Sollertis in Toulouse, ICC in Tokyo, Nuit Blanche de energies in art and technoculture’ and ‘Behind the Blip, essays on the culture of software’. Paris, Rencontres Paris-Berlin-Madrid. He divides his time between his artistic activity, With Usman Haque, he is co-author of ‘Urban Versioning System v1.0’. Editor of ‘Software curating, teaching, lectures and publications. Studies, a lexicon‘, he is a co-editor of the new Software Studies series from MIT Press. He is involved in a number of projects in art, media and software and works at the Florian Cramer is head of the Networked Media Master and communication Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London. research program at the Piet Zwart Institute of the Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam University. David Gugerli is professor for the history of technology at ETH Zurich. His books deals with the history of large technical systems, with mapping and nation building, and with the history of science and engineering in the 19th and 20th centuries. Recently, he has published a thought-provoking essay on the cultural history of the search engine ‘Suchmaschinen. Die Welt als Datenbank, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 2009’. BIOGRAPHIES (continued)

Joris van Hoboken is a doctoral researcher at the Institute for Information Law at Geert Lovink is founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures, is a Dutch- the University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on the implications of freedom of Australian media theorist and critic. He holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne expression for the regulation of search engines. He is an expert in search engine law, and in 2003 was working at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, University of Internet privacy law, the legal liability of internet intermediaries and internet censorship, Queensland. In 2004 Lovink was appointed as Research Professor at the Hogeschool and graduated cum laude in Theoretical Mathematics (2002) and Law (2006). Until van Amsterdam and Associate Professor at University of Amsterdam. He is the founder September 1 2006, he worked as a paralegal at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam and of Internet projects such as nettime and ﬁbreculture. His recent book titles are Dark Fiber as the co-director of Bits of Freedom, a Dutch digital civil rights organization, (2002), Uncanny Networks (2002) and My First Recession (2003). In 2005-06 he was a which he helped to relaunch as a board member in August 2009. fellow at the WissenschaftskollegBerlin Institute for Advanced Study where he ﬁnished his third volume on critical Internet culture, Zero Comments (2007). Ton van ´t Hof is author of three books of poetry and co-founder of the most popular blog on poetry within the Netherlands and Belgium, De Contrabas (www.decontrabas.com). Alessandro Ludovico is a media critic and has been chief editor of the Neural magazine since 1993. He is the author of several essays on digital culture, co-edited the ‘Mag.Net Ippolita Collective is a research group made by reality hackers, a server and a Reader’ book series and is one of the founding contributors of the Nettime community community of writers. It is a crossroads to share tools and competences between digital and the Mag.Net (Electronic Cultural Publishers) organization. He teaches at the languages and writing languages. As a collective, Ippolita also writes copyleft books: / Academy of Art in Carrara, is a research fellow at the Willem de Kooning Academy 22 23 Op//en non è Free /(Elèuthera, 2005, italian) and /Luci e ombre di Google/ (Feltrinelli, and has also served as an advisor for the Documenta 12’s Magazine Project. With P.Cirio 2007; French, Spanish and English versions), both available as free copyleft downloads and Ubermorgen he developed the art projects ‘Google Will Eat Itself’ (Honorary Mention from ippolita.net. K. is a member of Ippolita who is mainly interested in collaborative Prix Ars Electronica 2005, Rhizome Commission 2005, nomination Prix Transmediale 2006) writing as a way to tune up conviviality, technologies to participate in the creation and ‘Amazon Noir’ (1st prize Stuttgarter Filmwinter 2007, Honorary Mention Share and sharing of imaginaries, identities and tools for the practice of everyday life. Prize 2007, 2nd prize Transmediale08).

Antoine Isaac obtained his computer science PhD in 2005, from the University of Lev Manovich’s books include Software Takes Command (released under CC license, Paris-Sorbonne for research on the design and use of ontologies in INA, the French 2008), Soft Cinema: Navigating the Database (The MIT Press, 2005), and The Language National Institute for Audiovisual archives. He served as a researcher at the VU University of New Media (The MIT Press, 2001) which is hailed as ‘the most suggestive and broad Amsterdam and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague, focusing on the representation ranging media history since Marshall McLuhan.’ He has written 100 articles which have and the interoperability of cultural heritage collections. He is currently involved in been reprinted in 30+ countries. Manovich is a Professor in the Visual Arts Department, the EuropeanaConnect project and the Europeana Thought Lab, where he works on University of California San Diego, Director of the Software Studies Initiative at California converting and linking existing conceptual vocabularies. He is a member of the Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), and a Visiting W3C Semantic Web Deployment working group. Research Professor at Godsmith College (University of London), De Montfort University (UK) and College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales (Sydney). He is currently working on developing Cultural Analytics - a new methodology for the analysis and visualization of patterns in massive cultural data sets. BIOGRAPHIES (continued)

Metahaven is a studio for research and design based in Amsterdam and Brussels, Sabine Niederer works as the managing director of the Institute of Network Cultures, consisting of Gon Zifroni, Daniel van der Velden and Vinca Kruk, working in the fields a new media research centre based at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, of graphic design and information architecture. Metahaven has previously created a department of Interactive Media. Since January 2008, she is a PhD researcher with the visual identity for the mini-state Sealand, for research projects around the former Digital Methods Initiative, at the University of Amsterdam, Department of Mediastudies. House of People in Bucharest, and for the European Internet search engine Quaero. She has taught media and design theory, produced various international new media Metahaven has exhibited at a variety of international exhibitions, and at the 2008 Venice conferences and publications and is curator of new media art project Impakt Online. Architectural Biennial, Metahaven was represented with a lecture at the Dutch pavilion. In addition to design, research, and writing, Metahaven lectures widely, and its members Shirley Niemans is a researcher and co-editor for the Society of the Query conference teach at institutions including Yale University in New Haven, the Academy of Arts and has been the INC event producer of Video Vortex (2008), New Network Theory (2007) in Arnhem, the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, and the School of Visual Arts and MyCreativity (2006). After graduating from the KABK/Royal Conservatory of in Valence, France. The Hague in 2002 she worked as a video and sound artist. She has (co-)produced and curated events and art projects ranging from international new media expert Caroline Nevejan is an independent researcher and designer focusing on the implica- meetings to art exhibitions in public space. Currently, she teaches trend analysis tions of technology on society. Having been involved with interdsiciplinary projects and coaches Interactive Media students at Amsterdam University of Applied Science, for over 20 years, she speaks a variety of professional languages. She has been initator, she co-organizes an art and research program for the Impakt Foundation and is 24 25 conceptualizer, producer, manager and director of local, national and international work. finishing her MA in New Media and Digital Culture at Utrecht University. Currently she is visiting fellow with the Intelligent Interactive Distributed Systems group Blog: http://www.shirleyniemans.nl at the Vrije Universiteit van Amsterdam (iids.org), research fellow with the PrimaVera Program for Research in Infomation Management, associate with Performing Arts Teresa Numerico holds a PhD in History of Science and is lecturer in logic and Labs (UK) (pallabs.org) and member of the Dutch Council for Culture and the Arts. philosophy of science at the University of Rome, where she teaches history and philosophy Her research interest is focused on the design of presence and the design of trust in of computer science and epistemology of the new media. Among her publications are: social interactions between people, in organizations and in larger social and political a book in Italian on Alan Turing and ‘Machine Intelligence’ (FrancoAngeli, 2005) structures. She uses methodologies from the social sciences as well as from the design and a book on search engines titled ‘Web Dragons’ (with I. Witten and M. Gori, discipline. Having a profound theoretical interest she finds it a challenge to bridge Morgan Kaufmann, 2007). She was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship knowledge, insight and skills between different domains. When ‘making things happen’ during 2004–2005 in the UK. Her research interests include philosophy of computer in a design process she is convinced this only works when people involved contribute. science, social informatics, ethics, and the politics of telecommunication technologies. BIOGRAPHIES (continued)

Matteo Pasquinelli is a writer, curator and researcher at Queen Mary University of Richard Rogers holds the Chair in New Media & Digital Culture at the University London. He wrote the book ‘Animal Spirits: A Bestiary of the Commons’ (NAi/Institute of Amsterdam. He is Director of Govcom.org, the group responsible for the Issue of Network Cultures, 2008), edited the collection Media Activism (2002) and co-edited Crawler and other info-political tools, and the Digital Methods Initiative, reworking C’Lick Me: A Netporn Studies Reader (2007). He writes frequently at the cross of French method for Internet research. Rogers is author of ‘Information Politics on the Web’ philosophy, media culture and Italian post-operaismo. Since 2000 he has been editor (MIT Press, 2004), awarded the 2005 best book of the year by the American Society of the mailing list Rekombinant. Together with Wietske Maas he developed the of Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T). Current research interests include art project Urbanibalism and lives in Amsterdam. Internet censorship, googlization, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the Web as well as the post-demographics implied by recommender systems. Steven Pemberton is a researcher at The Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI) in Amsterdam. The focus of his research is on interaction and how the underlying Eric Sieverts is originally a physicist. After ten years of fundamental research on software architecture can support users. Involved with the Web since the beginning, he semiconductors, his interests gradually turned towards the field of library & information organized two workshops at the first Web Conference in 1994, and chaired the first W3C science. Since 1980 he has been a heavy user of retrieval systems and search engines. Style Sheets and Internationalization workshops. He now chairs XHTML2 and leads Presently he is working at the innovation department of the Utrecht University Library the W3C Forms Activities. He is co-author of many current Web technologies, including and is teaching information retrieval and information management at the Hogeschool HTML4, CSS, XHTML, XForms and RDFa. He speaks and writes regularly on the van Amsterdam. In his spare time he is editor and columnist of the Dutch magazine 26 27 effects of technology design, and for a while had a regular column on Teleac’s ‘Informatie Professional’. science radio program Teleskoop. Cees Snoek is currently a senior researcher at the Intelligent Systems Lab of the Margreet Riphagen, project manager at INC since augustus 2008 and responsible for University of Amsterdam. His research interests focus on multimedia analysis for the production of Winter Camp 09. She graduated in 2000 in Integrated Communication video retrieval. He has published over 70 refereed papers, and serves on the program Management at the Hogeschool of Utrecht. She worked at Waag Society as a producer. committee of several conferences. Dr. Snoek is a lead researcher of the award-winning After three and a half years at Waag Society she switched to the Media Guild, which is MediaMill Semantic Video Search Engine, co-organizer of the annual VideOlympics, a not for profit organization that fosters innovative starters in the field of new media and a lecturer of post-doctoral courses given at international conferences and summer and ICT. After setting up the Media Guild, she left for Blender, which is a 3D open schools. He received a young talent (VENI) grant from the Netherlands Organization source animation suite. There she was co-producer of Big Buck Bunny (Peach open for Scientific Research in 2008. movie project) and producing an open game. Currently she works at the Institute for Network Cultures managing and producing projects for the INC and coaches Interactive Media students at Amsterdam University of Applied Science. She is also involved in MediaLAB Amsterdam, which is a creative, interdisciplinary workplace where inquisitive students and researchers work together on innovative interactive media ideas. BIOGRAPHIES (continued)

Michael Stevenson is lecturer and PhD candidate at the Department of Media Studies, Marijn de Vries Hoogerwerff is a New Media entrepreneur and Web researcher. University of Amsterdam, where he also earned his Research M.A. in 2008. Research In 1999 he started working as IT professional at the broadband Internet Service Provider interests include the relationship between early Cyberculture and current Web cultures, Excite@Home. After working there for over eight years he decided to pursue a study Web epistemologies and software studies. Each of these is pursued in research for his in New Media at the University of Amsterdam. During his study he has been a proud dissertation, which has as a working title ‘Legacy Systems: Cyberculture, Blogging and member of the Digital Methods Initiative (DMI) research group, working together in Wikipedia.’ Legacy systems, a concept used in computer science to denote systems that a strong team of designers, programmers and theorists to develop new Web-speciﬁc have been superseded but remain prominent through their wide use, is repurposed here to methods and tools for doing research. Next to several stand-alone projects, he also investigate the ways in which contemporary Web formats discursively and technologically started up CYBERLIFE, focussing on building Web-applications, sites and tools, sustain core concepts of cyberculture as it developed in the 1990s. Stevenson has worked Web hosting and doing Web research. After receiving his Master degree New Media, previously on a range of new media and Web projects with Govcom.org, the Institute he is now working for the Institute of Network Cultures as producer of the Society of Network Cultures, Paradiso/de Balie and Mediamatic. of the Query conference.

Siva Vaidhyanathan a cultural historian and media scholar, is the author of ‘Copyrights Ingmar Weber is a postdoc at Yahoo! Research in Barcelona. He obtained his BA and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity’ and MA in mathematics from Cambridge University before doing his PhD thesis at (New York University Press, 2001) and ‘The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash the Max-Planck Institute for Computer Science in Germany. His dissertation dealt 28 29 between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System’ with efficient data structures for and applications of a more interactive search engine (Basic Books, 2004). He is co-editor (with Carolyn de la Pena) of the collection ‘Rewiring called CompleteSearch. CompleteSearch now provides public search services for the Nation: The Place of Technology in American Studies’ (Johns Hopkins University DBLP, the largest database of publications in computer science. His research interests Press, 2007). His next book, ‘The Googlization of Everything’, is forthcoming in 2010. include Web mining, sponsored search, social networks and efficient algorithms. Vaidhyanathan has written for many periodicals, including American Scholar, He is a devoted Couchsurfing member and enjoys doing ultra triathlons. The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times Magazine, MSNBC.COM, Salon.com, openDemocracy.net, Columbia Journalism Review, and The Nation. Esther Weltevrede is a PhD candidate and lecturer at the New Media program at After five years as a professional journalist, Vaidhyanathan earned a Ph.D. in American the University of Amsterdam. She is Internet researcher and analyst-designer at the Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. He has taught at Wesleyan University, Research Program Digital Methods Initiative, which aims to develop novel methods the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Columbia University, New York University, and tools for studying the Web. Since 2007 she is a member of Govcom.org, a foundation and now is an associate professor of Media Studies and Law at the University dedicated to development of political tools on the Web. Her PhD research is about of Virginia and a fellow at both the New York Institute for the Humanities and national Web studies. As part of the Digital Methods Initiative, this particular the Institute for the Future of the Book. He lives in Charlottesville, VA, USA. study aims to develop methods with a locative-technical focus. COLOPHON

The Society of the Query conference is organized by the Institute of Network Cultures. All documentation will be available at: www.networkcultures.org/query

Concept: Geert Lovink and Shirley Niemans Editorial board: Sabine Niederer Research: Dennis Deicke Project manager: Margreet Riphagen Producer: Marijn de Vries Hoogerwerff Visual identity: Grrr > www.grrr.nl

Conference Location: TrouwAmsterdam Wibautstraat 127 30 1091 GL Amsterdam www.trouwamsterdam.nl

Supported by: Mondriaan Foundation Foundation Democracy and Media Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, School of Design and Communication TrouwAmsterdam

Bloggers: Liliana Bounegru, Chris Castiglione, Dennis Deicke, Rosa Menkman, Tjerk Timan Special thanks to: Morgan Currie, Anne Helmond, Paul den Hertog

Contact: Institute of Network Cultures phone: +31 20 5951866 email: [email protected] web: http://www.networkcultures.org FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 TrouwAmsterdam

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14 TrouwAmsterdam