Society of the Query

This is new to me as I just learned about (via Geert Lovink) the upcoming conference in Amsterdam on the Society of Inquiry. The event is organized by the Institute for Network Cultures. This is incredibly timely for anyone concerned with data, knowledge, access and creativity.

Here's a little about the purpose of the conference (Nov. 13-14, 2009):

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.

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. The questions this conference raises are:

• How does the idea of machine understanding influence the fields of knowledge organization and information retrieval?
• How is the legal framework surrounding search engines changing shape?
• Is Google’s increased ubiquity affecting the production and dissemination of art and cultural practice?
• What influence does the existing hegemony of a few large search engines exert on the traditional flow of knowledge and the diversity and accessibility of web content, and in what way might regulation be possible?
• Considering developments in the fields of art and information architecture, how can we get to more sophisticated ways of interface design and the presentation of search results?
• What alternative ways of search are visible on the software level, the network level and the user level that challenge the engine as the major search paradigm?

Conference themes

• Society of the Query
• Digital Civil Rights and Media Literacy
• Alternative Search (1 and 2)
• Googlization of Everything
• Art and the Engine

For more information and registration for the event, please go to http://www.networkcultures.org/query