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\begin{document}


\title{Quaero moderation}

\author{Florian Cramer}

\date{29/11/2007}

\maketitle

\section{Welcome}

Why talk about search engines in an art school and not an engineering
school?  The title of this conference is indication enough of politics:
the French and German search engine projects reflect that information
search has become a cultural, political, economic if not geopolitical
issue - who owns the keys and the access interface to
information and knowledge? 

It would be easy to boil down the issue to a European-American
industrial ``me, too'' issue: Quaero as Europe's answer to Google just
like the Ariane is Europe's answer to the Space Shuttle, or Airbus vs.
Boeing. It's also rather easy to dismiss the European search engine
efforts as just another predictable failure and black hole of EU
subsidies like the Ariane. 

But the issue is more than just industrial politics: Jean-Noel
Jeanneney, president of the Bibliotheque Nationale: issue of cultural
politics, cultural dominance of Google; ``When Google Challenges
Europe'', departing from the Google Books program. 

Historically new that access to information, and how it is designed, is
culturally as much an issue as the information itself: Umberto Eco's
fiction of medieval monastrey which hides Aristotle's treatise on the
comedy. Science and knowledge reforms are closely linked to information
access reforms, universities, libraries, printing presses since the
reformation and enlightenment.  

Development in search engines: In the beginning, from Lycos to Hotbot to
Altavista, just about the size of the search index. Revolution through
Google, and now contested by Quaero: How the results are sorted and
ranked, in other words: how they are presented to the user.

Less abstract example, taken from a work of one of my students: Google
search in Europe, China, misspelling. And we're only scratching the
surface of it.

\section{Michael Zimmer}

Michael Zimmer is the Microsoft Resident Fellow at the Information
Society Project at Yale Law School for 2007-2008. 

Media studies scholar, 

PhD  on Quest for the Perfect Search Engine - pun on Umberto Eco as
well (Search for the Perfect Language)

social, cultural, and ethical dimensions of new media and information
technologies:  privacy, autonomy, and liberty. 


``Privacy and Quaero's Quest for the Perfect Search Engine: Threats and
Opportunities''

Quaero's ideal of the perfect search engine vs. Google's ideal, privacy
issues in the Quaero search engine concept

\section{Florian Schneider}

filmmaker (features on migration and new global movements for Arte),
political and media activist, initiator of ``No human is illegal'' and
the affiliated web site kein.org which now also hosts the Nettime
mailing list, organizer of festivals related to media activism,
publisher of art/theory/activism magazine Makeworlds.

\section{Metahaven}

06 24276797

Design research group, affiliated to Jan van Eyck, members: 
Vinca Kruk, Adriaan Mellegers, Tina Clausmeyer, Daniel van der Velden. 

topics: identity, politics, history, aesthetics, resistance, cryptography,
branding, iconography, heraldry, disappearance, empire, conspiracy
theories, sovereignty, independence, discourse. 

\section{Tsila Hassine}

Originally from Tel Aviv, obtained a degree in mathematics and computer
science and a Media Design M.A. from Piet Zwart, now postgraduate
researcher at Jan van Eyck. 

Has worked with search engine manipulations and politics already as a
student, collaboration with De Geuzen on global anxiety monitor.

\section{Ingmar Weber}

Studied Mathematician, works at the Max Planck Institute for Computer
Science in Saarbruecken, Germany, Ph.D. project on Algorithms and
Compexity Group, will build a search engine in 15 minutes here on the
panel, followed by a critical survey of existing web search engines


\section{Respondents}

\subsection{Isabelle Stengers}

Prof., philosopher, but graduated in chemistry -- and one of
the few outstanding philosophers with an natural science background [not
mathematics or physics] , like Jean Piaget, Humberto Maturana, and her
co-author Ilya Prigogine -- philosopher of science both in the sense of a
historical philosophy of science and philosophy built on scientific
insight:  systems and chaos theory -- political and ethical questions
are central to her work, critical investigator of philosophical and
political concepts. 

\subsection{Maurits de Bruijn}

Graphic designer, specializing on dynamic media - among others, designer
of Jeanne van Heeswijk's and Metahaven's web site, learned to program because of that.

teaches at Arnhem
Academy of Art and Design


\subsection{Sabine Niederer}

Art historian, design theorist, producer and curator of new media / arts
/ digital culture events, managing director of the Institute of Network
Cultures in Amsterdam, teaches Critical Design at the School of
Interactive Media in Amsterdam

\subsection{Andre Nusselder}

Ph.D. on human-computer interface as a medium of imagination, now
researches how new media technologies construct images of the past



\end{document}
