[Air-L] Newsletter of the Institute of Network Cultures - November 2012

Wed Nov 28 01:25:01 PST 2012

Institute of Network Cultures News

In this newsletter you can read more about:

Unlike Us #3 conference and the Unlike Us Reader
Out of Ink research project on the future of publishing
Re-search project and Society of the Query
New intern: Larissa

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Unlike Us #3 Conference: March 21-23, 2013
After a successful Unlike Us conference earlier this year, INC is  
planning Unlike Us #3, to be held March 21-23, 2013, again in  
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This next edition will build on topics,  
discussions, and questions raised at the last conference, and approach  
timely topics in social networking that are being discussed on the  
Unlike Us list (with 700 participants), the blog and elsewhere. Themes  
under discussion are (among other things) theory, history and critique  
of social media, The Federated Web Show, mobile use of social media,  
activism and the political economy of social networks. The main  
discussion will, most likely, be about the notions of the  
decentralized/federated social web in relation to alternative software/ 
web platforms which are currently under development. Alongside the  
conference, a series of smaller sessions and workshops, like a  
hackathon, will be set up in a community space. The planning team is  
now contacting potential speakers, ranging from theory, art, and  
computer science.

If you want to receive Unlike Us updates, please subscribe to the  
email list:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/unlike-us_listcultures.org.
More information about Unlike Us: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/unlikeus/

Unlike Us Reader
An Unlike Us Reader will be published prior to the conference in the  
INC Readers series. Written by theorists, artists, philosophers and  
other creative thinkers, the collected articles touch on topics like  
Facebook, Diaspora and Lorea, software studies, philosophy and  
economy, next to art, activism and alternatives. Publication is  
planned for the beginning of 2013, and of course the reader will be  
presented at the conference. The Unlike Us Reader will be published in  
the line of the INC Readers and produced in print, pdf, and epub.

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Out of Ink, research project on the future of publishing
With the Out of Ink project, INC is currently investigating the state  
of the art on the future of publishing industries. Recently our  
Italian intern Francesca Coluzzi interviewed several experts in the  
field:

Interview with Niels Schrader, Mind Design Amsterdam: 'a new adventure  
is starting!'
Interview with Michele Aquila and Valeria Di Rosa, U10 Milan:  
Tweetbooks and storytelling
Interview with Dimitri Nieuwenhuizen, LUST The Hague
Interview with Erik  Kessels, KesselsKramer Amsterdam

The main research issues are: digital technology shaping the entire  
publishing cycle; book form and content change and translation across  
print and digital media; tools, software and open source culture in  
the publishing practice; and digital environments and new  
possibilities for collaborative practices and self publishing.

Besides that the blog (http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/) will  
undergo a makeover, in order to have a complete overview of the whole  
Out of Ink project with new features and aims. Also concept models  
will be made.

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Re-search and Society of the Query
René König continues building the Re-search network on search engines  
by maintaining the collaborative research blog Society of the Query  
(networkcultures.org/wpmu/re-search) and an associated mailing list.  
The mailing list currently consists of around 80 researchers who post  
about relevant news, conferences, publications, etc. in the field of  
search engines. Read the new blogposts on Google's autocomplete  
feature and "Googling 9/11". Posts by guest authors are planned for  
the near future. The goal of the network is to gather researchers,  
artists and other people with varying perspectives on search engines  
and their societal and cultural implications. This will create a basis  
of ideas and people for a conference planned for late 2013.

René König is also working on his PhD thesis which deals with the  
usage of search engines from the perspective of sociology of  
knowledge: How do search engines shape our information practices?  
Which strategies do users develop to navigate through search engines  
and how do they evaluate the presented information? User studies will  
help to answer these questions. Currently, the concrete design of  
these studies is getting conceptualized.

Subscribe to the Re-search mailinglist here: http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/re-search_listcultures.org

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New intern at INC
Larissa Hildebrandt is an intern for the Unlike Us #3 conference in  
Amsterdam. She is currently a student in the New Media and Digital  
Culture MA program at the University of Amsterdam. She recently  
completed her BA in Communication at Simon Fraser University in  
British Columbia, Canada. Email: larissa[at]networkcultures[dot]org

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Also check:

Institute of Network Cultures Blog
http://networkcultures.org/

Overview INC Publications
http://networkcultures.org/publications/overview/

Institute of Network Cultures Media Archive
http://networkcultures.org/archive/

Geert Lovink’s Net critique blog
http://networkcultures.org/geert/

Institute of Network Cultures
Amsterdam New Media Research Centre
http://www.networkcultures.org