Re:search
Although Snowden’s revelations have opened users’ eyes to the Five Eyes and state surveillance of citizens, Google’s proprietary black box remains closed. Operating as an ‘increasing invisible information infrastructure’ (Haider & Sundin, 2019), it is sometimes difficult to discern paid advertising from ‘organic’ search results, with most users staying above the ‘fold’ (Introna 2016, Lewandowski 2017).
Nowadays, people ‘ubiquitously google’ (Ridgway 2021; 2023), yet the actors and dynamics of search is changing with the uptake of ‘generative artificial intelligence’, such as machine-leaning Large Language Models (LLMs) a.k.a. chatbots, which are now providing one answer to all queries or an overview, instead of ranked hyperlinks. Transient as well as opaque, what are the knowledge infrastructures determining search results, how can they be researched and better understood?
This interdisciplinary research strand addresses digital citizenship by investigating the ethics and politics of search infrastructures and, more specifically, open source and alternatives to prevailing search hegemonies. Material artifacts created by people, ‘infrastructures’ have physical and pragmatics properties, including telephone towers, GPS satellite systems and undersea internet cables that often appear invisible until they break down (Starr 1999). ‘Searching’ is the action of finding information, nowadays one of the most common online user activities and an important element in the development of the web and artificial intelligence. Knowledge Infrastructures of Searching combines these two words to focus on seeking information, which encompasses the environmental impact of telecommunication networks and data centres—the hardware that enables the transfer of data, as well as databases and search applications—the software that processes queries and provides search results.
Gallery/Media
Upcoming
Code&Share[61]: The Online Search Rodeo
Wednesday, January 21st from 16.00 to 18.00
@ KLUB, Linnésgade 25, 1361 København K, Denmark
Leads: Renée Ridgway / Anders Visti
Organised by Code&Share[ ] and Open Source Democracy
Previous
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May 25th, 2025 ISEA (International Symposium of Electronic/Emerging Art), Seoul, South Korea.
Workshop: "The Art of (Re)search — Comparing, Contemplating and critiquing search results". Sogang University - May 13th, 2025Workshop. Aesthetic Programming, Aarhus University.
- May 9th, 2025Presentation. CuPra, Cultures and Practices of Digital Technologies, Aarhus University.
- November 30th, 2024 Workshop: "Re:search - Comparing, critiquing and contemplating search results". DOKK1 public library, Aarhus.
- April 24th, 2024 Workshop: "Re:search - Data visualizations as transcription". Digital Design, Aarhus University.
- September 30th, 2023 Workshop: "Re:search — Data visualizations as transcription". Processing Community Day @Aarhus 2023. New Aarch, architecture school of Aarhus. https://pcdaarhus.net/
- June 17th, 2023 Workshop: "Re:search: The Personalised Subject vs. the Anonymous User". Code&Share[43]. https://codeandshare.net/
Project partners & support: