Edited by: Baruch Gottlieb

Databases are operationally essential to the search society. Since the 1960’s, they have been developed, installed, and maintained by software engineers in view of a particular future user, and they have been applied and adapted by different user communities for the production of their own futures. Database systems, which, since their inception, offer powerful means for shaping and managing society, have since developed into the primary resource for search-centered signifying practice. The paper will present insights into the genesis of a society which depends on the possibility to search, find, (re-)arrange and (re-)interpret of vast amounts of data.

Download here the full lecture of David Gugerli given during the Society of the Query conference on Friday the 13th of November 2009.

colophon: editors: Shirley Niemans and Marijn de Vries Hoogerwerff. Design: Grrr Amsterdam, http://www.grrr.nl. Print: Thieme Media Almere. Publisher: Insitute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam. Supported by: Amsterdam School of Design and Communication, Interactive Media (Hogeschool van Amsterdam, University of Applied Sciences ), Mondriaan Foundation and Foundation Democracy and Media.