2 weeks ago, I defended my habilitation “Algorithmic Imaginaries. Visions & values in the shaping of search engines” at the Department of Science & Technology Studies, University of Vienna. I truly thank Uli Felt, Max Fochler & the whole habilitation commettee for their support throughout the rather lengthy process. I especially thank Karen Kastenhofer for sharing the ride with me! It was a blast! 
Here’s the ITA news, and the so-called “Rahmenschrift“. Enjoy!!!
On the 10th of October 2024 we – Barbara Prainsack and me – start a new initiative at the Austrian Academy of Sciences: Democracy in Digital Societies (ÖAW commission).
Besides an internal workshop and the official inauguration, there will be a public event
with a lecture by Sophie in ‘t Veld, former member of the European Parliament, followed by a panel discussion with Ilona Kickbusch, Sonja Puntscher-Riekmann, Barbara Prainsack, and me (moderated by Anna Goldenberg). We’re looking forward to seeing you there!
More information and registration for the event can be found here.
This year, Doris Allhutter and I conducted a future scenario workshop at the Ars Electronica Festival focusing on datafication & future cities – as part of the Auto-Welf project we’re currently working on. One case study is focusing on practices & politics of open/ing government data for creating public value (including a digital twin project from Vienna). Stay tuned!
Central questions of the workshop were:
How do we envision future urban living? What data should be made available to serve all citizens equally? How should data support urban life and promote the well-being and opportunities of different people and communities? Designing postcards from the future, workshop participants created visions of the urban life we dream of – corresponding to the theme of the festival: HOPE – who will turn the tide.
Please join us for the final conference of the AGIDE project (Academies for Global Innovation and Digital Ethics) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences: 27-28 June 2024 (in English):
I hope to see you there!! Also, the final report of the project is out now!!! (in English) Whooo!
Please have a look at the blog post I wrote for the Austrian daily newspaper DerStandard. It’s part of the blog post series of the Young Academy of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. And it deals with the Eurpean way towards digital sovereignty with a question mark at the end 😉 – in German.
Europa am Weg zur digitalen Souveränität?
Everyone interested in open/ing digital knowledge infrastructures should consider submitting to our call – deadline is 31 January 2024. The book will be co-edited by Katja Mayer, Renée Ridgway and me and is going to be open access – everything else would be ridiculous given the topic! 😉 We’re currently negotiating with De Gruyter..
Here are all the infos you need!
Here’s my book review of Helga Nowotny’s book In AI We Trust, which just came out in German – “Die KI sei mit Euch“. Soziopolis asked me to write a review as part of their AI special issue, which I gladly did! It’s titled “Das Dilemma mit der Zukunft” (in German).. enjoy!
Letzte Woche war ich zur Abwechslung mal bei Jugendradio! Fein wars!! Mit Dank an Veronika Weidinger für die Einladung! Interview und Podcast zum Nachhören gibts hier:
I’m very happy that my BD&S special issue article is online now! It’s called “European Search? How to counter-imagine and counteract hegemonic search with European search engine projects” – it was a bit of a tough nut since critiquing big tech and their sociotechnical imaginaries appears to be much easier than thinking about (and realizing!) alternative technologies and their counter-imaginaries. And that’s exactly why we need to shift our attention from dominant, often corporate imaginaries towards alternative tech and their counter-imaginaries of digital futures – especially in the European context where notions of value-based Europe are strongly pushed in EU policy rhetoric, but remain empty catchphrases often times. To sum up, I’m proud that this article is out now & I would love to hear what you guys think about it!!
Look at this! Our special issue in Big Data & Society (co-edited by Cristian Norocel, Richard Rogers, and me) on The State of Google Critique and Intervention has started to fill up with an excellent commentary by Bernhard Rieder titled Towards a Political Economy of Technical Systems: The Case of Google. Stay tuned, there is more to come in the next weeks!!
Thanks to Matt Zook for his valuable help throughout the publication process! & Olof Sundin & Alison Gerber for the Search Symposium they organized in Lund (2021), where the idea for the special issue was initially born! Thanks also to the Institute of Technology Assessment for co-organizing the writing workshop in Vienna (2022) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) for funding the event (and the project Algorithmic Imaginaries in the first place).
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