A DECADE OF WEBDESIGN A two day international conference 21-22 January 2005, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. www.decadeofwebdesign.org & www.designtimeline.org Conference registration: http://www.decadeofwebdesign.org/practical_info.html. A Decade of Webdesign In 1994 the world wide web crept out of its scientific and academic egg and entered the first phases of popular consciousness. At this point the web design explosion began. Ten years later, we would like to stand back and attempt to map something of these years of frenetic and inventive interdisciplinary work. What do we mean by web design? At the most obvious level, web design is about bringing visual organisation and power to computational and networked processes. It means organising sites by means of graphic elements and structuring devices. But increasingly digital media designers also work in the area of what used to be walled off as 'technology'. Designing is now as much about formal language, that is to say, code, as much as it is about more subjective, free-form or 'natural' and visual languages. Designers make and link digital processes which are then taken up by social processes. They do this with a sensibility that is as much in dialogue with technicity as with a visual aesthetic or a model of communication. Until recently web design discourses have been dominated by a frantic, market driven search for the latest and coolest. The ongoing media buzz around 'demo design' has prevented serious scholarship from happening. Technical innovations such as frames, Shockwave, Flash, WAP and 3G have dominated the field. Until 2001 a substantial part of the sector's activities was geared towards instruction and consultancy. The dotcom crash and IT slump have cleared the field - but not necessary in positive ways. Due to budget cuts some firms now believe they can do without design altogether. Instead of asking ourselves what the Next Big Thing will be, we firmly believe that future design can be found in the understanding of a recent past that offers a rich mix of utopian concepts and undigested controversies. In short, this ten years of web design has seen design change as much as it has seen the impact of a new form of global media. We want to celebrate this and to use a consideration and testing of the recent past to provide a platform for thinking about what is to come. In this, the conference will be unprecedented, the first event of its kind. SESSIONS Histories of Web Design What do social, technical and cultural historians propose as ways to make an account of the last decade? Meaning Structures As automated site-design becomes increasingly important, the history of the interweaving of technology and culture up to the point of semantic engineering is mapped out. Modeling the User Creativity and usability have often been set up as the two key poles of web design. This panel asks instead for a more sophisticated narrative about the change in understanding of user needs and desires over the last ten years. Digital Work Can we redesign work? From economics, sociology and design, key observers and critics of the changing patterns of work in web design will comment on the decade and encourage you to have your say. Distributed Design The web amplified an explosion of non-professional design. This panel will ask what happens to design once it becomes a non-specialist network process. CONFIRMED SPEAKERS Geke van Dijk, Rosalind Gill, Michael Indergaard, John Chris Jones, Olia Lialina, Peter Luining, Peter Lunenfeld, Adrian MacKenzie, Franziska Nori, Danny O'Brien (NTK), Steven Pemberton, Helen Petrie, Schoenerwissen/OfCD, Hayo Wagenaar. The conference programme and the speakers’ biographies are available online at http://www.decadeofwebdesign.org/programme.html. DESIGN HISTORY TIMELINE Make Web History at www.designtimeline.org As a core part of the project, beginning before and continuing after the conference we have initiated an open research website/database into the first decade of webdesign. The online forum is a visual and textual timeline generated out of a self-customisable questionnaire. Using a custom content management system the site allows for users to add images, comments and links to make a collective history of the web as it developed. Such elements might include histories of their own first homepage; the first use of a technology; original html code; reminiscences of key designers, innovators, critics and technologists. Using a question based interface users can write their own questions and respond to those of others. All questions entered will then be available, ensuring that no one set of views or way of writing predominates. The site is designed for use both by the general public and as a simple structured tool which can be used for research and teaching. The site started on October 1, 2004 and will continue for six months after the conference, at which point it will be archived and remain publicly available. During the conference breaks you are invited to prepare a short presentation of Timeline hotspots based on your responses in the www.designtimeline.org website. PRACTICAL INFORMATION A Decade of Webdesign Two day international conference Friday 21 and Saturday 22 January, 2005. Location The conference will take place in 11, located on the top floor of the TPG-building / Post CS, Oosterdokskade 5, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. http://www.ilove11.nl Entrance fee 30 euros per day / 50 euros for two days. Students: 17,50 / 30 euros Conference dinner: 30 euros Registration For registration please visit http://www.decadeofwebdesign.org/practical_info.html . A Decade of Webdesign is an initiative of: Media Design Research, Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academie Hogeschool Rotterdam http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdma/ Institute of Network Cultures, Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactive Media http://www.networkcultures.org In collaboration with: Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam http://www.stedelijk.nl A Decade of Webdesign and the Design History Timeline are supported by: Gemeente Amsterdam, Dienst Maatschappelijke Ontwikkeling, Afdeling Kunst & Cultuur Mondriaan Foundation Digitale Pioniers Thuiskopiefonds For further information about the conference and press, please contact: Sabine Niederer at sabine@networkcultures.org or Kim van Haaster at kim@networkcultures.org. For further information about the Design History Timeline, please contact: Femke Snelting at snelting@geuzen.org. Graphic design: Léon Kranenburg & Loes Sikkes. -- Sabine Niederer Institute of Network Cultures Amsterdam Media Reseach Centre www.networkcultures.org Phone: +31 (0)20 5951866 Fax: +31 (0)20 5951840