“The introduction of an information elite does little to reassure us. Wurman (1995) sees a heroic role for ‘a group of people, small in number, deep in passion, called Information Architects’, struggling forward through the ‘field of black volcanic ash’ constituted by current design, in order to save humanity from the ‘tsunami of data that is crashing onto the beaches of the civilized world’. This sounds more like a blurb for the next Spielberg blockbuster, with Information Architects as the good guys, than as a serious proposal about the role of information design. However, the conference brochure similarly suggests that the ‘Republic of Information’ is ‘going to be laid out and planned by a new breed of architects, informed with a new level of understanding and purpose’.” (Jos de Bruin and Remko Scha – Institute of Artificial Art Amsterdam)