Asma Mhalla
Cyberpunk
Gespräch, in English, Lesung
Freitag, 27. November
19.00 Uhr
Hauptbücherei am Gürtel
1070, Urban-Loritz-Platz 2a
Asma Mhalla shows in “Cyberpunk” how a two-headed techno-political monster of domination is emerging in the 21st century: a new Leviathan made of political spectacle and technological programming. Instead of historical comparisons, she draws on the imagery of science fiction – from Blade Runner to The Matrix – to make the reshaping of democracy visible. Asma Mhalla is the Parisian star intellectual of the moment. Her essay “Cyberpunk” spent months on the French bestseller lists and is now being published in German. In it, she gives a compelling account of the political developments of our time: a hybrid, techno-political regime is at work, staging a grand show up front while the system is being programmed in the background.
Its influence spreads quietly across the globe, reshaping democracy and colonising body and mind alike. To understand the current decay of liberal democracy, Mhalla argues, looking back to the 1920s and 1930s is of no help. Instead, she leads us into the dystopian world of science fiction: into hardened technological shells where disillusioned individuals wander through apocalyptic cities, steered by highly centralised authorities by means of AI systems. Blade Runner and The Matrix say hello.
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