October 21, 2012

Evgeny Morozov: The End of Cyber Utopia


Wikipedia:
Evgeny Morozov, born 1984 in Soligorsk, Belarus, is a writer and researcher who studies political and social implications of technology.

Morozov is a visiting scholar at Stanford University,[3] a fellow at the New America Foundation, and a contributing editor of and blogger for Foreign Policy magazine, for which he writes the blog Net Effect. He has previously been a Yahoo! fellow at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service, a fellow at the Open Society Institute, director of new media at the NGO Transitions Online, and a columnist for the Russian newspaper Akzia. In 2009 he was chosen as a TED fellow where he spoke about how the Web influences civic engagement and regime stability in authoritarian, closed societies or in countries "in transition." 
YouTube video description [Channel - VPROinternational]:
Smartphones and social media seem to be the new weapons used to topple both dictators and old power structures. The euphoria over the Internet and its revolutionary role seems endless. One man, Evgeny Morozov states that this is nothing more than a mirage. He takes Backlight into his battle against cyber utopianism.

Surrounded by enormous video screens, Evgeny Morozov is visually bombarded with thoughts and situations on the effects of the technological revolution on totalitarianism, democracy and the people concerned. Morozov shares his criticism, flow of thought and dilemma's with us. Morozov is an angry young man who fights the cyber-utopianism that is so dominant in today's world.

Morozov grew up in communist Belarus and was just 5 years old when the Berlin wall fell. While working for a NGO in the former Soviet Republics and Central Asia he tried to organize revolts using social media. Disappointed with the impact, he wrote the book "The Net Dellusion: How Not To Liberate The World". His status on Twitter currently is: "in transit". In the installation Morozov engages in an intellectual battle with a remix of VPRO documentary-clips from the last 15 years. Spontaneously he reacts on the dilemma's presented to him, while moving around in what he himself sees as a panopticon; leading to a vivid dialogue with the images.
Evgeny Morozov: The End of Cyber Utopia