Laurel Zuckerman's Paris Weblog

Sci-Fi Dystopian Vision Embraced By Swedes?

Minority Report Ended Well Didn't It?

Microchips implanted under the skin? The Swedes are doing it!

Impossible, right? What person in their right mind would want to be tracked 24/7? What about thieves? (Ouch) Surely my friend was joking, or misinformed?

In two seconds she had whipped out her (trackable) iphone and Googled (also trackable) several sites (Cookies).  If Telegraph, Guardian, Business Insider, LA Times, and Washington Post are to be believed, some Swedish employees are getting microchipped "to open doors, operate printers or buy smoothies with a wave of the hand". Yes, the effort of swiping a card was too much work (the rummaging, the lifting, the swiping, the putting away again). Better, apparently, to be a cyborg. 

While across Europe political thinkers worry about the threat of populism and authoritarian movements, Sweden is leading the way into the kind of techology that sci-fi writers have only nightmared about.

“Of course, putting things into your body is quite a big step to do, and it was even for me at first,” LA Times quoted an initially hesitant employee as saying. “On the other hand, I mean, people have been implanting things into their body, like pacemakers and stuff to control your heart,” he said. “That's a way, way more serious thing than having a small chip that can actually communicate with devices.”

About 150 people at a company called Epicenter have agreed to have the technology which LA Times compared to that of contactless credit cards, implanted. About the size of a grain of rice. And hackable, of course. 

Oh brave new world that has such cyborgs in it!

sources:

Companies start implanting microchips into workers' bodies - LA Times

Paris Fringe Theatre Festival: International, thought-provoking, and fun

The author chatting after the show with El Diablo of the Cards and (from left to right) Paris-based actresses Chloé Jamin, Victoria Cyr and Sarah Tullamore.

By Madeleine Kirchhoff

The 2017 Paris Fringe international theatre festival kicked off on May 17 with an opening ceremony providing a glimpse of this year's main line-up of 18 shows featuring performers from Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, France, Singapore, South Africa, the UK, and the United States.

The festival organizers provided a warm ambiance at the opening festivities with a brass band welcoming the guests and a festival line-up showcasing high energy and generous spirit. 

There's something for everyone at Paris Fringe – children oriented shows with mimes and clowns, musical theatre, drama, dance and comedy. 

On the comedic side, the troupe Pelican’s delightfully unexpected and hilariously absurd sketches had the audience in stitches, and the amazing El Diablo of the Cards performed magic tricks with a twist of humor which kept me smiling for days.

New: Science wowed the crowd by improvising a musical on the spot with themes given by the audience– it’s spontaneous, impeccable timing and lots of fun to watch.  The one-man variety act Plan C featuring Caspar Schjelbred got a lot of chuckles for his absurd comic performance combined with clowning and mime.

The Big Funk Company showed snippets of creative scenarios, and  their spoof on a grown-up Little Orphan Annie was a laugh riot perfectly played by the troupe members.

On the dramatic side, the one-man show Hervé explores identity and race through the true story of an adopted child of French African descent by an unconventional Belgian couple. The solo piece No Breaks retraces a research experience on the Syrian refugee crisis in Jordan, theatricalizing the questions at the center of political engagement.  Elizabeth Wautlet’s one-woman tragicomic show Jubilee is a funny and freaky fugue about a daughter, a father and debt.

The festival is entertaining and filled with powerful stories leading to discovery and engaging post-show discussion. For both the audience members and the performers, the festival creates a sense of global community and understanding though the common language of theatrical storytelling.

Paris Fringe is organized by a team of international theatre makers based in France, and is curated by artistic directors Dom Douglas and Reka Polonyi. “Paris Fringe is about bringing people together,” notes Polonyi, “with performing artists coming from around the world, it is an occasion for a diverse group of theatre makers to learn from each other and share new ways of working.”

The festival runs through May 28, 2017. Visit the Paris Fringe website for the full program.

Madeleine Kirchhoff

About the author

Madeleine Kirchhoff is a sociology student at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with interests in education and culture. She is spending the summer exploring Europe.

 

 

Paris joins Manchester in Grief and Rage

Heartbreaking. 

Another terrorist attack in the heart of Europe. The target this time: young girls. It is beyond heartbreaking. In solidarity with the grieving people of Manchester and the world, the Eiffel tower goes dark. We cannot help but be reminded of the Berlin Christmas Market attack, the Nice Attacks, the Paris Attacks to name only three among dozen of Islamist attacks in the months since the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

France continues to be in an official State of Emergency (more than a year now) and the US State Department continues to issue travel warnings about the threat of terrorist attacks in Europe. And Islamists "known to intelligence services" and even convicted of crimes, jailed and released, continue to travel freely into and throughout Europe, as the sheer numbers of people on watchlists overwhelm European security forces. There is no positive message here. How can there be a positive message when a girl of eight is murdered for attending a concert with her mother and sister? Europe is failing to protect itself and children are paying the price.

 

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See also the Guardian's "Manchester Arena attack: Libyans in UK 'warned about Manchester radicalisation for years'. Members of Britain’s Libyan community say they told authorities that terrorist recruiters are operating openly in the city"

Paris Theatre Events in May: Paris Fringe Starts May 18

Daring, inventive, hilarious, moving! Thirty shows, nine venues in Paris.

Crowd laughing at hilarious "El Diablo of The Cards" preview at launch last night (show: Tue/Mar 23 May 20:00 & Wed/Mec 24 May 20:00 Le Kibélé)

Talents from around the world 

 

 Come discover theatre that is both innovative and entertaining at http://parisfringe.org: May 18-28 in Paris

 

 

 

 

 

 

xx