Online , Lezing

Dark Dystopias: Watching The Matrix and V for Vendetta after a Lockdown uitverkocht

Yasco Horsman
Dinsdag 29 september 2020, 20:00 - 22:00 (uitverkocht)
Blauwe Zaal, Auditorium & livestream
Prijs: Gratis (Student) Gratis (Anderen)

In this third lecture of the Dark Dystopias series we'll look at dystopian stories in film. Dr. Yasco Horsman discusses dystopias in The Matrix and V for Vendetta.

If the seats at the venue on campus are fully booked, you can watch this program live online via the livestream on Facebook or YouTube (You do not need to book a ticket to view the livestream )*

In an essay published in 1990 philosopher Gilles Deleuze argued that western societies have undergone a fundamental political shift. Societies nowadays are controlled through the use of algorithms that collect and analyze data in order to steer populations.

Yasco Horsman discusses how the global responses to the corona pandemic have confirmed some of Deleuze’s intuitions – we are now truly living in a ‘control society’ - and he analysis how dystopian science-fiction cinema has responded to this shift.

The focus lies with two films: The Matrix Trilogy (The Wachoswski’s, 1999-2003) arguably the first of a new wave of dystopian films and V for Vendetta (McTeigue, 2005), whose protagonist (the masked V) became a symbol of global protest movements, ranging from the hacktivists of Anonymous to the participants of Occupy Wall Street and the Spanish Indignados. We will discuss how both films differ from earlier dystopian cinema and opened the door to recent television series such as Mr Robot and Black Mirror and contemporary Art House cinema, such as Claire Denis’s High Life (2018).

In this series we’ll delve deeper into works of fiction (in literature, film and TV series) that are set in dystopian societies. What are the characteristics of dystopias and why do they fascinate us so much? We’ll also discuss what we can learn from those stories and what is applicable to our societies today, especially in light of the corona pandemic.

Dr. Yasco Horsman is a University Lecturer in Film and Literary Studies at Leiden University. He holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Yale University and has published on literature (Kafka, Beckett, Coetzee), cinema (Resnais), Graphic Novels (Spiegelman, Ware, Clowes), Animation (Mickey), drones and flipbooks.

* Via livestream

This program will also be streamed live to our Facebook page and YouTube channel. Follow us on Facebook or subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive a notification when we go live. You do not need to book a ticket to view the livestream.

SG & USE registration 

  • On campus: please register your participation on the spot when attending the program on campus, by scanning your student card before the start of the program at the venue.
  • Online via livestream: Please note: do NOT make a reservation if you want to watch the program online via the livestream. You can only register for SG&USE if you watch the program live (so not watching it at a later time) and if you complete an online SG&USE registration form within five minutes after the end of the program. During the lecture we will explain where and when you can find the link to the registration form. In the program info on the website you will find where you can view the livestream.
    Keep your student ID number at hand, because you'll need to fill it out in the form.

Please make sure your registration is done properly, otherwise we cannot verify that you were present.

More information about SG & USE can be found here.

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