“Geek & Nerd culture is the product of a late capitalist conspiracy, designed to infantilize the consumer as a means of non-aggressive control.” – Simon Pegg
Geekopolis, the Paris Festival of the Imaginary Cultures and its five districts, each representing a universe (TEKLAB : New technologies, science, video games, free computer; METROPOLIS : Science fiction and comics; NAUTILUS : Steampunk Culture ; LITTLE TOKYO Japanese Culture; AVALON : Medieval fantastic), returns to the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles for its third edition on 23 and 24 May 2015.
London has Nine Worlds Geek Fest (7-9 August 2015) and London’s Comic Con (22-24 May 2015, Excel), Paris has Geekopolis and the next Paris’ Comic Con (23-25 October 2015).
A short list of European multigenre conventions :
Belgium : F.A.C.T.S. in Ghent, Belgium
France : Angoulême International Comics Festival in Angoulême ; Générations Star Wars et Science Fiction in Cusset ; Lille Comics Festival in Lille
Italy : Lucca Comics & Games in Lucca, Italy; Mantova Comics & Games in Mantova ; Romics in Rome
Poland : Pyrkon in Poznan ; International Festival of Comics and Games in Lodz
Romania : East European Comic Con in Bucharest
Russia : Comic-Con Russia, Moscow
Slovakia : Comics Salon
United Kingdom : London Film and Comic Con, London MCM Expo, London Super Comic Convention ; Wales Comic Con in Wrexham, Wales
Geekopolis is a dream that had over 15 000 participants in 2014, and only appears once a year in Paris for a weekend! Geekopolis is home to over 700 stakeholders, 200 workshops and conferences and 200 exhibitors. Never the geek culture did expressed in all its facets in Europe !
Guests of Honor : British SF writer Alastair Reynolds, Kato the Steamgirl (aka Kate Lambert, British model, fashion designer and entrepreneur : Steampunk Couture) and Frédéric Molas (aka “Le Joueur du Grenier“/The Attic Gamer, is a French retro video-games tester).
For SF&F activities kindly check : http://www.actusf.com/spip/+Les-conferences-SFF-a-ne-pas+.html
Geekopolis, Paris Expo – Porte de Versailles – Hall 3 – 1 Place de la Porte de Versailles – 75015 Paris, France
You Tube video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lpr15X0q4AM
http://www.geekopolis.fr/index.php
https://www.facebook.com/citegeek
http://www.frenchgeekmovement.fr/evenements/geekopolis-2015/
“Recent developments in popular culture were arguably predicted by the French philosopher and cultural theorist, Jean Baudrillard in his book, ‘America’, in which he talks about the infantilization of society.
Put simply, this is the idea that as a society, we are kept in a state of arrested development by dominant forces in order to keep us more pliant.
We are made passionate about the things that occupied us as children as a means of drawing our attentions away from the things we really should be invested in, inequality, corruption, economic injustice, exploitation, etc.
It makes sense that when faced with the awfulness of the world, the harsh realities that surround us, our instinct is to seek comfort, and where else were the majority of us most comfortable than our youth? A time when we were shielded from painful truths by our recreational passions, the toys we played with, the games we played, the comics we read.
There was probably more discussion on Twitter about the The Force Awakens and the Batman vs Superman trailers than there was about the Nepalese earthquake or the British general election.
Also, it’s good to ask why we like this stuff, what makes it so alluring, so discussed, so sacred. Do we channel our passion and indignation into ephemera, rather than reality?
Not just science fiction and fantasy but gossip and talent shows and nostalgia and people’s arses. Is it right? Is it dangerous? Something to discuss over a game of 3D chess, perhaps.” – Simon Pegg
Check it out on Pegg’s website : http://simonpegg.net/2015/05/19/big-mouth-strikes-again/
