One of these days we will tell the story of how we got ensnared in a trap, caught in a net, the story of how we became addicts and junkies. We’ll reveal how we used to browse through our aluminum-zinc-lithium-petroleum-based boxes of light over twenty times a day, on every street corner and during every break; during red lights and subway rides; even while waiting at the dentist. We’ll recount how we were perfectly aware of the insanity of the situation, but were incapable of doing any different, how completely estranged we felt from the world, our perspectives and our desires stifled. How our screens became our entire world, rather than the world being reflected through our screens. 

One of these days we’ll learn not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We’ll be capable of praising the Web as a space from which powerful social movements emerge, where there are novel artistic expressions, revelations essential to democracy, as well as an indispensable sense of solidarity, all while remaining critical of our addiction to tools, objects and our aluminum-zinc-lithium-petroleum-based boxes of light.

One of these days we’ll tell the story of how the ultimate trap lays not in the conscious alienation, but rather in the fact that we were initially unaware, blithely hurtling through a seemingly impetuous and obscure world that science fiction had no reason to envy. We’ll cry out in horror about how our finite world had been dominated by Big Brother, about how our rectangular light boxes became our worst enemies, allowing major brands and data collecting agencies to follow our every trace, compile our data, anticipate our desires, and ended up reshaping our minds to fit their own self-serving mould.

We will share our stories.

Our stories will belong to the past because we will have attempted to turn the tide. Because we will have decided to break free from this invisible cycle with each passing day.

Because WE WANT.

We want to reclaim the city, our impulses, our moods, our desires. We want to prevent advertisers from lawfully lodging themselves into our cortex and gaining access to our emotions. We promise to control our narcissistic impulses on social media, the public display of our preferences and the strange, sterile need for transparency that drives us.

We want to navigate through the city in a free, graceful and creative manner.We want to renounce the constant geo-location. We want to be free to roam without the pressure of having to visit THIS or buy THAT. We want our wanderings to be free from suspicion and endless analysis.

We want to learn from those among us who are already fighting against this fatal stranglehold (1). We want to read, to understand, to try and to share everything that enables us to move farther away from this merciless surveillance. We want the city to become a welcoming home and an adventure playground, rather than a space where one is measured, spied upon and taken apart.   

We are Montreal.
We want to bring forth the future, today.

 
(1) To achieve this, visit the exceptional École de sécurité numérique 514 website.