Sant Jordi 2024: 8 Recommended Reads by Digital Experts
We’ve asked several digital experts to recommend a book related to the digital world or Catalan culture. These are the readings they’ve recommended, and we hope they serve as inspiration for this Sant Jordi:
Albert Cuesta recommends: ‘La democràcia mor al núvol’ by Josep M. Ganyet
Digital giants and states track citizens’ behavior with seemingly innocent technology. The ‘surveillance capitalism’ explained firsthand by a victim of spying with Pegasus on dozens of Catalan independence activists.
Eva Olivares recommends: ‘No et refiïs dels teus records’ by Clàudia Pujol
‘No et refiïs dels teus records’, by Clàudia Pujol, is a thriller that hooked me because it explores topics like social networks and neuromarketing through a character with OCD, who sends fictional obituaries that end up becoming real.
Albert Lloreta recommends: ‘Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture’ by Kyle Chaika
Can one be truly creative and groundbreaking within the confines of an Instagram post? Is the goal of artwork to go viral? Chaika investigates how the algorithmic digital world is flattening how we enjoy and produce culture, imbuing us with the dangerous idea that everything is solely valued for the impact it generates.
Simmer Valenciana recommends: ‘De nou centaure’ by Katixa Agirre and translated into Catalan by Pau Joan Hernàndez
Metaverse, feminism, artificial intelligence… This story deals with the future we all hope for thanks to technology while the planet suffers a major climate crisis. A novel so necessary to reflect on our present and future and understand that with technology one can create, but also destroy, and if we are able to balance a scale between future and technology for the common good, we can achieve much more than we imagine.
Roger Serra recommends: ‘QualityLand’ by Marc-Uwe Kling
It’s a futuristic satire questioning the pitfalls of digitization through the eyes of a dismantler leading a group of rebel robots and challenging the system by returning a package ordered by the algorithm.
Simona Levi recommends: ‘#FakeYou, Fake News, and Disinformation’ by Simona Levi and various authors
Governments, political parties, mass media, corporations, big fortunes: monopolies of informational manipulation and cuts to freedom of expression.
Àlex Hinojo recommends: ‘We’ by Yevgeny Zamyatin
A dystopian work of Russian literature from the early 20th century predating 1984 and Brave New World, translated by the great Miquel Cabal.
Norman López recommends: ‘Passió per la F1: Secrets a 300 Km/h’ by Josep Lluís Merlos
I don’t think it surprises anyone that I recommend an F1 book. It’s a sport that I’m passionate about and fascinated by. What happens behind the cameras of a sports broadcast that never turns off the spotlight? How was it that a TV3 team traveled the world following the F1 circus? At the time, Merlos himself signed the book for me, he was the F1 narrator on TV3, and 13 years later rereading it, I understood many things that have happened since. Furthermore, this year it makes even more sense, as we will experience the home GP in Catalan again after many years. Whether you like motorsport or not, reading about what’s behind the world’s biggest circus is always a discovery.
