The night of ideas: an intense journey of reflection, art and science by the sea

With a series of varied and stimulating activities, took place yesterday in Ostend the first day of The night of ideas 2019. This is the third edition of this event, which builds bridges between intellectuals and artists from France and Argentina. Between national and international, guests total nearly 50. Conferences, debates, workshops and shows are grouped under the motto "Looking at the present. Revisiting the past Imagine unpublished futures "This is how we seek to question, from the present, the fundamental dimensions of historical time.

In due course she was the owner of the Old Hotel Ostende. She uttered the words of welcome and joked about "the French invasion" that they endure – or rather thank – their loyal customers. Yann Lorvo, Counselor for Cooperation and Cultural Action at the French Embbady, ​​highlighted the remarkable work done behind the scenes and which underlies Franco-Argentine relations; He also emphasized the support of the national secretariats and ministries, which allowed programming to be planned with great autonomy.

In the opening, the words of Martín Yeza, mayor of Pinamar. About the night of ideas, Hernán Lombardi, responsible for the federal system of public content and media, spoke of "good routines" without which it would be impossible to build a culture. In the same spirit, the secretary of culture, Pablo Avellutohe called. "break with intellectual laziness", stressed the importance of listening to those who do not think as one and of looking at a "new and editable" future using a metaphor for the world of books. (It should be added that this year, the Medifé Foundation is accompanying the event, along with UNTREF, UADE Costa Argentina and the Magazine NOT, among others.)

The opening speech was in charge of Barbara Cbadin, philosopher and philologist who was elected member of the French Academy last May. Cbadin is already a regular figure in these Atlantic meetings and her opening address was exemplary because of her brevity and conciseness. "When are you really at home?" it was the title of his presentation. The philosopher started from a contemporary phenomenon – the problem of refugees or immigrants – to badyze immediately three historical models with which one could think about the relationship of men with their place of origin.

On the one hand, he explained, this is the Greek model of the root, illustrated by the tortuous search of Ulysses in the OdysseyWhat this Homeric hero pursues is not only Ithaca, his country of origin, but his most intimate home on earth: his marriage bed with Penelope. Another paradigmatic scene is illustrated by Aeneas, the hero of the Eneidawho flees a Trojan on fire to found another Trojan, the city that will call Rome; Aeneas is an exile who is integrated, almost to the point of total badimilation, to the Latin people.

A third model, already in the 20th century, would be that advocated by Hannah Arendt, a naturalized American Jewish philosopher.. Cbadin pointed out that the English spoken by Arendt presented an incomparable German flavor and that this accent was nothing but the way a language appears or insinuates under the surface of 39, another language. "We can consider language as a homeland and homeland as a language": that is why we must take care of it and prevent it from disappearing. So Cbadin gleaned a famous sentence from Arendt, according to which his only home was in German language.

Cbadin also picked up another sentence from Arendt –"the flickering equivocity of the world"– and relate it to the diversity of languages, characteristic of our human condition, eminently political and therefore plural. In fact, his idea of ​​translation is inseparable from a know how –a "know-how" – with plurality and differences. (In this way, the philosopher has advanced some of the ideas that she displays in Praise of Translation, the book that this year publishes El Cuenco de Plata, in the version of Irene Agoff.)

Cbadin has always articulated the scruples of a Hellenist and philologist with a political commitment and attention to the dramas of the contemporary world. As with translation processes, he said, we must recognize that migration has built our cultures. Before asking a question to a listener who had consulted on the current situation of immigrants, the philosopher acknowledged how alarming the French and European political situation is: "Europe is a scandal", he continued, "and we will have to answer it day before our children."

A little later, the speeches of the writer, journalist and essayist followed Olivier Guez After a traveling performance by the pool, designed by the choreographer Mariana Bellotto, a cool breeze came to relieve the participants in a day of extreme temperatures. Comfortably seated in the garden of the hotel, Guez offered a guided tour of Berlin, a city he sees as the symbolic capital of the 21st century. It is not surprising that Guez, a native of Strasbourg, presents himself as a "man of borders". As such, he showed how Berlin combined the past and the future, in a journey both historical and spatial, from the Brandenburg Gate to the Potsdamer Platz, to emblematic urban monuments such as the Parliament, the Tiergarten or monuments commemorate the trauma of "the homeland of Goethe and Mengele".

In another interview, we went almost nonstop from Berlin to a cosmic dimension: what the charismatic astrophysicist Jean-Philippe Uzan He called "the geography and history of our universe". This is how he directed his exhibition on "The Big Bang: A Century of Cosmology", appropriately illustrated by graphics and projections. He taught an engrossed audience how to look at the starry sky and pointed out how much information about the universe comes from the light of stars and galaxies.

Uzan alluded to a work by Johannes Kepler, the Somnium (dream, 1608), where the German astronomer of the Baroque era usufructs the resources of literature – and even "science fiction" – to develop a substantial scientific hypothesis. Jokes through, too He taught the Big Bang theory, marking four of his avatars in the 20th century., the latter concerns efforts to develop a coherent theory of quantum gravity. His speech – an example of well-known scientific disclosure – was warmly applauded by the listeners.

Almost immediately, the representation of Maricel Álvarez: I had a good soul is, among others, a Persuasive dramatic monologue, accompanied by a subtle film of the naked body of the actress, half submerged in water. Finally, a brief account of Alejandra Radano – "The future is now"- concluded the evening with well balanced doses of singing, a poetic humor and a complete lack of circumspection.

So ended a long day on one of his possible routes. Because, in parallel, other discussions, other actions, other discussions (Maria Negroni, Alejandro Katz and Marina Franco…: the list continues). He is happy that today some of these events are repeated in modified scenarios or calendars. On the other hand, new figures will be presented, some of which are highly anticipated, as is the case of the historian. Patrick Boucheron. Already this Friday, the event is moving to the MAR museum in Mar del Plata, where the busy schedule of activities will continue for two other intense days. All indications are that La Nuit des Idées has just begun: in any case, it is not limited to the night and must be written and pronounced in the plural.

* The night of ideas, under the motto "Looking at the present. Revisiting the past I"Unpublished Maginar", takes place during four days: January 30 and 31, at the former hotel Ostend (Pinamar) and at 1st and 2nd February at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Mar del Plata). All activities are free and open access.