Cyril Jarton uses a variety of means to question the forms of the book and the spoken word by proposing a “spatial translation” of Martin Heidegger’s book, “Etre et Temps”, a translation whose title becomes Hêtre étang. The punning technique and irreverent tone that guide this translation are not provocative, but rather an attempt to translate Heidegger using Dadaist means: while the philosopher concluded that it is poets who put us on the path to being, he ignored the poets of his time, especially those who introduced major innovations in the field of poetry, and whom the Nazis listed as “degenerate artists”. This new translation aims, among other things, to right this historical wrong.
“For a long time, I dreamed and ricocheted on the banks of a Charentais pond, l’étang des Fayards, which belonged to my grandfather and where he lived for the first years of his marriage, during the German occupation. The demarcation line, the route to the free zone, ran through the woods nearby. At the edge of this pond, I read “Being and Time”, a work by Martin Heidegger published in 1927. There was an encounter between the book and the site: fayard is one of the names of the beech tree, so l’étang des Fayards is the pond of beech trees. The homophony between hêtre étang (beech pond) and être et temps (being and time) permeated this reading until it became inseparable: I see in the reflections of leaves on water the reflection of being in being. Hêtre étang traces the spatial development of Heidegger’s book, a journey between being and beech, between pond and time”. Cyril Jarton
Before and between Cyril Jarton’s three live performances, writing workshops and meetings are organized with various groups and associations in Gentilly.
These exchanges and workshops between the author, his project and local audiences generate writings and productions that feed into the author’s writing process and help shape each public event programmed at Le Générateur. This work, which takes place over several months, culminates in two publications: the book Hêtre étang and a commentary booklet.