One river, many stories.
On my first day in Nevers for NØSCHOOL 2025, Benjamin Gaulon offered some of the guests a ride to our accommodation. I accepted, and at some point along the way waiting for a traffic light, noticed a small sign: "Esplanade Walter Benjamin". I took a mental note of visiting it later, curiously noticing that I was being driven by another Benjamin.
(I'll write later about my visit to the Esplanade on that afternoon. If you're reading this message, don't worry. It's not an unedited leftover. I'm exploring live-writing this wiki section and website, and leaving comments along the way. This website will never be finished).
That afternoon (or the next), a German student asked me what I thought of Benjamin. Walter Benjamin, that is. My first answers were obvious mentions to Angelus Novus in his Theses on the Philosophy of History and The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. I probably mentioned Leo Foletto's Cópia na era de sua proliferação técnica. But as the conversation went on, I thought again of one particular image: the ragpicker. Le chiffonier. Or in the original German term: the Lumpensammler.
Another note - I'll get back to this later. Too many references for now, and I need some sleep.
P.S.: editing wiki pages at late night, not knowing whether someone was reading it in between edits, takes me 20 years back and happy.