The Night of Ideas, held in Lisbon at Culturgest, was associated with a performance/reading by trans philosopher Paul B. Preciado, “I am a monster speaking to you,” part of the BoCA – Biennial of Contemporary Arts program. The issues raised by this show invite reflection on contemporary phenomena of proliferation, such as gender, or those determined by a logic of excess, such as acceleration and speed.
Both gender and acceleration, in their current manifestations, are part of the rule of hyperthesia, that is, the logic of going beyond one’s own ends. And both are strongly marked by the “More?”—by the regime of proliferation and intensification—which, modulated as a question, is the general theme of the Night of Ideas.
The program included a social gathering with cocktails by NaMesa; a round table discussion entitled “Gender: plural, scandalously plural,” in which Sinziana Ravini, P. Feijó, and Cláudia Varejão discussed the expansive power of the + sign in the acronym LGBTQI+, which is subject to progressive expansion; a debate with the theme “The great escalation of acceleration and speed,” which included the screening of three films from the CNAP collection that make a seditious apology for leisure, bodily rhythms, and the slow gestures of unproductive work, followed by a conversation with Laurent de Sutter, Jerôme Lèbre, and Carla Baptista. The round tables were moderated by António Guerreiro.
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5pm-7pm – Conference-performance “I am the monster speaking to you,”
written and directed by Paul B. Preciado -
7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. – Installation/appetizer “The Taste of the Night”
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8pm-9pm – Round table discussion “Gender: plural, scandalously plural”
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10:00 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. – Film and roundtable discussion: “The Great Acceleration and Speed”
