nanopolitics handbook - Minor Compositions

2. The second one is the step-aside 1 . As already pointed out, its functionis to address the process. It’s not about re-opening debates but aboutpointing to one or the other element regarding the group’s ways of doingthings, and to draw some knowledge or questions from this. This is alsothe right moment for questioning the roles and artifices that have beenused, and to point out their effects. As opposed to the ‘weather’ point, thisisn’t a go-round. We depart from knowledges picked up, give consistencyto that which works and to our experiments with other ways of doing thingswhen there is a blockage. It can be useful to record these knowledges in ahypomnemata 2 [diary or blog or document...] that retraces the inventions,successes and problems through which the group passes – as a supportfor the group as well as for new members.1. The ‘step-aside’ is a kind of ‘talvera’. In the Occitan language, the ‘talvera’ is the non-cultivated spaceat the margin of the field, which allows for the horse and its cartage to manoeuvre in order to [then]open up a new line [or row], and offers an occasion for the farmer to take a look at the work done. Aspace and moment of non-production, without which the tour de la terre, the working of the land andits fertilisation, aren’t possible.2. Greek term that refers to memory aids. For the ancient Greeks, the Stoics of the 1st and 2nd century, thehypomnemata is a kind of booklet where someone notes down the knowledges that are important to themand that may be of help to another. Its function is the cultivation of knowledges picked up in the course ofexperiences, from what one hears or is inevitably confronted with through an event. See also Michel Foucault(2001 [1982]) L’hermeneutique du sujet, Paris: Gallimard, p.343-344, as well as Annex 1, called ‘petitlexique’.70