»Eze«

In April 2016 trio27 travelled to Èze in the south of France to explore the famous path from the mountain to the sea, Friedrich Nietzsche walked up and down every day thinking of »Zarathoustra«. And so we did – but we only stayed 3 days.

Nietzsche stayed in one of the oldest houses of Éze and found inspiration for his third part of »Thus spoke Zarathoustra« while climbing up to the village by the path. „Many hidden corners and quiet heights in the landscape of Nice were sanctified for me by unforgettable moments“, said Friedrich Nieztsche in »Ecce homo« about his first stay on the Riviera from the December 2nd 1883 to April 20th 1884. On the French Riviera, Nietzsche will find the creative emotions necessary to write, „here, I grow on the sun as the plants grow there“, he writes. And in a letter to Peter Gast he adds: „… This splendid plenitude of light has on me a miraculous action“. Éze in particular by the path which takes from Éze station at the seaside to the village, will play a dominating part in his work. In Éze, the philosopher very sensitive to the influence of the climate and the landscapes, regenerates himself. Like many writers, he needs to walk to create. „I could, without having the concept of tiredness, be in the mountains during seven or eight hours of continuation“. I slept well, I laugh much. I was in a perfect condition of patience.“ There, in the middle of olive-trees, euphorbia and holm oak, in the middle of this wild nature, with the Mediterranean in the background and the silhouette of the village. Nietzsche composed some parts of »Thus spoke Zarathoustra« that he qualifies as „the decisive ones“. „The next winter, I found in Nice the third Zarathoustra – and I had thus finished“, he writes adding : „This decisive part which have the name »Old and new tables« was composed during a laborious walk from the station to the Moorish village, built in the rocks.“

In these three days we collected tons of material, photographies, drawings, woodcuts of stones, ready mades, sounds and lots of impressions. At the time we are working on this material to show it to you in the near future.