Georges Didi-Huberman, La survivance des lucioles. The thickness of time: going beyond the surface of the present to

This article proposes a rereading of Didi-Huberman’s work La survivance des lucioles, a book with a philosophical and political approach that does not appear to have anything to do with the territory, the city or planning. The writer of this article is nevertheless convinced that, thanks to the questions posed and the epistemological apertures it suggests, it is actually a precious instrument for revisiting the emergence of the new urban and territorial phenomena in a new light. By helping us cast off the idea that what is contemporary can be compacted onto the surface of the present and reduced to pure visibility of forms, the article frees us from the paradigms to which cartographic vision has accustomed us. It invites us to pay attention to the temporal statute of survival and the value and meaning of what exists but is yet devoid of form. As Didi-Huberman seems to suggest, attention to these aspects, often neglected by our disciplinary fields, could provide us with new lenses to transcend the apocalyptic gaze of much of contemporary literature and help us grasp, within the depths of contemporary territories, tiny things hidden from view, which have survived though forgotten: hidden energies, vital sparks that could nurture our present times and open up to other possible futures