Audio file 13-1

[likely preceding tape 11-1] Ernest speaks of an "ensemble", refers to Shakespearean plays and Mozart's music and Sonja Ferlov Mancoba's works - though parts are different, there is a central spirit that makes the parts belong together

Wonga applies the concept to their lives - the different chapters and the whole life - and to artists' experiences in general and in transformation [in French]

[tape stopped and restarts] Ernest uses a football match as an allegory; he speaks of narration of the football match versus narration of a journey (citing Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales"); Wonga responds that it's choice that defines art and that "The Canterbury Tales" is an apt example of individuals united by spiritual journey [in French]

[tape stopped and restarts] Wonga on the family narrative line which should start at the origin of their family, but that there are different themes; that he, in writing it, wants to move beyond past, present and future of themselves to be a narrative for everyone

There are many reasons for Wonga interviewing his father. One was to write Ernest Mancoba's memoires. Here he sets out an objective for the memoire.

Ernest agrees: that the life of one man as a picture for the whole purpose of humanity, which is the will to survive despite all; Wonga responds [in French]

Ernest considers Plato's "Republic" as a collection of human elements that define society; [tape stopped and restarts] Ernest asks, apropos of Plato's theory of mimesis, whether a human can exist looking at the "sun" rather than the shadows of the "cave"? Or if humans are destined to be torn between the 2 visions?

One of Plato's central doctrines is appearance versus reality. He uses the analogy of being in a cave, unable to see real objects in the sun, only their shadows cast on the cave wall. That for those who have never left the cave, the shadow and not the object is reality.

[recording stops]

[tape ends]