Translator: Gisela Giardino
Reviewer: Sebastian Betti Yet again I have the honor
and the responsibility of closing TEDxRíodelaPlata. But this year almost nothing is prepared. It's half-backed, but I have reasons. For one, the motto of the event was "to be and look beyond ourselves". So I want to share with you
the creation of this closing ceremony. And the other excuse
is that I procrastinated. I just lazed away, I thought it was next week. But more than anything, it was
this "beyond ourselves" thing. And what a better way to share
the creative process with you than showing you directly what goes on inside my head. (Music) César Silveyra:
Why did he call us? When we are poles apart. He always calls others
for the closing act jokes. I think he wants to mix up
our two opposing energies ... Sergio Feferovich:
To make it clear, we are not two people,
we are inside Lucho's brain. We are his personality, his feelings. Like the movie "Inside Out", but a low budget version,
we are just two. (Laughter) Today we learned many things. Above all, this thing about
looking and being "beyond ourselves". And it's OK to leave aside individuality,
to be permeable to others, but the coolest thing
about being "beyond ourselves" is that it is liberating. Because we realize we're not
as crazy as we thought we were. We are not as weird as ... today's speakers, for example. (Laughter) I know that Brigitte Baptiste
made it clear to us that normality doesn't exist,
that we should not think binary, but I'm pretty sure
that Belén Mena's parents -- remember Belén? The one
who took pictures of moths, the designer who collected spiders -- I'm sure her parents wanted her
to be a little more normal. (Laughter) A little more normal, at least. She says there's nothing wrong
with being a weirdo. Explain that to the 5000 spiders
you had locked up in 5000 little glass jars. At least you could have given them a pen so that they would write poetry, like César González in his prison. Anyway, with the diabetes that you
and your family must have after having eaten 5000 jams to get the 5000 jars (Laughter) Karma is outbalanced. Your spiders have eight legs,
but you have eight fingers. César Silveyra:
That's a good for skere! Sergio Feferovich: Skere! (Laughter) Seriously, her parents wanted her
to be a little bit more --- 5000 spiders she collected! -- If I got home with one louse,
not 5000 but one louse, I'd already have my head in vinegar. It burns really bad! Nothing compared to the lava rain
in the exoplanets of Yamila Miguel! (Laughter) The parents wanted her
to be more normal. "Susana, I caught Belén again
taking pictures of moths. She collected 5000 spiders.
Did she catch them all? Did she go Pokémon crazy?
How far does she want to go? She has no ambition." - What do you want for your birthday?
- Spiders. - And for Christmas?
- Jars. (Laughter) "Do something your age!" Instead of going to pubs, she goes to gas stations
to take pictures of moths. Make some mess,
fight with your brother. Have the Headmaster scold you." Sergio Feferovich:
Set a car on fire, I set a pharmacy on fire,
take hostages, murder people ... César Silveyra:
Stop, you can't say that! Belén published a book
with these beautiful photos of moths. She named it Pachanga. And in the dressing room, she came across Renata Di Tullio,
the bug-eater, (Laughter) you could feel the tension! (Applause) (Music) César Silveyra:
She should write a poem like "Oh! how pretty these moths are, can I have them with cheese,
jam and fries?" (Laughter) Belén offended: "It's not a menu,
don't be gross, It's my new book, called Pachanga." Remember Renata, right? The one who ate a cricket live. The message is great, but, Is it right to bring a living cricket
to a theater with perfect acoustics? What if it gets away, did you really bring
a cricket to the Colon Theater? (Laughter) (Applause) César Silveyra: Truth is that
luckily she ended up eating it because ... Sergio Feferovich: now there are
no crickets in the Colon, she has the cricket in her colon ... (Laughter) She told us that bugs,
apart from serving as food, discovered many inventions before us. Such as ants and compost, termites and air conditioning, (Laughter) the dung beetle and the wheel. The dung beetle makes like
a sort of dung ball and pushes it. And well, yes, we mankind took little more time to get to the wheel, but at least we had the decorum
to try with other materials. (Laughter) The beetles were a bit more conformists. It was like, "poop turns, done,
let's get this straight right on, and not waste time." (Laughter) They say that termites invented
air conditioning. I imagine, at Renata's house: "Renata, you've got termites,
call a fumigator." "No, hang on! They're installing
my air conditioner." (Laughter) One termite on a blue romper
comes down and says: "Well, ma'am, ready,
the air conditioner is installed. It was a bit hard, quite heavy
for us who are so tiny, but it is installed and working,
it'd be $4000." "But that's very expensive!" "Well, you have to pay the assistant." "What assistant?" (Laughter) "Let's close in $2000." (Applause) This is like talking to a building. The thing is that we still need
air conditioners. Not as many as Diego Scott got offered across all his social networks,
but still we need them, because despite living in cities
we are still at the mercy of the weather. Like Pablo Boczkowski said it,
that we are in the natural environment and now the digital environment was added, and he introduces this terrific concept
of digital oxygen. And it's very true, because we are
very dependent on technology, we almost need to breathe
through our cellphone. In fact, when we are at the bank, we are basically holding our breath
until we leave. (Laughter) We take the chargers with us
in case the battery runs out, like an artificial respirator. In fact, when you have an old cellphone that runs out of battery fast, it's like having the lungs of a smoker. (Laughter) And to buy a new cellphone
is like getting a transplant. But you get the scar in your wallet. (Laughter) Like Steve Jobs is the digital Favaloro. (Laughter) I mentioned Yamila already,
she studies exoplanets, inspired by the Star Trek series
she watched when she was a kid. That made her study exoplanets, and it's great because nowadays
there are many kids being inspired by the shows they watch, like Luis Miguel's TV series. (Laughter) In 30 years they will give TED talks: "Why not blame it on moonlight,
Why not blame it on sunshine." She says she studies exoplanets
that are 27,000 light years away. Let's see if we understand this dimension. One light year is the distance
that light travels in one year. I'm paying $3000
in my electrical bill, (Laughter) that would add up like $972 million. that by then would be like 8 dollars, if I don't get it wrong. (Laughter) (Applause) Yamila says that to look for exoplanets
revolving around faraway stars is like looking for a moth next to a lighthouse that is 10 km away. And I say to NASA that
instead of looking for the moth, the look for Belén,
she will be there taking pictures. (Laughter) and it will be a little easier to find. That is the easiest way
to find exoplanets. (Music) Sergio Feferovich: interesting thing
that about the sexuality of things. César Silveyra: Yes, but,
what will that be useful for now? Sergio Feferovich:
He's talking about sex-o-planets. (Laughter) Sergio Feferovich: Actually,
in inclusive language, it could be sex-o-planetess. Sure, in fact, Mars used to be Martha. (Laughter) That sounded better in my head. Yamila studies exoplanets that have adverse conditions
for human life. Exoplanets that are not
very touristy, so to say. Imagine the review on Airbnb: "The planet is cozy, it's a bit far away,
but it has good landscapes. They may have warned
that the sea is of lava and it rains stones the size of a sedan. But hey, the view is very nice
and the pillows, comfy. I recommend." And we say, how difficult
it must be to live on planets in which there is a lava sea,
and temperature is so high, and we say it from a planet
where there are 50-meter-high waves that sweep away an entire city in Japan
in a matter of minutes. But we worry because the photos were lost. (Laughter) Alejandro Chaskielberg was saying
that the photos were lost. "Where are the photos, man?" "Don't worry, on the bedside table." "And where is the bedside table?"
"Home." "And your house?"
"Around the city hall." "And where is the city hall?" "Floating in the middle
of the Pacific, where else? (Laughter) (Applause) They complain because
they lost the photos. Do you know what I would give
to have my puberty photos lost? That they delete my photolog,
I can't login to anymore. To have my traffic camera fines deleted. Imagine the money Valeria Atela
would be able to save -- the teacher of the orchestra
from Chascomús -- She came in a run-down car
with 80 kids onboard, who brought all the cellos
on the roof, at 100 miles per hour. The money they would have saved! (Laughter) Alejandro's work is incredible. He proposes to rebuild
the collective memory, collectively. Because with the tsunami
many things were lost, but among them the photos got lost and photos are definitely a part
of society's history. In fact, he says that amidst
the rubble of the flood he found a photo album that weighed
and looked like a dead animal, and smelled like a dead animal,
but then it was checked that it was indeed a dead animal. (Laughter) And this closing here now would be a kind of reconstruction of what the TEDxRíodelaPlata day was. I could say TEDx, but they force me
to say TEDxRíodelaPlata every time. It's written there, get it? In fact, if each who said TEDxRíodelaPlata would have said TEDx, we would all be already home
an hour and a half ago. (Laughter) But, well, TEDxRíodelaPlata (Applause) R-i-o d-e l-a P-l-a-t-a, very long.
(Laughter) This would be a kind of reconstruction
of what happened today. Like the ideas were the tsunami, the talks were the waves, our prejudices and preconceptions
are what the sea took away. I would be like the photographer. My subconscious, the inspiration. And you like the fish,
the seaweed and the seals that are there without contributing
absolutely anything. (Laughter)
But still. (Applause) What we have to keep of this talk is that each one of us
has its own tsunami. And we have to understand that
there are tsunamis and tsunamis. Some have a little wave from Mar de Ajó, that you can ride
with a Styrofoam surfboard, and others have tsunamis
a little bigger, like César González, the poet who lived in the slums,
who was in prison and wrote poems telling how similar
slums and prisons are. In fact, if we respected
inclusive language, Cesar, instead of being imprisoned,
would have been in prison. (Laughter) No, I don't make good jokes
with inclusive language. But here there must be some joke if we mix it with Hugo Alconada Mon talk. Remember Hugo,
who talked about corruption? That in the Anticorruption Office
they had no Internet and they used the wifi
from the bar on the corner. That's corruption, Hugo! (Laughter) But what would poetry be like
from a prison of privilege? A poem written by an imprisoned
politician or a corrupt businessman. There must be something there. César Silveyra: I have it. DJ, give me that beat. Play something Argentine. (Music) And I did everything right, and now
they caught me / I had everything insured / until the winds changed. /
I feel locked up / like a canary / and my only sin was
wanting to be a millionaire. / I am alone and isolated,
in my own exoplanet / when the sun is hot,
I take out the ankle brace / and I swim in the pool, because you breathe badly here / it lacks digital oxygen /
the PlayStation doesn't get Wi-Fi / and in the barbecue area
my cellphone has poor signal / and in the barbecue area
my cellphone has poor signal. / I'm surrounded by armed cops / I don't get used yet
to my mafia meetings ... business meetings / I was interrupted /
night guards call me / day guards call me / "Yes, sir, the residence guard here,
did the ice cream order arrive? (Laughter) César Silveyra: I'm not like the rest /
I deserve different treatment / Hadn't they caught me ... / Luciano Mellera:
... today I would be president. (Laughter) (Applause) Anyway I never felt more corrupt
than listening to Félix Díaz. Got him? The Qom leader? Though his name is not Félix, but Felle. And he took some time to explain that. And Díaz is not his surname,
because they don't have a surname. We imposed it on to him.
And he explained that for quite a time. And everywhere we named him:
Félix Díaz. We didn't get it! (Laughter) He told us about the white man
coming to America, like a sort of colonial tsunami. We destroyed their customs,
wired their freedom and their memory, we stole their history and their land, in exchange for some colored papers. Papers we pronounced as more valid
than their word. Papers with the face of Sarmiento on them. Papers with the face of Roca on them. Sarmiento said natives were barbaric;
Roca almost wiped them out from Earth, but we gave them the papers nonetheless. Luckily, though, we invited him to give
this talk at the Colón [Columbus] theater. (Laughter) We are mocking him right on his face! (Applause) It's beautiful what Felle proposes,
this about going back to nature, that society is a cancer for nature, like Brigitte Baptiste also said:
"let's claim nature back." Let's claim back our natural sexuality,
and stop being binary. She says that the individual identity -- isolating beings to study them -- goes against the connection
necessary to understand them. Stop isolating beings. Explain that to Belén's 5000 spiders
in 5000 little jars. Brigitte made me ponder
on this idea that living in gray cities is stealing the natural colors
away from us, gradually ... (Music) Very Pocahontas, right? César Silveyra:
Are you afraid of your colors? Have you ever seen a flower ashamed? When white and black
fight they make gray. If we are born with all the colors,
we won't see you if you cover them up. Are you afraid to shine? It's just a change of outlook
to discover your palette. In short, let everyone paint
with their own colors. Luciano Mellera:
So that everyone does their thing. It's easy, just like Verónica Bergottini
and Silvio Tinello. Each one painted their own story
regarding biotextiles. Instead of making the fabrics themselves, they put bacteria to work. (Laughter) In very tiny sweatshops I guess. Don't know. They used bacteria from mate,
because mate is part of our national DNA. Mate represents us as Argentines. And we are proud of that. But basically what that means is that we are green and rather bitter.
(Laughter) But if something was clear,
after Verónica and Renata's talks -- Renata, the bug-eater -- is that we don't have to raise
so much cattle. We can switch to insect farming. Because it would mean less methane. Less pollution. In fact, bugs are the cows of the future. And if bugs are the cows of the future, national cattle exhibitions
would be so cute! (Laughter) We could host them in my living-room. There we can see
the gauchos herding termites, (Laughter) who by the way,
can fix my air conditioner. (Laughter) Here we see the bacteria ... In the awards ceremony:
"Make a wish, because the ladybug awarded is coming in." And a ladybug makes an entrance. (Flapping sound) (Laughter) The things we do with cows
we can do with bugs. Instead of using cow leather
to make a bombo legüero, a drum, we could use cricket skin to make
a tiny 'cricket' bombo. (Music) César Silveyra:
Don't blame it on the sunshine ... Sergio Feferovich:
It's six months already of daylight in this exoplanet we arrived to. César Silveyra: Don't blame it
on the moonlight ... Sergio Feferovich: It's funny,
in a sea of lava you need a Teflon surfboard. (Laughter) César Silveyra: Don't blame it
on the good times ... Sergio Feferovich: It's raining rocks
the size of a car ... Luciano Mellera:
There, instead of "go with God", they say "go with rock." (Laughter) César Silveyra: There you go! (Music) (Clapping) Luciano Mellera: Well,
we are reaching the end ... Just like Elsa Rosenvasser. (Laughter) She is closing projects
to close her life. She scratches here
and a project comes out. She scratches there
and another project comes out. Sergio Feferovich: You know?
I never have projects ... and I scratch my parts a lot! (Laughter) (Applause) Luciano Mellera:
Anyway, her life closes perfectly to her. Sergio Feferovich:
And I cannot close my zip fly. (Laughter) Luciano Mellera: But no,
Elsa is not near the end. There's Elsa for a long. And we realized this when
we watched her talking here. Especially because Mario follows her
with the defibrillator, just in case. (Laughter) She will be around for a while. In fact, I imagine Death in Tinder. (Laughter) Swiping everyone left:
No, very young, very young ... Oh! This one? Elsa, 86 years old,
she scratches and projects come out, Look these cool phrases:
"In love with life." Not for long, Elsa.
(Laughter) "Live and let live."
Gonna get you! (Laughter) And now, stealing Tálata's method,
the DJ writer, let's see what a chat would be like
between Elsa and Death. (Laughter) March 1, 10:58 AM. Death: Hello Elsa, are you online? Wink. Vulture. Coffin. Heart. (Laughter) (Applause) November 2, 3:10 PM Elsa: I'M HERE, CHECK THIS POWEPOINT. AND RESEND IT TO TEN PEOPLE
IT'LL GIVE YOU GOOD LUCK. (Laughter) November 2, 3:11 PM Death: Hello Elsa, Finally! What's up?
Why don't we meet? You, me, some cyanide shots out there.
What do you say? Skull. Skull. Death sends a photo. Elsa: Oh, what's that? Death: My femur. Wink. Eggplant. (Laughter) Elsa: Femur? It looks like a phalanx! Death left the conversation. (Laughter) And just like Tálata rightly said, it's no sin to steal the work of others
to inspire your own creation. So I'm going to steal a resource again. I'm going to grab a bit of each speaker
to make the closing of the closing. Let's see what comes out. César Silveyra: DJ, give me that beat. (Music) César Silveyra: Play something classic. (Music) Naturally, it's impossible
to be unnatural. / The mind that splits good and evil / turns abnormal
what the body feels natural. / If it's natural, if it's natural. / They write the story with a bloody bat. They ban bugs, they allow hunger, / they divide with wires /
and they will finally see / when life corners them
and they become a weak bait / when they are buried, / a colonial tsunami
that took away all the colors. / If there is so little fire
and so much heart attack / we should take one fire extinguisher
and two defibrillators instead / and to the Bee Gees beat. / We are not sedentary
for raising cattle, / we are sedentary because
we sleep with air conditioning. / See kittens, kittens videos /
and Crazy Russians. / Elsa made us sad /
saying that her life is closing / and she is "game over". / Luciano Mellera: I just saw
a moth feasting on a pullover. (Laughter) (Applause) We change the names / because they are a pain to pronounce. / To tell women from men
is a very normal thing if the whole universe fits in a tag / you don't see the tree, nor the forest
nor an exoplanet. / Let's switch the algorithm /
for some rhythm. / And if society is like an orchestra / let's mix up sounds
and have some fiesta. / For it's not the same
to steal inspiration / than stealing money. / All good with Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V / but with other people's money, control yourselves,
even when they don't see it / Luciano Mellera: Don't mess
with the people, man. We will Ctrl + Z you
and leave you worst than the guy who fell off the skateboard.
I dunno how to rap ... (Music) Silvio and Vero make clothes with food / the moth eats the clothes, /
Renata eats the moth. / Elsa eats life / and the police
go hunting in the slums. / And corrupt politicians are the vultures / that eat everything that glitters. / And that's how TEDxRíodelaPlata / "has its own food chain." And that was it. (Applause) This was our humble finale. (Applause) This is as far as we go
"beyond ourselves" / I was telling you, but your applause
interrupted me, / but I was flowing /
so we're going around like adrift. / And I said thank you,
for lending your ears and eyes / And this was our humble finale. Luciano Mellera: To you people,
good thanks, and many nights. (Applause) A loud applause to César Silveyra,
in rap and flow. To Fefe, on the piano.
To my brother Joan, the background mind. César Silveyra: And to Lucho Mellera, in jokes, insanity
and creative direction. (Applause)
