Cyclope is an association created in August 2019, whose purpose is to promote eco-cycling tourism activities in a holistic prespective of solidarity, inclusivity and ecological concern. The main activities, since its creation, are:

1 - The organization of biking events invloving inhabitants from Essonne (91) and Yvelines (78), and notably students (Cycling Campus);

2 - The implementation of projects of scientific mediation art/science through adventures in long distance cycling (Cycling Europe 2020).

 

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Genenis

End of summer. Cyclope is the meeting place of an adventurous spirit, a borning desire to escape, to lighten up. The dreaming spirit is tormented by pragmatism, condition to dream.

Fine autumn. What was supposed to be a bike trip between friends becomes, successively, an epic, a scientific project, a documentary, and then a bit of everything at once. The friendly rides wind through our minds like a pleasant foretaste.

Rigorous winter. With support flowing in, friends, family, universities, local associations and research centres, the carefree attitude has taken on a serious tone without yielding. Working nights. Twilight of ideas.

Delicious spring. Bricks are added, cement fills in the gaps. Radiant horizon. Stop. Doubts. Ideas. Doubts. Spring will come well. Bitterness will remain, surpassed by delight.

 

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Cyclope tramples on Greek mythology

Cyclops (Uranians) are fantastic creatures from Greek mythology. There are three of them: Brontes ("Thunder"), Sterope ("Lightning") and Arges ("Lightning"). Giant monsters with only one eye in the middle of their forehead, they only occasionally ride their bicycles. Like the Titans, the Cyclops are the children of Ouranos (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth). But unlike them, they have been excluded from the status of being divine.

Cyclops is a god of the sky whose weapon is lightning. Ouranos, terrified by the strength of the Cyclops, locked them up in Tartarus. Later, their brother Cronos freed them. They help him to overthrow and emasculate Ouranos, but Cronos, fearing in turn to be defeated by them, sends them back to Tartarus where they remain until their liberation by Zeus. The cyclones will give Zeus back the weapon of lightning, thanks to which he can defeat Cronos and the Titans, and become the master of the Universe.

Figure of the frightening otherness in the epic of Ulysses (see below), in which Polyphemus (son of Poseidon) will lose his sight, Cyclops is in a sense an allegory of the diversity of experiencing the world and giving it meaning.

 

According to Horkheimer and Adorno (1944, Dialectic of Enlightenment), Ulysses is the first modern hero. He illustrates the conflict with nature, in the sense of the non-human: he braves the storm, overcomes the Cyclops. He expresses the systematic attack on the other and on nature. It is the most absolute symbol of the liberation of the ancient order. But "modernity" has forgotten certain things and is based on the liberation of the Gods but on the oppression of categories considered as inferior, such as nature, the other or women.

Ulysse et ses marins naviguent ensuite vers l'île des Cyclopes où ils sont faits prisonniers par Polyphème qui dévore plusieurs d'entre eux. Ils parviennent à s'échapper grâce à une ruse d'Ulysse, qui enivre le Cyclope à l'aide du vin pris chez les Cicones, puis perce l'œil unique du monstre pendant son sommeil. Ulysse et ses compagnons quittent ensuite la caverne du Cyclope en se dissimulant dans la laine de ses moutons géants lorsqu'il les conduit hors de la caverne pour les mener paître. Ulysse a d'abord trompé Polyphème en lui affirmant s'appeler Outis, ce qui veut dire Personne : ainsi, lorsque Polyphème aveuglé appelle ses compagnons à son secours et leur explique qu'il a été aveuglé par Personne, il passe pour fou. Mais au moment où son navire quitte l'île, Ulysse ne résiste pas au plaisir de révéler son vrai nom pour railler Polyphème. Celui-ci, fou de rage, jette plusieurs rochers en direction du navire, et manque de peu de le broyer, puis réclame vengeance auprès de son père Poséidon, en le suppliant de faire en sorte qu'Ulysse ne rentre jamais au pays, ou bien, si le destin doit le lui permettre, qu'il ne rentre chez lui qu'après de longues souffrances, sur un vaisseau d'emprunt, privé de tous ses compagnons, et qu'il ne trouve chez lui que des malheurs.