Pedro Costa is an ‘auteur’, but to a far greater degree than that alluded to by the notion of ‘film d’auteur’. His films overflow with reality and are populated by people who emerge as exemplary figures of our age. Despite following his own unique and undefinable path, Costa has garnered international prestige and reputation as well as numerous international awards, and has greatly contributed to the spread of ‘Portuguese cinema’. This interview examines his work and everything it involves.

Estes dois textos sobre Lisboa desenvolvem temas tratados no âmbito do projecto «Fragmentação e Reconfiguração: A experiência da cidade entre arte e filosofia», em particular no programa de rádio «Ruas de Sentido Único», concebido por Maria Filomena Molder e os dois autores destes textos: Nuno Fonseca, que escreve sobre a paisagem sonora de Lisboa, e Nélio Conceição, que trata aqui das imagens e representações da cidade. Estes textos foram escritos pouco tempo antes de ser declarada a pandemia, que afectou significativamente o estado de coisas que eles descrevem, confirmando assim uma ideia presente no texto de Nuno Fonseca: a de que a paisagem sonora tem uma temporalidade dinâmica e uma historicidade.

A charismatic and experienced cinema sound designer was once asked what makes the acoustic environment of Lisbon unique. Disconcertingly, his reply was, ‘Nothing!’ Lisbon’s soundscape is indistinguishable from that of any other city because all cities sound more and more alike under the pervasive, continuous, monotonous hum of traffic. Vasco Pimentel – the experienced sound designer in question – eventually admitted there were areas within the city that had characteristic sounds, and that his hyperbolical, iconoclastic quip had been merely rhetorical. Still, it is surprising (and ironic) to find that some of the more distinctive sounds of Lisbon come, even now, from the Ponte 25 de Abril suspension bridge built in 1966.

In the Museu da Cidade in Lisbon, there is a meticulous model of Lisbon prior to the 1755 earthquake, made by Ticiano Violante under the guidance of Gustavo de Matos Sequeira, a specialist in Lisbon’s history. The power of this reconstruction of a mythical past is outweighed only by the force that cast us into the chasm of the irretrievable. It epitomises the ambivalence inherent to many representations of cities: on the one hand, a salvaging of historical facts designed to reconstitute a particular point among the different sedimentations of the urban space, thus facilitating future investigations; on the other hand, the dark presence of destructive forces.

This portfolio presents the work of an artist whose oeuvre expands (in and of itself) when exhibited, as only then does it become fully visible and properly challenged. For Heimo Zobernig, the most international of Austrian artists, painting, sculpture, film, video, performance, architectural models and design are multiple and at times contradictory modes of questioning and discovery. As the curator, Karola Kraus, notes in her essay on the artist, ‘Heimo Zobernig’s works encompass processes of art production and material aesthetics as well as issues of display and architecture, and question the mechanisms whereby museums and galleries function.’ For the portfolio section of Electra, Zobernig ‘selected the images focusing on installation shots from important exhibitions’, creating a continuum that comprises both his artistic work and exhibition practice.

Joaquim Pinto’s importance is not solely measured in the films that he has directed since 1988, alone or in collaboration with Nuno Leonel, or in those he has produced. He also introduced to Portuguese cinema a sound quality that had been sorely lacking. His artistic and technical trajectory is defined by the extreme experience of a body fighting against deadly invaders recounted in the intimate and self-reflexive tone of his latest film, which urges us to look beyond this portrait of the man, and the autobiographical material and work.

Curiosity is one of the key words of modernity, as it is through curiosity that man has come to science. In 1973, the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg wrote about ‘the process of theoretical curiosity’. This came after a long, drawn-out chapter in a second, extended edition of The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (Die Legitimität der Neuzeit), which described and analysed this process and showed how curiosity had been removed from the medieval catalogue of vices and was now on the honour roll of virtues.

Neil Kenny, professor of French literature and culture at Oxford University and author of the book The Uses of Curiosity in Early Modern France and Germany, examines the key stages in the complex and interesting history of curiosity from Ancient Rome to the modern age – from a time when it was deemed a moral vice to one where it is seen as a virtue that lies at the root of all knowledge.

The essayist and art critic Federico Ferrari, professor at the Brera Academy (Milan) and one of the founders of the online magazine Antinomie, examines art’s gradual movement towards public visibility. This movement, which has culminated in the modern museums we know today, is driven by curiosity and may face a crisis if it declines and our capacity for awe weakens.

Known above all for her important work on Leibniz and the Encyclopaedia, Olga Pombo, a professor at the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Lisbon, writes on the debt science and knowledge as a whole owe to curiosity from the days of Aristotle.