Introduction
by Pedro Leão Neto
As Head of the Editorial and Advisory Board of Sophia [1], a peer reviewed Journal published by scopio EDITIONS [2] and specifically designed to address theoretical work on Image and Architecture, I am very pleased to be writing this introduction to our first number that has as title Crossing Borders, Shifting Boundaries and sub-title The … Read more
Editorial: How do we think the image?
by Susana Ventura
We look at an image. It fascinates us. If it truly fascinates us, maybe it holds a mystery or a secret apparently imperceptible. Right at that moment, a paradox is engendered: the photographic or filmic image, belonging to the visual domain, is commonly judged as an object of immediately comprehension, and, yet, towards the image … Read more
EDITORIAL: THE NECESSITY OF THE CONTINGENT
by Edward Dimendberg
Every photograph evokes the delay and promise of redemption described by Eduardo Brito in his account of Nils Strindberg’s images of the ill-fated Balloon Expedition to the South Pole in 1897. If in most cases an interval of thirty-three years and a series of tragic deaths do not accompany later viewings of images, the elements … Read more
Wandering in a Sea of IcE: Voyage, Narrative
and Resonance in the photographs of Nils Strindberg
by Eduardo Brito
At 1:55 pm July 11th, 1897, the hydrogen balloon Eagle took off from Danes Island, on the Svalbard archipelago, towards the North Pole. Aboard, the photographer Nils Strindberg, meteorologist Knut Frænkel and chief engineer Salomon August Andrée. Thirty-three years later, the remains of the expedition were found at Kvitøya Island, 260 … Read more
Shedding the veils, making room:
on some photographic motives in Walter Benjamin
by Nélio Conceição
Technology and magic In the first pages of “Little History of Photography”, Benjamin describes a portrait of the photographer Karl Dauthendey and his wife who, after the birth of their sixth child, he found lying in the bedroom with her veins slashed. Absorbed in an ominous distance, the gaze of that woman … Read more
From the ruins of Beirut by the reflexions on some
Ray-Bans to the visionary experiences in the stereoscopic photographs by Francisco Afonso Chaves (1857-1926)
by Victor dos Reis
Prologue: five young people, four Ray-Ban and a red convertible In the Summer of 2006, in response to the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by the Hezbollah, Israel bombarded, for almost five weeks, cities and villages in the Southern Lebanon – in particular, Beirut. On the 14th August a ceasefire was announced. On … Read more