2.ª EDITION
Editorial
More and less
José Manuel dos Santos and António Soares
Metropolitan
Privatisation and the End of Privacy
Jack Self
Register
Territories and terrains of the long 1960s
Kristin Ross
Subject: Stupidity
Our Beloved Stupidity
António Guerreiro
When intelligence breeds stupidity
Yves Michaud
The Experience of Stupidity
Avital Ronell
The importance of stupidity in art
Serena Giordano
Idiocy, Identity and Migration
Alessandro Dal Lago
News From Paradise Online
António Baião and António Pedro Marques
Figure
Nick Cave’s Lament
Bernardo Futscher Pereira
Diagonals: What to do with the infamous texts?
The risk of creating a best-seller
Serge Klarsfeld
Observations on the latest Céline affair
Pierre-André Taguieff
Book of hours
Three Weeks in Winter, 2018
Ted Bonin
Portfolio
Antediluvian Structures
Dean Monogenis
view of delft
What the hell do tourists come to see in Barcelona?
José Ángel Cilleruelo
In the first person
Salvatore Settis
Interview by António Guerreiro
Passages
What if the modernists got it wrong? If they had no talent?
Éric Marty
Chosen Words
Geometry and Anguish
Pedro Levi Bismarck
The Survival of Abjection
André Dias
Álvaro Lapa – We have the path, but the map is missing
A force outside its time
José Gil
In place of copulation
João Pinharanda
Dictionary of received ideas
Imagination
Pê Feijó
Stupidity is the central theme in the second edition of Electra magazine. Social and political, collective and individual stupidity. The stupidity of the times, because – and quoting Flaubert – “there is stupidity in every era, but each era has its own kind of stupidity”.
This subject is approached in this edition by Yves Michaud, Philosophy professor and art critic, with an essay about the impact of mass and surplus of information; by American philosopher Avital Ronell, who analyses the phenomenon and concept of stupidity and the way it can be appropriated by philosophy and literature; by Italian artist Serena Giordano, who explores the importance of stupidity in art; and by Italian sociologist Alessandro Dal Lago, with the article “Idiocy, Identity and Migrations”; António Baião and António Pedro Marques, editors of the annual publication Bestiário, talk about the triumph of the narrative of stupidity in the digital public space.
This second edition’s interview talks to Italian Salvatore Settis, art historian and archaeologist, known for his public speaking and essays about the way in which political and economic administration can threaten legacy. In this interview, Settis talks about these threats, about the pressure of tourism in historical cities and the architects’ role and responsibility in this matter. Considering the example of Airbnb, British architect and curator Jack Self addresses the relationship between public and private. Catalan author José Ángel Cilleruelo talks about his city and leaves us with this provocative question: what the hell do tourists come to see in Barcelona?
At a time of fierce debate about the potential reedition of the anti-Semite leaflets by French writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline (from 1937 to 1941), this subject will also be addressed in Electra, with two experts presenting opposite views on these “infamous texts”: Pierre-André Taguieff, philosopher and political scientist, and Serge Klarsfeld, activist and “Nazi hunter”.
The second edition of Electra will also include a portfolio by American artist Dean Monogenis; Ted Bonin’s journal, a New York gallerist; and a profile on Nick Cave by Bernardo Futscher Pereira.