https://www.ifilnova.pt/en/pages/nuno-fonseca
Post-Doc Researcher (FCT) at Ifilnova, Nuno Fonseca is currently working on the aesthetic, epistemological and ethical issues of the use of sound and sound experience in the context of contemporary artistic practices. As a member of the CulturLab he has been contributing with work on Art, Critique and Aesthetic Experience, mainly focusing on questions pertaining to the experience of the city.
He has completed his PhD (2012) in Philosophy (Epistemology and Philosophy of Knowledge) with a thesis on issues concerning perception and representation, at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He graduated both in Philosophy (2004) and Law (1998), at the Universidade de Coimbra.
He has lectured on "Rhetoric and Argumentation" at the Communication Sciences department and the seminar "Art and Experience" for the master's degree in Philosophy-Aesthetics at FCSH-UNL.
Academic Expertise and Research Interests
Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art; Aesthetic experience in artistic practice and everyday life; Philosophy of Perception; Epistemology; Ontology of sound, auditory perception and sonic experience, Sound studies, Urban Experience; Port-Royal «Logic»; History of Rhetoric and Argumentation Theory
Post-Doc Researcher (FCT) at Ifilnova, Nuno Fonseca is currently working on the aesthetic, epistemological and ethical issues of the use of sound and sound experience in the context of contemporary artistic practices. As a member of the CulturLab he has been contributing with work on Art, Critique and Aesthetic Experience, mainly focusing on questions pertaining to the experience of the city.
He has completed his PhD (2012) in Philosophy (Epistemology and Philosophy of Knowledge) with a thesis on issues concerning perception and representation, at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He graduated both in Philosophy (2004) and Law (1998), at the Universidade de Coimbra.
He has lectured on "Rhetoric and Argumentation" at the Communication Sciences department and the seminar "Art and Experience" for the master's degree in Philosophy-Aesthetics at FCSH-UNL.
Academic Expertise and Research Interests
Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art; Aesthetic experience in artistic practice and everyday life; Philosophy of Perception; Epistemology; Ontology of sound, auditory perception and sonic experience, Sound studies, Urban Experience; Port-Royal «Logic»; History of Rhetoric and Argumentation Theory
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Books (as editor) by Nuno Fonseca
The book Planos de pormenor: leituras críticas sobre a experiência da cidade, whose title plays with the semantics of a fundamental mechanism of planning and normative design of the territory, aims to bring into the reflection on cities the critical perspective, equally rigorous and indispensable, of a plan of intersection between philosophical concepts and the arts. In this sense, it is a «guide» that aims to unsettle the urban steps that seem too secure. Its three parts – reread and start again, walk and transgress, experiment and imagine – bring together different, though complementary, attitudes or possible operations before a theoretical object that challenges, from the outset, its status as object. In fact, the city is not an object that can be observed from above, in a distanced way; it is rather a complex milieu, an environment full of elements and mutual relations, which requires not only a careful and detailed observation, but also to be experienced and traversed.
By exploring a creative tension between fragmentation and reconfiguration that is capable of opening up critical and differential space – for thought and practices – the main goal of this research project is to delve into the different ways in which human experience and art practices absorb and respond to the fragmentation characteristic of modern cities. This space is able to disrupt the homogeneous images of contemporary cities that have been generated by seemingly inescapable austerity policies and by the production of a touristic “authenticity” imposed by globalization processes that obscure other forms of living. Thus, the concept of fragmentation does not point to nostalgia for a lost unity. On the contrary, it belongs to an unavoidable process at work in modernity that is felt as an intensification of the “shock experience" engendered by ongoing immense technological transformations – transformations which are constantly recreating the conditions of experience. Analysis of fragments and details provides critical access to an overarching understanding of our present time, however provisory it may be. On the other hand, the concept of reconfiguration invokes the very possibility of rethinking, reconstructing, and reimagining urban space, which is of the utmost importance not only for philosophical reflection on the city but for the artistic practices that deal with it.
Taking this into consideration, this volume endeavours to reassess the relationship (of complementarity, tension and opposition) between fragmentation and reconfiguration, a relationship that is deeply engrained in the philosophical tradition and the contemporary pertinence of which can be appreciated by focusing on the experience of the city, in particular the aesthetic experience of the city. Making use of different approaches and styles – a diversity that brings to light the richness of the project’s team – all of the chapters in this collection tackle this double philosophical dimension: on the one hand, they discuss different conceptual figures by drawing on key philosophical topics and authors (such as Goethe, Benjamin, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Deleuze, Joyce, Proust, and Perec); on the other hand, they make us think about the experience of the city at the intersection between fundamental topics of aesthetics and the examination of case studies from art (literature, painting, cinema, architecture).
Book chapters by Nuno Fonseca
Partindo de textos e fragmentos escritos por Walter Benjamin, nomeadamente, o capítulo dedicado ao 'Flâneur' em "Charles Baudelaire - Um Poeta na Época do Capitalismo Avançado" e as anotações do Livro das Passagens também a ele dedicadas, e seguindo os ecos e reverberações de e noutros textos anteriores, procurarei esboçar alguns traços sinópticos desse personagem paradigmático da experiência estética da cidade (e da vida moderna): o flâneur.
possibility of a 'ʹscientific metaphysics'ʹ and the need for a 'ʹmetaphysics
of science'ʹ, keeping in mind the metaphysical tinge of certain
contemporary trends of theoretical science. Both manifestations
scramble the traditional demarcation criteria between science and
metaphysics, such as the a posteriori nature of scientific inquiry versus
the a priori speculative study of metaphysics. Despite the
excommunication of metaphysics from philosophy of science and the
scientific world conception of the Vienna Circle, subsequently
confirmed by logical empiricism, the recent decades have seen a
growing resurgence of metaphysics. The latter pertain mostly to
criticism over the analytic/synthetic distinction, the development of
semantic interpretations of modality, a realist and revisionary
metaphysical attitude and the outbreak of dispositionalist views
concerning the laws of nature, thus overthrowing the post-‐‑kantian
prejudices against metaphysical ambitions towards the knowledge of
nature. This repulsion-‐‑attraction dynamic between the two domains
reveals they overlap on several subject matters, but they also
distinguish themselves in the nature and practice of their inquiry.
Nevertheless, in place of being (asymmetric) rivals, both have much to
gain from a balanced -‐‑ and occasionally therapeutic -‐‑ complementarity.
The purpose of this chapter is, then, both to clarify the terms
of this complementarity and to evaluate the dangers of defective or
excessive mutual acquaintance.
Quando se fala em paisagens sonoras devemos considerar, então, não apenas a temporalidade, mas a sua historicidade, o que implica não só o seu potencial narrativo e epistémico, mas a sua inscrição num determinado momento do tempo (e do espaço), numa determinada comunidade de ouvintes e numa cultura complexa de representações simbólicas e diferentes sensibilidades. A sua transitoriedade implica ainda que o acesso que temos às paisagens do passado é sempre indirecto e conjectural, necessitando do concurso de muitas fontes e de vários saberes de natureza diversa que permitam reconstruí-las (ainda que parcialmente). O propósito deste capítulo será pois o de reflectir criticamente sobre esta temporalidade e historicidade das paisagens sonoras, tal como sobre os limites, perigos e tentações do uso historiográfico desta noção – “paisagem sonora” -, traduzida e expandida da de “soundscape” de Murray Schafer, ela própria tão profícua quanto fortuitamente vã.
the score of the infamous composition by John Cage, 4’33”. It is an
instruction to the performer as well as to the audience, or perhaps I shall
say, the listener. But, contrary to a wide although very wrong opinion,
4’33” is not a piece about silence. Instead, it is a ‘performative’ invitation
for listening to all sounds that surround us (the audience) while being
silent, which is a necessary condition for listening. 4’33” tried to overturn
our traditional relationship to music: instead of listening to a platonic set
of combinations between musical sounds, we should simply listen to
(ordinary) sounds all around us and find how musical they are.
This is just an example, even though the most celebrated, of the disruptive
work that John Cage conceived against the tradition of classical western
music. Still, it was not just an attack against harmony or tonality, in the
footsteps of his master Schoenberg, but a serious blow in the preconceived
notions of what music is, what should be the role of the composer and
what should we look for when listening to music. In fact, after the initial
scandal of Cage’s Duchampian plaisanteries, the influence of his
philosophical ideas on music and listening has spread not only over a
generation of musicians but all over the various artistic fields and even in
the philosophy of art and aesthetics. The aim is to show how Cage’s attitude towards music and listening through experimentation and dissonance
as creative strategies have changed our way of thinking about (sound) art
and (aural) aesthetic experience.
Papers by Nuno Fonseca
Book Reviews by Nuno Fonseca
Conference Presentations by Nuno Fonseca
The book Planos de pormenor: leituras críticas sobre a experiência da cidade, whose title plays with the semantics of a fundamental mechanism of planning and normative design of the territory, aims to bring into the reflection on cities the critical perspective, equally rigorous and indispensable, of a plan of intersection between philosophical concepts and the arts. In this sense, it is a «guide» that aims to unsettle the urban steps that seem too secure. Its three parts – reread and start again, walk and transgress, experiment and imagine – bring together different, though complementary, attitudes or possible operations before a theoretical object that challenges, from the outset, its status as object. In fact, the city is not an object that can be observed from above, in a distanced way; it is rather a complex milieu, an environment full of elements and mutual relations, which requires not only a careful and detailed observation, but also to be experienced and traversed.
By exploring a creative tension between fragmentation and reconfiguration that is capable of opening up critical and differential space – for thought and practices – the main goal of this research project is to delve into the different ways in which human experience and art practices absorb and respond to the fragmentation characteristic of modern cities. This space is able to disrupt the homogeneous images of contemporary cities that have been generated by seemingly inescapable austerity policies and by the production of a touristic “authenticity” imposed by globalization processes that obscure other forms of living. Thus, the concept of fragmentation does not point to nostalgia for a lost unity. On the contrary, it belongs to an unavoidable process at work in modernity that is felt as an intensification of the “shock experience" engendered by ongoing immense technological transformations – transformations which are constantly recreating the conditions of experience. Analysis of fragments and details provides critical access to an overarching understanding of our present time, however provisory it may be. On the other hand, the concept of reconfiguration invokes the very possibility of rethinking, reconstructing, and reimagining urban space, which is of the utmost importance not only for philosophical reflection on the city but for the artistic practices that deal with it.
Taking this into consideration, this volume endeavours to reassess the relationship (of complementarity, tension and opposition) between fragmentation and reconfiguration, a relationship that is deeply engrained in the philosophical tradition and the contemporary pertinence of which can be appreciated by focusing on the experience of the city, in particular the aesthetic experience of the city. Making use of different approaches and styles – a diversity that brings to light the richness of the project’s team – all of the chapters in this collection tackle this double philosophical dimension: on the one hand, they discuss different conceptual figures by drawing on key philosophical topics and authors (such as Goethe, Benjamin, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Deleuze, Joyce, Proust, and Perec); on the other hand, they make us think about the experience of the city at the intersection between fundamental topics of aesthetics and the examination of case studies from art (literature, painting, cinema, architecture).
Partindo de textos e fragmentos escritos por Walter Benjamin, nomeadamente, o capítulo dedicado ao 'Flâneur' em "Charles Baudelaire - Um Poeta na Época do Capitalismo Avançado" e as anotações do Livro das Passagens também a ele dedicadas, e seguindo os ecos e reverberações de e noutros textos anteriores, procurarei esboçar alguns traços sinópticos desse personagem paradigmático da experiência estética da cidade (e da vida moderna): o flâneur.
possibility of a 'ʹscientific metaphysics'ʹ and the need for a 'ʹmetaphysics
of science'ʹ, keeping in mind the metaphysical tinge of certain
contemporary trends of theoretical science. Both manifestations
scramble the traditional demarcation criteria between science and
metaphysics, such as the a posteriori nature of scientific inquiry versus
the a priori speculative study of metaphysics. Despite the
excommunication of metaphysics from philosophy of science and the
scientific world conception of the Vienna Circle, subsequently
confirmed by logical empiricism, the recent decades have seen a
growing resurgence of metaphysics. The latter pertain mostly to
criticism over the analytic/synthetic distinction, the development of
semantic interpretations of modality, a realist and revisionary
metaphysical attitude and the outbreak of dispositionalist views
concerning the laws of nature, thus overthrowing the post-‐‑kantian
prejudices against metaphysical ambitions towards the knowledge of
nature. This repulsion-‐‑attraction dynamic between the two domains
reveals they overlap on several subject matters, but they also
distinguish themselves in the nature and practice of their inquiry.
Nevertheless, in place of being (asymmetric) rivals, both have much to
gain from a balanced -‐‑ and occasionally therapeutic -‐‑ complementarity.
The purpose of this chapter is, then, both to clarify the terms
of this complementarity and to evaluate the dangers of defective or
excessive mutual acquaintance.
Quando se fala em paisagens sonoras devemos considerar, então, não apenas a temporalidade, mas a sua historicidade, o que implica não só o seu potencial narrativo e epistémico, mas a sua inscrição num determinado momento do tempo (e do espaço), numa determinada comunidade de ouvintes e numa cultura complexa de representações simbólicas e diferentes sensibilidades. A sua transitoriedade implica ainda que o acesso que temos às paisagens do passado é sempre indirecto e conjectural, necessitando do concurso de muitas fontes e de vários saberes de natureza diversa que permitam reconstruí-las (ainda que parcialmente). O propósito deste capítulo será pois o de reflectir criticamente sobre esta temporalidade e historicidade das paisagens sonoras, tal como sobre os limites, perigos e tentações do uso historiográfico desta noção – “paisagem sonora” -, traduzida e expandida da de “soundscape” de Murray Schafer, ela própria tão profícua quanto fortuitamente vã.
the score of the infamous composition by John Cage, 4’33”. It is an
instruction to the performer as well as to the audience, or perhaps I shall
say, the listener. But, contrary to a wide although very wrong opinion,
4’33” is not a piece about silence. Instead, it is a ‘performative’ invitation
for listening to all sounds that surround us (the audience) while being
silent, which is a necessary condition for listening. 4’33” tried to overturn
our traditional relationship to music: instead of listening to a platonic set
of combinations between musical sounds, we should simply listen to
(ordinary) sounds all around us and find how musical they are.
This is just an example, even though the most celebrated, of the disruptive
work that John Cage conceived against the tradition of classical western
music. Still, it was not just an attack against harmony or tonality, in the
footsteps of his master Schoenberg, but a serious blow in the preconceived
notions of what music is, what should be the role of the composer and
what should we look for when listening to music. In fact, after the initial
scandal of Cage’s Duchampian plaisanteries, the influence of his
philosophical ideas on music and listening has spread not only over a
generation of musicians but all over the various artistic fields and even in
the philosophy of art and aesthetics. The aim is to show how Cage’s attitude towards music and listening through experimentation and dissonance
as creative strategies have changed our way of thinking about (sound) art
and (aural) aesthetic experience.
Notwithstanding, the (hi)story is not so simple and there have been some rare untimely composers and artists with intuitions that anticipated or would inspire contemporary approaches to sound. In this presentation we aim to meditate on sound as an intermediate notion and experience between the musical and the extra-musical with the help of three contemporary examples that illustrate it: Futuristie (1975), Pierre Henry’s intermedia performative homage to the Italian painter Luigi Russolo, infamous precursor of future musical revolutions; Hugues Dufourt’s spectral pieces (2005-2011) inspired by XVIIIth century Italian painter Tiepolo’s approach to colour; The Forty Part Motet (2001), Janet Cardiff’s sound installation that is an appropriation and a new spatial (and temporal) projection of Thomas Tallis famous renaissance polyphonic motet for eight choirs Spem in alium.
elas foram entendidas no discurso filosófico e na prática pictórica do século XVII, e que essa analogia ilumina a natureza e as propriedades da noção de representação. Numa primeira parte, a tese procura caracterizar os elementos principais daquilo a que pode chamar-se de paradigma representativo na filosofia e na pintura do século XVII. Essa caracterização faz-se a partir da «Lógica» de Port-Royal, cuja primeira parte se identifica com uma lógica ou, em rigor, com uma epistemologia da ideia, noção ambígua mas que é a sede conceptual de uma teoria do conhecimento representacionista. Os traços do sistema clássico da representação revelados por uma “teoria do signo representativo”, na «Lógica», podem ser complementados pela interpretação arnaldiana de uma teoria da percepção, explicitada na polémica das ideias entre Arnauld e Malebranche, que confirma, ao mesmo tempo, o sentido e o alcance da
representatividade do pensamento na epistemologia cartesiana. Por outro lado, a troca epistolar entre Arnauld e Leibniz sobre a noção de “expressão” permite uma interpretação alternativa dessa representatividade do pensamento, reiterando, no entanto, a dinâmica reflexiva do acto de representar, que é próprio da natureza da
substância individual. Num segundo momento dessa caracterização, é possível fazer uma aproximação entre o discurso filosófico e a prática artística no que respeita às suas teorias da percepção – a teoria da visão de Kepler, a Dióptrica de Descartes e as catóptricas de Mersenne e Nicéron – e às práticas da representação – a representação em
perspectiva linear frontal e anamorfótica. A análise do discurso científico e da prática pictórica suscitam a discussão do lugar do modelo nos seus diferentes modos de representação, mostrando a pregnância das suas analogias e afinidades. Num último momento dessa primeira parte, procura determinar-se o sistema clássico da representação pictórica, elaborando a definição da sua natureza mimética e convencional e das suas propriedades aspectuais e prospectivas, narrativas e descritivas,
linguísticas e figurativas. A segunda parte desta tese avalia estas determinações em dois casos, um pictórico – a natureza morta de tipo vanitas - e outro discursivo – as Pensées de Pascal -, onde se enfatiza a dinâmica reflexiva da representação e uma crítica da representação, ou seja, onde ela é confrontada com os seus limites e as suas condições
de possibilidade, nomeadamente o tempo e o sujeito da representação.