Electra #32

INFRASTRUCTURE

The special feature of Electra issue 32 is ‘Infrastructures’. In a globalised world, this subject has become fundamental for understanding the dynamics that support contemporary societies: from technical progress to the circulation of information and goods, from the logistics that sustain life in major cities to the geopolitical strategies and new technologies that underpin digital platforms. Yet we must not think about infrastructures from a merely technical perspective: we need to examine their increasingly decisive role in systems of political power and economic domination, in regimes of freedom and dependence, in mechanisms of surveillance and control, in apparatuses of administration and oversight. Contributing to this discussion are texts by Yves Citton, Giorgiomaria Cornelio, Anselm Jappe, Brett Neilson, Matteo Pasquinelli and Boris Vormann.

‘In the First Person’ features an interview between Afonso Dias Ramos and renowned German filmmaker, artist and author Hito Steyerl, where she reflects on the complexities of the constant metamorphosis of art, images and technology in the age of Artificial Intelligence.

Anna Maria Maiolino, an acclaimed artist of Italian origin based in Brazil, who received the Golden Lion at the Venice Art Biennale in 2024, is the author of this issue’s Portfolio, where she brings together a selection of her works accompanied by an interview with American curator Helen Molesworth as part of the project The Forgotten Her Story.

With an internationally acclaimed career and a body of work characterised by his striking artistic imagination and technical creativity, Alexandre Estrela was the artist chosen to represent Portugal at the 2026 Venice Art Biennale. For this issue’s ‘Scoop’ section, he and his team have prepared an extension of the RedSkyFalls project to be shown in the Portuguese Pavilion, conceived and graphically structured specifically for the pages of the magazine.

Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and Head of the Commonwealth, was born a hundred years ago. Her reign, the longest in British history, lasted more than seventy years, during which the world changed radically; yet she always remained true to herself. Journalist Marc Roche, who met her, has written an article for Electra focusing on the Queen’s careful attention to her public image.

Also in this issue, art director Serge Ricco profiles Bea Feitler, a key figure in the global history of graphic design who left her creative mark on the most important American magazines of her time: Harper’s Bazaar, Ms., Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair; Turkish writer and journalist Kaya Genç takes a stroll through his city, Istanbul, revealing a rich cultural metropolis; Brazilian philosopher Eduardo Wolf offers a critical reflection on the relevance (and irrelevance) of the concept of the ‘Western tradition’ following the publication in the US of The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition, by James Hankins and Allen C. Guelzo; sociologist Vania Baldi examines a quote by Martin Heidegger regarding technology; António Guerreiro writes about the contemporary city as an urban space without limits; and filmmaker and columnist Graça Castanheira reflects on the word ‘immigrant’.