The Farol Journal is a biannual publication of the Graduate Program in Arts at the Federal University of Espírito Santo. As an academic initiative, connected to the field of Arts / Visual Arts, the journal is open to texts that aim to discuss the problem of formation and artistic, critical and historiographic assigned for the visual arts. It also strives to provide research experiences, which are open to the fields of knowledge, between consensus and dissent, in a contemporary context.
The authors of works submitted to Revista Farol authorize their publication in physical and electronic media, solely for academic purposes, and may be reproduced as long as the source is cited. They attest to their originality, authorship and originality.
Farol Magazine, already established as a space for the circulation of research, reflections, and experiences in the field of arts, welcomes the diversity of perspectives that constitute contemporary artistic production and thought. Continuing the partnership established with the Ibero-American Seminar on the Creative Process in Arts – Poetics of Creation, which began more than a decade ago. Held as an artistic-cultural residency in the city of Vila Velha (ES) in October 2025, the event fostered these exchanges.
Copyright (c) 2026 Editores https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This article analyzes Anna Zagrodzka's project Alternaria alternata, relating genocide, ecocide, and the conservation of Nazi extermination camps. Through an analysis of the artist’s photographs and frameworks from the laboratory humanities and multispecies ethnography, it demonstrates how art highlights processes of life’s adaptation and contributes to reflections on future scenarios in the face of environmental and human crises.
Copyright (c) 2026 Ewa Domańska https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This article analyzes Anna Zagrodzka's project Alternaria alternata, relating genocide, ecocide, and the conservation of Nazi extermination camps. Through an analysis of the artist’s photographs and frameworks from laboratory humanities and multispecies ethnography, it demonstrates how the art highlights processes of life’s adaptation and contributes to reflections on future scenarios amidst environmental and human crises.
Copyright (c) 2026 Ewa Domańska; Taynna Marino https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
The Multifunctionality of Design and the Relevance of Haptic Processes
This essay addresses the relevance of the haptic sense and its persistence in contemporary design praxis. It investigates how design practice explores the role of auxiliary tools to establish itself as an autonomous visual language, as well as a constantly expanding field of thought and action. The methodology provides a qualitative and comparative analysis, establishing a theoretical dialogue among the concepts of multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity. To illustrate current artistic praxis, the cases of William Kentridge and Tacita Dean are analyzed; through some of their works, one can appreciate the resilience of drawing, integrating memory, analog materiality, and the artist's body. The essay concludes that drawing remains an essential humanizing experience, reaffirming the inextricable link between hand, brain, and emotion within contemporary sensibility.
Copyright (c) 2026 Mónica Elisa Contreras Godínez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Eternal questions hover over art, artistic creation, and painting—questions regarding their definition, place, necessity, function, and more—that resurface like recurring specters even when they seem resolved. This essay explores the phantom that the *cosa mentale* (according to Leonardo, Francisco de Holanda, and others) has always implied within the paradoxical materiality of painting and art in general. Is it, after all, base matter like paint, or is it idea—pure spirit? This, in turn, draws the intelligence-stupidity dichotomy into the context of the natural-artificial debate. For does not the phantom of human stupidity hover over artificial intelligence, just as it does over all materiality that gives form to ideas? Thus, let us speak of phantoms through film, music, and—especially—art and painting, inquiring into their wisdom.
Copyright (c) 2026 Isabel Sabino https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Urban Space and Gender in the Work of Hildegard Rosenthal and Sonia Madrigal
This study analyzes the creative processes of Hildegard Rosenthal and Sonia Madrigal to discuss the relationships between gender, photography, and urban space. Drawing on process criticism, it identifies common procedures that highlight the construction of visual narratives in which women inhabit the city as protagonists, reaffirming their autonomy in the production and representation of their own images.
Copyright (c) 2026 Cecilia Salles, Negrão Negrão https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This article presents the SPHERA project, which investigates the spiritual dimension of artistic creation as a trans-historical and transcultural foundation of art. It aims to reveal implicit manifestations of spirituality in contemporary art and to establish genealogies connecting works, eras, and cultures. Through a theoretical-interpretative approach and case study analysis, it posits art as a genetic process and a form of spiritual intelligence, redefining public art as a practice of spiritual regeneration and discussing the critical use of artificial intelligence in artistic creation.
Copyright (c) 2026 José Guilherme Abreu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Self-curation and artificial intelligence in the arts
In this article, I present an arts teaching methodology I developed, grounded in the use of artificial intelligence as a tool for self-curation and critical mediation within the creative process. I implemented this experience in the course "Digital Arts, Artificial Intelligence, and New Technologies Studio"—which I taught within the Graduate Program in Arts at the State University of Minas Gerais (PPGArtes/UEMG)—and subsequently adapted it for the Bachelor of Fine Arts program at the Guignard School. The proposal integrates exercises such as brainstorming, concept mapping, the use of an expanded process journal, exhibition design simulations, and career planning supported by artificial intelligence. Drawing on an account of this pedagogical experience, I discuss the approach's impact on the training of contemporary artists, particularly regarding autonomy, awareness of one's own poetics, and the construction of artistic trajectories.
Copyright (c) 2026 Celina F. Lage https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This is an analysis of the first season of the science fiction series Altered Carbon, focusing on the character Poe, an AI manager at the Raven Hotel. It aims to examine the similarities between this character and the writer Edgar Allan Poe—particularly regarding his suspense and horror stories, while considering the symbiosis between author and work—alongside other literary and aesthetic references. Additionally, the study highlights the concept of transhumanism through discussions on the series' central theme: digital immortality. To this end, the concept of intersemiotic translation is applied—defined as translation occurring across different languages ​​or sign systems, involving the interpretation of verbal signs via non-verbal means or the transfer from one sign system to another (Jakobson, 1969). The study concludes that the intersemiotic translation of Poe’s work demonstrates the enduring nature of his legacy.
Copyright (c) 2026 Telma Elita Juliano Valente https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) as an adaptation machine
This article investigates Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) as an audiovisual adaptation system, analyzing its effects on authorship and creation based on text prompts. By transforming a single input into images, sound, and editing, GAI automates adaptive processes and reconfigures the narratives and aesthetics of pre-existing works. Drawing on a dialogue between adaptation studies and critical AI studies, the article examines GAI as a type of “adaptation machine,” problematizing the boundaries between original creation and recombination, with an emphasis on the prompt as a semiotic operator and an act of mediation.
Copyright (c) 2026 Natacha de Souza, David Ruiz Torres https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
The Role of the Illustrator in the Age of AI
Regarding the illustrations found in contemporary children's literature—a landscape shaped by generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools—a cautious examination of the creative possibilities inherent in their visual conception is warranted. The readership relies on these illustrations to interpret the written narrative, which achieves full meaning through the dialogue mediated by the image. In this context, the figure of the illustrator and their distinctly human presence come to the fore; this text highlights the value of a subjective repertoire as an essential component of creating illustrations for children's literature, analyzing two books—one produced with GenAI and one without.
Copyright (c) 2026 Maria Clara Marins Rampinelli, David Ruiz Torres https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
With the aim of establishing and developing a cultural and educational support tool, this research focuses on the creation of the digital game Heróis Capixabas, aimed at the historical and artistic dissemination of public monuments in Espírito Santo. The study explores the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in art education and bases its methodology on bibliographic research and game development. As an initial result, a visual novel divided into three chapters was conceived, with each chapter dedicated to a specific piece of public art from Espírito Santo. The first chapter—which covers the origins of the bust of Soldier Aldomário Falcão—is currently complete; upon the project's full completion, it is expected to contribute to the appreciation of Espírito Santo's cultural heritage and to the integration of technology, art, and education.
Copyright (c) 2026 Maria Carolina Martins Afonso, José Cirillo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This paper presents a partial outcome of doctoral research conducted alongside an outreach project by the Arts Extension and Research Laboratory (LEENA-UFES). Beyond delving into the technical and historiographical study of 3D modeling, the project seeks to understand how the use of generative artificial intelligence can contribute to the serialization and dynamic development of 3D models intended for printing. Thus, this article aims to explore the origins of 3D modeling within the context of the Cold War in the United States, investigating its historical-scientific development from the mid-20th century to its most recent evolutions. Furthermore, we seek to identify points of intersection between the application of 3D modeling as a contemporary sculpting technique and the machine-driven process of incorporating generative artificial intelligence into the sculptural creation process.
Copyright (c) 2026 João Victor Silva Fernandes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This text aims to present an investigation into the potential contributions of visual artists to the fields of science and technology, drawing on the experiential account of an artist embedded in an Amazonian microbiology laboratory. The discussion is grounded in Isabelle Stengers’ cosmopolitical proposition, exploring the complex relationships involved in the exchange of knowledge between seemingly divergent fields—such as art and science. The study is based on the operative concepts of visual poetics and creative processes as an aesthetic force capable of forging cosmopolitical alliances; these alliances are articulated to expand disciplinary boundaries in knowledge production and leverage Amazonian cosmopolitics to reconfigure the boundaries between art, science, technology, and image.
Copyright (c) 2026 Fernanda de Souza Oliveira, Cesar Baio https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This article investigates the potential to transform the Santo Antônio Cemetery in Vitória (Espírito Santo) into a tourist attraction through the application of immersive technologies—such as augmented reality headsets to create interpretive routes and artificial intelligence to "animate" funerary monuments—thereby fostering a playful, educational, and interactive environment. The proposal seeks to reinterpret collective memory through digital cultural mediation, enhancing both heritage preservation and the site's tourism potential. To support this approach, the study compiled photographic records, conducted an interpretive analysis of sculptural elements, and reviewed specialized literature to provide a critical perspective on the heritage site. Field research also addressed infrastructure, accessibility, and safety, guiding the formulation of initial proposals for a potential partnership between the municipal government and the Federal University of Espírito Santo.
Copyright (c) 2026 Isis Santana Rodrigues, Jan Clefferson Costa de Freitas, Thaís Thomaz Bovo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
The Use of TV 3.0 in the Dissemination and Teaching of the Arts
This article analyzes the potential of Interactive Digital Television (TVDi)—within the context of the Brazilian Digital Television System (SBTVD) as it transitions to TV 3.0—as a medium for cultural dissemination and arts education in Brazil. The research approaches the technology not merely as a technical platform, but as a sensory device capable of fostering educational innovation and the democratization of culture. Grounded in concepts of media convergence, cyberculture, and poetics of creation, the article discusses the integration of art, technology, and education. It highlights the role of this technology in distance education, social inclusion, and the valuing of cultural diversity. The study identifies TVDi as a strategic tool for interactive pedagogical practices and contemporary aesthetic experiences.
Copyright (c) 2026 Enyo Soares Pereira, Leandro Lesqueves Costalonga https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This article investigates the transformation of the studio as a space for artistic creation resulting from the shift from the physical to the digital realm, specifically in relation to the artist's creative body. It draws on experiences and theoretical reflections within the field of contemporary art, examining electronic devices—such as smartphones and tablets—that operate not merely as technological tools or digital apparatuses but function in practice as portable studios. While this accessibility expands the conditions for creation, it also reveals contradictions by enabling production in any location, including "non-places"—a concept discussed by Marc Augé (2009). The text seeks to understand how the environment directly influences the creative body, altering its behaviors and, consequently, the artworks it produces, engaging with the writings of Sandra Rey (2002), Cecília Almeida Salles (2011), and Byung-Chul Han (2015).
Flávia Maria de Brito Pedrosa Vasconcelos
Copyright (c) 2026 Andressa da Silva Freitas, Flávia Maria de Brito Pedrosa Vasconcelos https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This text examines, from a sociological perspective, the historical credibility of photography as a form of visual testimony in light of contemporary concerns regarding synthetic images produced by artificial intelligence. Through a theoretical-conceptual reflection, it is argued that this credibility stemmed from social and institutional processes that stabilized a photographic pact of belief. Consequently, the notions of "photographic alibi" and "photographic pact of belief" are proposed to understand the contemporary reconfiguration of visual evidence. The conclusion suggests that the current issue may have less to do with the disappearance of trust in images than with the emergence of new regimes of visual credibility. Keywords: photography; sociology of the image; visual culture; artificial intelligence; visual trust
Copyright (c) 2026 Virgilio Libardi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This article analyzes the historical changes and influences on the operational practices of interventionists who emerge from the cracks of the urban habitat, based on the urgency of expressive survival. By investigating the mode of operation — graffiti — in the Brazilian context as a resilient everyday tactic converted into an aesthetic proposition of occupation, its utopia of experiencing the city as a revitalized work of art is articulated. From the new individual bodies that emerged in the illegal intervention as a pulsating collective body in expressive (re)existence—inhabiting, its anomalous aesthetic, consolidated and co-opted, will also see the emergence of mere prêt-à-porter identities. However, it is perhaps through the practice of composting the urban substrate—revitalized within a social collective that refuses domestication—that its subversive power will withstand the risk of becoming merely another prop in the urban shop window.
Copyright (c) 2026 Otavio Fabro Boemer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Female(s) body(ies) in Márcia X. “Lovely Babies” performance
Guided theoretically and methodologically by French-school Discourse Analysis—specifically the perspective of Michel Pêcheux and its intersections and shifts regarding art—this research is grounded in the discursive spaces surrounding the feminine, the body, and the female body. It aims to investigate the discursivization and meanings of the female body in the performance “Lovely Babies” by artist Márcia X. The video recording of the performance, originally staged in 1993, serves as the material for constructing the discursive corpus. Starting from the question of how the female body is discursivized and how it signifies meaning in “Lovely Babies,” the study reveals a discursivization of the female body’s representation within art that highlights the multiple meanings inherent in the woman-body-performance relationship.
Copyright (c) 2026 Andresa de Angeli Viotti, Lucas Benatti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This article analyzes Hans Haacke's retrospective at SCHIRN Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2024-2025), examining the artist's trajectory as a pioneer of institutional critique. The exhibition demonstrates Haacke's methodological coherence in investigating power structures governing art and society across six decades. The text articulates the main threads of his work – critique of corporate and political power, exposure of institutional mechanisms, historical memory, and democratic accountability. The retrospective reveals both the scope and complexity of a dense, multifaceted oeuvre and the curatorial challenges of synthesizing decades of critical experimentation, exposing tensions between artistic autonomy, market forces, and society.
Copyright (c) 2026 André Arçari https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Farol magazine has established itself as an important instrument for the dissemination of art and culture from a perspective that is believed to resist the crushing influence of dominant discourses and that proposes new readings and new networks of knowledge. The thematic dossier of this edition, Possible Ends: Contemporary Deviations and the Artists of the Common, proposes new readings that, in their convergence, constitute a network of meanings, integrated into a new landscape and the tensions surrounding the "common" in the arts. From reflections on the term itself and its implications in contemporaneity, to expressions that evoke ways of looking; thus, producing and rethinking issues intrinsically linked to the artistic field, opening up to potential dialogues with society.
Copyright (c) 2026 Editoras https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Preserving Institutional Memory Through Photographic Collections
This article aims to highlight the importance of photographic collections as a source of information for the preservation of institutional memory. Specific objectives include: defining memory and institutional memory in the field of Information Science and related areas; examining the history of photography and its aspects as a document of historical value and its relationship with institutional memory in the literature; and presenting the relevance of preserving photographic collections in institutions. Regarding methods, the research is characterized by a qualitative approach and is exploratory in nature, having conducted a literature review. It is concluded that photographic collections are extremely important for the preservation and dissemination of institutional memory, which is also part of the memory of all individuals involved, such as employees, suppliers, and clients. It is also observed that institutions need to pay more attention to the management of photographic collections, especially digital ones, which are often disorganized due to the large number of records. It is estimated that the topic of this article may lead to greater interest in the preservation of institutional photographic collections, resulting in even more careful attention to management and storage issues.
Copyright (c) 2026 Rosa da Penha Ferreira da Costa, Thiago Greggory de Oliveira, Rayra da Silva Föeger, Margarete Farias de Moraes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This article proposes an overview of issues related to the common in the arts, based mainly on the writing *The Society of the Artist: Activism, Death and Memory of Art* by Stéphane Huchet, 2023. Within this context, the article explores issues interconnected with artists-of-the-common and their specificities, such as motivations and strategies, traversing different temporalities and guided by critical thoughts and artistic praxis from different historicist moments in the arts. From a supposed end that can be rethought from the perspective of purposes, to the statutes that define being an artist, especially in contemporary times.
Copyright (c) 2026 Léa Araujo, Angela Grando https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
The public space of Brasília's Pilot Plan, created by Lucio Costa, is protected by heritage listing laws that guarantee the preservation of general formal principles in accordance with the modern project. The occupation of this listed space with works of art intensified from the 1980s onwards, when, in addition to works commissioned from modernist artists, the production of street art intensified. In the context of discussions about the end of originality and the unlimited expansion of the repertoire of techniques for creating open-air murals, different modes of occupying the city's walls emerged. Among these, this work distinguishes a group of panels with pictorial qualities, which link them to the field of art history.
Copyright (c) 2026 Elisa de Souza Martinez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Artistic Activism and the Re-enchantment of the World
This article seeks to offer some reflections, albeit within an initial approach, regarding the activist turn in contemporary art. To this end, it attempts to trace a genealogy that offers a possible interpretation of what has been configured as the production of activist art, especially that which, presenting itself as "community art," seems to displace the artist to a position of laterality. While the assumptions of a portion of modernist art have long proven totally inefficient and inadequate to deal with the complexities and inequalities of the contemporary world, on the other hand, art still seems to seek the tones and measures so that, guaranteeing its permanence and the relevance of the artists, it can speak to and listen to the world in processes of enchantment of art and life.
Copyright (c) 2026 Luiz Sérgio de Oliveira https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This article addresses the relationship between image and violence, focusing on a specific moment and place associated with trauma and pain. The discussion, which takes as its starting point the image of the implosion of one of the buildings in the Carandiru Complex, refers to the doctoral thesis *A Provisional Poetics and the Aesthetics of Other Emergencies: Collective Tactics to (Dis)inhabit a Women's Prison* and the participatory installation *Neither Does the Ground Lie* (2022-present), created from collaborative processes between the Balcão da Cidadania collective and a group of women deprived of liberty at the Madre Pelletier State Women's Prison (Porto Alegre, RS/Brazil). The theme is approached from the perspective of authors such as Susan Sontag, Suely Rolnik, Sharon Macdonald, Georges Didi-Huberman, Flávio Agostini, and William Logan & Keir Reeves. The writing still retains graphic elements present in the thesis.
Copyright (c) 2026 Márcia Braga https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
This work presents an autoethnography of ten years of photographing alongside a transvestite association in the state of Roraima. It aims to describe the trajectory and understand how photography can contribute to visibility, resistance, and aesthetic-political sharing, drawing on reflections by Jacques Rancière and Judith Butler. It concludes by reflecting on the importance of collective practice, aesthetic experimentation, and affection for the improvement of photographic practice and the political struggles for visibility.
Copyright (c) 2026 Elisangela Martins https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Artivism in 21st-Century Russia and the Rhetoric of the Absurd
This article addresses the use of absurdism and irony in the artworks of the historical avant-gardes of Eastern Europe, in their relation to conceptual art developed informally in the Soviet Union and contemporary artivism. The poetics of the absurd appear as important characteristics of contemporary art, in its artivist and actionist aspects, prominent in the Russian art scene in the 21st century. The importance of the artistic work of Dmitri Prigov, a representative of Soviet informal art and Moscow conceptualism, is highlighted; as is Prigov's influence on artistic collectives such as Voina and Pussy Riot, examples of contemporary artivism. Finally, some aspects of the work of artivists such as Katrin Nenacheva and Artyom Loskutov are discussed.
Copyright (c) 2026 Cristina Antonioevna Dunaeva https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
By “common,” we usually refer to a type of art distancing artists and the public from the erudite frameworks that have characterized art throughout its history. Revisiting here some brief points from an essay published by the author of this article in 2023 and outlining a reflection on the paradoxes of the concept, I defend the thesis of a “common” whose ideal, sociologically grounded in the idea of ​​proximity to everyday life, also conveys a universalizing vision. The very old concept of sensus communis in Kant allows us to support this thesis, since every “common,” within the aesthetic logic of experience, almost explicitly creates an integrative relationship with the idea of ​​community. Whether micro or macro, the “common” needs to be thought of beyond sociology to affirm its full belonging to the aesthetic game as a potentially unifying mechanism of sensibilities. A supposedly novel category recycles old motivations.
Copyright (c) 2026 Stéphane Huchet https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0