The final three episodes of the interview series “What Is a Cosmorama?” have now been released. The series comprises six thematic videos dedicated to the Cosmorama, a largely forgotten media device that nevertheless played a significant role in nineteenth-century visual culture.
The newly released interviews explore three central dimensions of the research: the historical processes that led to the Cosmorama’s disappearance from dominant media narratives; the practical and methodological challenges involved in physically reconstructing a Cosmorama; and the integration of virtual reality and digital data visualisation as research tools for the study of early visual media.
This series is the result of a collaboration between The Early Visual Media Lab — CICANT (Lusófona University) and the Institute of Art History (FCSH, NOVA University of Lisbon). It was developed within the framework of the FCT-funded research project Curiositas (2022–2026) and is based on interviews conducted during the exhibition The Cosmorama in Lisbon – Virtual Travels in the 19th Century, curated by Victor Flores, Susana S. Martins, and Ana David Mendes.
This initiative reinforces CICANT’s ongoing commitment to advancing research on visual culture, media archaeology, and digital methodologies, while fostering interinstitutional collaboration at both national and international levels.
To watch the interviews and to read more about the series, click here.