Distant Brains

Date & Time: January 16th 2026, 8:00pm
Venue: Champalimaud Foundation Auditorium
Free entrance with mandatory registration here

Nuno Cera is a Lisbon-based photographer and video artist. His work operates at the intersection of art and documentary and addresses three fundamental forms of change: natural, spatial and temporal. Between December 2023 and January 2024, Nuno was an artist-in-residence at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, as part of the Bridges to the Unknown Art-Science residency program.

Distant Brains features a video screening exploring a sequence of episodes in which robots interact with other intelligent species in different contexts - factories, universities, laboratories, and hospitals. Focusing on the contemporary interaction between robots, humans, and plants, this new artistic research by Nuno Cera is the result of a collaboration with Julia Albani and several authors - scientists, critics, and a musician - and aims to be both an archaeology and a memory of the present time, reflecting a society in transition.

The event will also include a roundtable, with the presence of curator Julia Albani, architect researcher Joana Rafael and principle investigator at the Champalimaud Foundation, Tiago Marques. 

Entrance is free.

Distant Brains is supported by the Portuguese Republic - Ministry of Culture / DGArtes, and also includes collaborations with the Systems and Robotics Laboratory of the Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon; 1825 - Research Studio for Architectural Visualization, Lisbon; the Berlin Botanical Garden, Germany; Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, Wolfsburg and Bridges to the unknown, Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon.