Music is a ubiquitous presence in the contemporary media landscape – a presence that can easily go unnoticed and yet play a fundamental role in conveying different messages, representing events or personalities, and constructing audiovisual narratives. This conversation explores various intersections between sound, music and image, examining the potential meanings of this intriguing alchemy.

Manuel Bogalheiro is a professor at Lusófona University. He edited the volumes Critique of Total Mediations – Expanded Perspectives on the Media (Documenta, 2021) and Disruptive Visual Expressions in Public Space (Edições Lusófonas/CICANT, 2024). He curated the program “(Post-)Human Mythologies and Technological Fictions,” organized by Contemporânea at Culturgest Lisboa in 2024. He collaborates as a scientific advisor at ZABRA – Posthuman Art Research Center.

Júlia Durand is a musicologist and researcher at the Centre of Sociology and Musical Aesthetics (CESEM) at FCSH – NOVA University of Lisbon. Her work has been published in anthologies such as the Oxford Handbook of Music and Television (forthcoming), in journals such as Music, Sound and the Moving Image, and in the monograph Library Music and Imagined Images. Her current research focuses on the role of music in media relating to disinformation and political extremism. She publishes literary fiction and writes librettos for vocal works and musical theatre, including Swipe Right (2025), I Will Never Have Time (2020), and Theatre: A Dress Rehearsal [Theatro: Um Ensaio Geral] (2016).

Commissioned by Semibreve under Re-Imagine Europe, a programme co-funded by the European Union