Jorge Almeida, the Proaction Lab Director, has recently been invited to participate at a TV show called 'Muito Barulho Para Nada' (roughly translates to 'Much Ado About Nothing'). The episode aired on the 22nd of October by RTP2 national television channel. The show has a strong cultural influence and challenges four different guests from varying backgrounds to discuss their work. The episode number six featured, besides Jorge Almeida, Mário Lino da Silva, a researcher at the Instituto Superior Técnico, José Miguel Pereira, from the Jazz ao Centro Clube and Francisco Frazão, from Bairro Alto Theatre. The perfect scenario was created to discuss "art as a process of searching beyond the horizon", said the host José Navarro de Andrade.
The intervention of Jorge Almeida was mostly focused on the major project being developed right now in the lab - ContentMap. Using accessible language and recurring to many analogies, the researcher was able to explain what is the goal of the project, why it is fascinating and how scientists can meet the project goals. "In front of us, we can see several cups. All in different colours and sizes and shapes. And no one here has any problem with knowing instantly that these are all cups. We could be here talking about cups for 30 minutes. We have so many information on cups alone but the time that takes us to identify these as cups is almost instant", said Jorge Almeida. On the practical use of his research, Jorge replied highlighting the importance of fundamental research as a way of building up knowledge about something the scientific community knows so little about. "You would not ask the practical use fo the society of the famous image of the black hole."
Watch the full episode on RTP Play or Jorge Almeida's excerpt on our website.
Other links: Episode promo
