João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva’s practice has gained considerable attention on the Portuguese art scene in recent years, thanks in part to its unusual subject matter. Their projects explore intellectual references such as the existential philosophical tradition and twentieth-century metaphysical literature, as well as parascientific practices like occultism and artistic movements such as the Theater of the Absurd and Surrealism. For example, Magnetic Effluvium, 2003–2006, their best-known work to date, was inspired by a rare climatic anomaly, a dark snowstorm, described in Victor Hugo’s 1869