Fire Arts: Pasts and Futures
PI: Dr. Tianna Uchacz
Texas A&M University
Melting and Casting Gold, Florentine Codex, Book IX (image)
For the full schedule of events, click here
“Fire Arts, Pasts and Futures” is a three-day, hands-on research event that unites Texas A&M scholars and students with international artists and historians of art, science, and technology. Participants will create new knowledge about the history and potential futures of artisanal technologies of flame and fire through experimental reconstructions of historical techniques for metalwork, glasswork, ceramics, and alchemy. These reconstructions aim to inform debates and spur (re-)innovations surrounding the future of craft practices, art industries, and materials science as they attempt to respond to current socio-environmental challenges.
Generously sponsored by the School of Performance, Visualization & Fine Arts, the Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts, and the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research.
Symposium: November 6–8, 2023, 9AM–12PM
Speaker list [click to expand]
- Dr. Donna Bilak
Historian of early modern alchemy, goldsmith, part-time faculty NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study and Pratt Institute Fine Arts Department, and Director of Active Matter - Dr. Andrés Vélez Posada
Historian of early modern science and philosophy, Full Professor of Arts and Humanities at Universidad EAFIT, Medellín, Colombia - Ana María Jiménez, MFA
Contemporary artist and jeweler, Medellín, Colombia - Dr. Julie Howe
Professor of Soil Science, Texas A&M University - Michael Gayk, MFA
Metalsmith, computational designer, and Instructional Associate Professor, School of Performance, Visualization & Fine Arts, Texas A&M University - Dr. Tianna Uchacz
Historian of art and craft technology, Assistant Professor, PVFA, Texas A&M University - Dr. Peter Oakley
Reader in material culture and Co-Lead for the Material Engagements Research Cluster (MERC), Royal College of Art, London - Dr. Thijs Hagendijk
Historian of early modern practical knowledge and Assistant Professor in Technical Art History, Utrecht University - Dr. Katharina Vones
Jeweler and Lecturer in Jewelry at the Royal College of Art in London - Dr. Márcia Vilarigues
Assistant Professor and Head of the Conservation Department, NOVA School of Science and Technology (NOVA Univ. Lisbon) - Dr. Marieke Hendriksen
Senior researcher at NL-Lab, in the Humanities Cluster of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), Amsterdam - Dr. Tillmann Taape
Historian of Science, Medicine, and Alchemy, Lecturer in History of Medicine, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Berlin
Reconstruction Workshops: November 6–8, 2023, 1–6PM
Reconstructions [click to expand]
- 16th-century European goldsmith’s furnace (Oakley, Hagendijk, Vones, Vilarigues)
- Pre-Hispanic Colombian goldsmith’s furnace (Jiménez, Velez Posada, Gayk, Uchacz)
- 16th-century European distillation furnace (Taape, Hendriksen)
Alchemy Meets Jewellery
PI: Dr. Peter Oakley
Royal College of Art
Green lion eating the sun, Rosarium Philosophorum, 1550
This three-day meeting organized by Dr. Peter Oakley and the Material Engagements Research Cluster at the Royal College of Art featured a day of public talks, a day of hands-on experiments in the RCA’s workshops, and a day of collaborative planning. Active Matter members Asmussen, Bilak, Hagendijk, Taape, and Uchacz were welcomed by members Oakley and Vones to the Battersea campus to present their research to RCA faculty and students and to perform reconstructions of historical techniques for enameling and electroplating.
Symposium, April 3, 2023
Speakers [click to expand]
For more on the symposium, see this blog post.
- Welcome
Peter Oakley, Royal College of Art [UK] - Alchemy & Jewellery
Peter Oakley, Royal College of Art [UK] - “I was iron, I am copper, I will be gold”: art, experiments, and environmental alchemy
Tina Asmussen, Ruhr University Bochum [Germany] & Donna Bilak, New York University [US] - Distillation: early modern material engagements
Tillmann Taape, Herzog August Bibliothek [Germany] - Blowing Silversmiths, Miniature Furnaces, and Economic Fire
Thijs Hagendijk, Utrecht University [The Netherlands] - Silver nanoparticles on glass – unveiling historical recipes
Márcia Vilarigues, NOVA [Lisbon, Portugal] - Ornament: Design: Translation
Tianna Helena Uchacz, Texas A&M University [US] - Reflections on Gold & Mercury – alchemical substances, environmental scourges
Donna Bilak, New York University [US]
Workshops, April 4–5, 2023
Workshops [click to expand]
April 3
- RCA Battersea tours
- Experiment: The dissolving ring (Bilak + Asmussen)
- Experiment: Enameling with a blowpipe (Hagendijk + Vilarigues)
April 4
- Oakley on the carbon footprint of artists’ materials
- Discussion of future projects, meetings for Active Matter
- Chelsea Physic Garden tours
Special Issue, Ambix (2023)
Gold and Mercury: Amalgamated Histories in Chemistry, Culture, and Environment [Click to expand]
Ambix: The Journal for the Society of the History of Chemistry and Alchemy, Volume 70, Issue 1 (2023)
Workshop, Lorentz Center (2022)
Gold and Mercury: Metals in Transit [Click to expand]
7 – 10 June 2022
Lorentz Center, Leiden
https://www.lorentzcenter.nl/gold-en-mercury-metals-in-transit.html
Active Matter 