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SUMMARY:Experimental reconstruction of the bronze life-cast lizard of the 
 Renaissance - Andrew Lacey (Making &amp\; Knowing Project\, Columbia Unive
 rsity)
DTSTART:20171030T130000Z
DTEND:20171030T140000Z
UID:TALK85111@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Sebestian Kroupa
DESCRIPTION:The technique of recreating objects or processes to gain deepe
 r understanding has been used widely in the disciplines of archaeology and
  anthropology. Complex multi-staged processes with a verifiable material o
 utcome offer the greatest scope for this method of analysis. As such\, the
  anonymous sixteenth-century French artisanal and technical manuscript (Mn
 F MS. Fr.640 for short) currently being explored by Pamela Smith with _The
  Making and Knowing Project_ offers numerous opportunities for such an inv
 estigation. One particular chapter discusses life casting in exquisite det
 ail\, involving the sacrificial loss of the subject consumed by the fire a
 nd replaced by the bronze. These cremated animals included snake\, salaman
 der\, toad and crab. Such macabre yet beautiful objects offered the Renais
 sance scholar a meditation on natural history and the cycle of life and de
 ath through technical virtuosity.\n\nThis paper focuses on one particular 
 passage from the chapter dedicated to the life-casting of a lizard in MnF 
 MS. Fr.640. The solid bronze lizard experimentally recreated here from thi
 s text\, was dissected and subject to x-ray analysis for comparison with s
 imilar museum artefacts. However\, by embodied experience of the recreatio
 n one may go beyond the material and gain unique insights that may not be 
 reached otherwise. Consider that the anonymous author of the text lived in
  a time when material transformations were observed and governed by the se
 nses. The author's internal thoughts\, hesitations and warnings given in n
 otes\, diagrams and marginalia are made visceral when experienced directly
  through the senses. We may then understand more of the unspoken tacit kno
 wledge underpinning the text.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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