Conservation

2019

Tokyo Shift

Kemp, Jonathan. “東京 シフト Tokyo Shift,” in 東京 シフト Tokyo Shift. Kobune-sha, 2019.

The Shift Register project sets out to investigate examples of how technological and infrastructural activities reinforce the current conceptualisation (episteme) of Earth as a ‘planetary laboratory’. In a form of auto-destructive feedback, science and its technologies subject Earth to analysis and control to perform the image of its own knowledge, such that it both supplies the means of understanding the planet while simultaneously producing its own planetary-wide phenomena for further study. As critical practice Shift Register seeks to undermine and confound this image of the Earth through a series of publicly engaged activities that register and shift other and ‘unreal’ knowledge systems into discourse about the 'real' so as to reconfigure something of human ←→ earth dynamics.

The Palgrave Handbook on Art Crime

Kemp, Jonathan and Hughes, John. “Analysis of two mortar samples from the ruined site of a Sasanian palace and Il-khānid caravanserai, Bisotun, Iran,” in Burūjinī, Rasūl, Cantan, Susan and Keall, Edward J. (eds.,). Afarin Nameh: Essays on the archaeology of Iran in Honour of Mehdi Rahbar; Āfrīnʹnāmah. Iranian Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Tourism, 2019.

Two mortar samples were collected from the ruins of the Sasanian Palace and Il-Khānid Caravanserai at Bisotun to establish whether lime was used in their building and, given the sites’ heterogeneity, to make a basic evaluation of their research potential for understanding both production methods and usefulness for dating and correlation with the site’s different build phases. Standard polished thin sections at 30 microns were analysed using a polarising transmitted light microscope and an initial characterization of the historic mortars is reported discussed. More information...

The Palgrave Handbook on Art Crime

Sloggett, Robyn. “Unmasking Art Forgery: Scientific Approaches,” in Hufnagel, Saskia and Chappell, Duncan (eds.,). The Palgrave Handbook on Art Crime. Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

This handbook showcases studies on art theft, fraud and forgeries, cultural heritage offences and related legal and ethical challenges. It has been authored by prominent scholars, practitioners and journalists in the field and includes both overviews of particular art crime issues as well as regional and national case studies. It is one of the first scholarly books in the current art crime literature that can be utilised as an immediate authoritative reference source or teaching tool. It also includes a bibliographic guide to the current literature across interdisciplinary boundaries. More information...

Conservation of Modern Oil Paintings

Tse, Nicole et al. “A Preliminary Investigation into the Behavior of Modern Artists’ Oil Paints in a Hot and Humid Climate,” in van den Berg, K.J. et al (eds.,). Conservation of Modern Oil Paintings. Springer Nature, 2019.

Artists’ oil paints have become increasingly complex and diverse in the 20th Century, applied by artists in a variety of ways. This has led to a number of issues that pose increasing difficulties to conservators and collection keepers. A deeper knowledge of the artists’ intent as well as processes associated with material changes in paintings is important to conservation, which is almost always a compromise between material preservation and aesthetics. This volume represents 46 peer-reviewed papers presented at the Conference of Modern Oil Paints held in Amsterdam in 2018. More information...

2015

Experiencing the Unconventional: Science in Art

Kemp, Jonathan. "The crystal world," in Schubert, Theresa and Adamatzky, Andrew (eds.,). Experiencing the Unconventional: Science in Art. World Scientific, 2015.

The book presents art projects that resulted from unconventional explorations explorations of space, matter and sound, curious experiments with living substrates and their creative translations into sensorial experiences developed by established and emerging artists. Using electronic and digital art, bioart, sculpture and installations, sound and performance, the authors are removing boundaries between natural and artificial, real and imaginary, science and culture. The book aims to hybridise art projects and transdisciplinary approaches to a contemporary art practice by discovering a new understanding of media and adopting innovative approaches to materials in the Anthropocene. More information...

2014

Contemporary Perspectives on the Detection, Investigation and Prosecution of Art Crime: Australasian, European and North American Perspectives

Sloggett, Robyn. "Considering evidence in Art Fraud," in Chappell, D. and Hufnagel, S. (eds.,). Contemporary Perspectives on the Detection, Investigation and Prosecution of Art Crime: Australasian, European and North American Perspectives. Ashgate, 2014.

In the world of law enforcement art and antiquity crime has in the past usually assumed a place of low interest and priority. That situation has now slowly begun to change on both the local and international level as criminals, encouraged in part by the record sums now being paid for art treasures, are now seeking to exploit the art market more systematically by means of theft, fraud and looting. In this collection academics and practitioners from Australasia, Europe and North America combine to examine the challenges presented to the criminal justice system by these developments. Best practice methods of detecting, investigating, prosecuting and preventing such crimes are explored. This book will be of interest and use to academics and practitioners alike in the areas of law, crime and justice. More information...

Making and Transforming Art: Technology and Interpretation

Tse, Nicole and Heysen, R. "Hans Heysen's art materials: an investigation into suppliers, knowledge and choice," in Dubois, H., Townsend, J., Nadolny, J., Eyb-Green, S., Kroustallis, S. and Neven, S. (eds.,). Making and Transforming Art: Technology and Interpretation. Archetype Publications, 2014.

The papers in this volume, presented at the Royal Institute of Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA) in Brussels in November 2012, cover a wide range of works of art, periods, sources and approaches, from Dioscorides to contemporary artists' installations. The theme of the conference is reflected in studies such as Tingely's explosive Homage to New York, the evolutions and transformations of harpsichords in France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the art of wax anatomical models in Spain, or neo-gothic polychromies. The confrontation of source research with experimental reconstruction and analysis are illustrated in the study of anthocyanin colorants in Medieval European illuminators workshop or of tempera paint around 1900. Research on artist's materials, such as vermillion, zinc white or turpentine, refers to patents, inventories, diaries and chronicles. The interpretation and transmission of sources is central to several papers. Innovative databases on Art Technological Sources are also presented. More information...

2013

Lasers in the Conservation of Artworks IX

Tse, Nicole, Miles, E. and Roberts, Ann. "Film formation of artists' acrylic paints in tropical climates using dynamic speckle interferometry," in Saunders et al (eds.,). Lasers in the Conservation of Artworks IX. Archetype Publications, 2013.

The papers in this volume were presented as papers or posters at the ninth meeting dedicated to the use of lasers in the conservation of artworks (LACONA), hosted by the British Museum and University College, London. They focus not only on the fundamental scientific research behind the use of laser technology, but also on the application of lasers in the treatment and analyses of cultural heritage in a way that is directly applicable to conservation practice. The papers illustrate three broad themes that have recurred throughout the well-established series of LACONA meetings, presenting advances in: the use of laser technologies in conservation treatments for cultural heritage; laser-based methods for imaging, 3D documentation and modelling; and laser-based techniques for analysis, diagnostics and monitoring. More information...

Information Technologies and Indigenous Communities

Ormond-Parker, L. and Sloggett, Robyn. "Crashes along the Superhighway: The information continuum in Information Technologies and Indigenous Communities," in Ormond-Parker, Corn, Fforde, Obata, and Sullivan (eds.,). Information Technologies and Indigenous Communities. AIATSIS - Aboriginal Studies Press, 2013 eBook.

This eBook sets out key issues identified in the final plenary session at the AIATSIS research symposium on information technologies and Indigenous communities. Over 70 papers were presented at ITIC on the use of information technologies by Indigenous peoples. Illustrating the strength and vibrancy of the sector, presentations were delivered on programs, projects and research being implemented and undertaken by a range of community organisations,institutions and researchers across Australia.

Informatics for materials science and engineering: data-driven discovery for accelerated experimentation and application

Lau, Ramanaidou, Nel, Petronella and Kappen, Villis. "Artworks and cultural heritage materials: using multivariate analysis to answer conservation questions," in Rajan (ed.,). Informatics for materials science and engineering: data-driven discovery for accelerated experimentation and application. Butterworth-Heinemann, 2013.

Materials informatics: a 'hot topic' area in materials science, aims to combine traditionally bio-led informatics with computational methodologies, supporting more efficient research by identifying strategies for time- and cost-effective analysis... This work, from Krishna Rajan, the leading expert of the informatics approach to materials, seeks to break down the barriers between data management, quality standards, data mining, exchange, and storage and analysis, as a means of accelerating scientific research in materials science. More information...