Material Alchemy

Material Alchemy
Title Material Alchemy PDF eBook
Author Jenny Lee
Publisher Bis Pub
Pages 152
Release 2015-02-23
Genre Business & Economics
ISBN 9789063693763

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Material Alchemy has been devised to showcase the most innovative, thought-provoking design approaches to materials within the 21st century. Enlisting the help of luminaries from the world of science, technology, and design showcases new responses to material innovation and provides key insights into how material will be utilised to shape our future environments. Unlike existing publications that singularly examine and showcase materials from an industrial and technical standpoint for commercial application, this publication explores materials from a conceptual, historical and narrative point of view. Exploring key topics such as synthetic biology, how designers and scientists are designing with living matter, utilising the laboratory as a means to cultivate and grow new materials. To technological innovations, how new technologies such as 3D printing are revolutionising the manufacturing industry. Showcasing the work by technologists and artisans, how these collaborative partnerships are evolving to redefine materiality in the 21st century. The book not only provides new insights into how designers, scientists and artisans are exploring materiality, it also presents opportunities to physically engage with materials through the following chapters: Low-Tech, High-Tech, Molecular Gastronomy and The Laboratory. In addition to this, the publication features interactive content that merges the analogue with the digital. Using image recognition software to trigger hidden content in the form of animations that visually demonstrate how to carry out each workshop, or to transport you to the alchemists conceptual film to further explain the narrative of their research. The use of materials within art, design and architecture is a dynamic and growing area of research. How we use and define a material no longer applies in the 21st century, a material is more than just a material to clothe and shelter us, our desire for intrinsic value and connectedness has driven the way for new interpretations of materiality, as opposed to merely applying materials for commercial applications.

The Alchemy of Us

The Alchemy of Us
Title The Alchemy of Us PDF eBook
Author Ainissa Ramirez
Publisher MIT Press
Pages 392
Release 2021-04-06
Genre Technology & Engineering
ISBN 0262542269

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A “timely, informative, and fascinating” study of 8 inventions—and how they shaped our world—with “totally compelling” insights on little-known inventors throughout history (Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction) In The Alchemy of Us, scientist and science writer Ainissa Ramirez examines 8 inventions and reveals how they shaped the human experience: • Clocks • Steel rails • Copper communication cables • Photographic film • Light bulbs • Hard disks • Scientific labware • Silicon chips Ramirez tells the stories of the woman who sold time, the inventor who inspired Edison, and the hotheaded undertaker whose invention pointed the way to the computer. She describes how our pursuit of precision in timepieces changed how we sleep; how the railroad helped commercialize Christmas; how the necessary brevity of the telegram influenced Hemingway’s writing style; and how a young chemist exposed the use of Polaroid’s cameras to create passbooks to track black citizens in apartheid South Africa. These fascinating and inspiring stories offer new perspectives on our relationships with technologies. Ramirez shows not only how materials were shaped by inventors but also how those materials shaped culture, chronicling each invention and its consequences—intended and unintended. Filling in the gaps left by other books about technology, Ramirez showcases little-known inventors—particularly people of color and women—who had a significant impact but whose accomplishments have been hidden by mythmaking, bias, and convention. Doing so, she shows us the power of telling inclusive stories about technology. She also shows that innovation is universal—whether it's splicing beats with two turntables and a microphone or splicing genes with two test tubes and CRISPR.

The Alchemy of Empire

The Alchemy of Empire
Title The Alchemy of Empire PDF eBook
Author Rajani Sudan
Publisher Fordham Univ Press
Pages 198
Release 2016-06-01
Genre Political Science
ISBN 0823270696

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Named 'Top 6' South Asia studies publications of 2016 by the British Association for South Asian Studies The Alchemy of Empire unravels the non-European origins of Enlightenment science. Focusing on the abject materials of empire-building, this study traces the genealogies of substances like mud, mortar, ice, and paper, as well as forms of knowledge like inoculation. Showing how East India Company employees deployed the paradigm of alchemy in order to make sense of the new worlds they confronted, Rajani Sudan argues that the Enlightenment was born largely out of Europe’s (and Britain’s) sense of insecurity and inferiority in the early modern world. Plumbing the depths of the imperial archive, Sudan uncovers the history of the British Enlightenment in the literary artifacts of the long eighteenth century, from the correspondence of the East India Company and the papers of the Royal Society to the poetry of Alexander Pope and the novels of Jane Austen.

The Experimental Fire

The Experimental Fire
Title The Experimental Fire PDF eBook
Author Jennifer M. Rampling
Publisher University of Chicago Press
Pages 427
Release 2020-12-11
Genre Science
ISBN 022671084X

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A 400-year history of the development of alchemy in England that brings to light the evolution of the practice. In medieval and early modern Europe, the practice of alchemy promised extraordinary physical transformations. Who would not be amazed to see base metals turned into silver and gold, hard iron into soft water, and deadly poison into elixirs that could heal the human body? To defend such claims, alchemists turned to the past, scouring ancient books for evidence of a lost alchemical heritage and seeking to translate their secret language and obscure imagery into replicable, practical effects. Tracing the development of alchemy in England over four hundred years, from the beginning of the fourteenth century to the end of the seventeenth, Jennifer M. Rampling illuminates the role of alchemical reading and experimental practice in the broader context of national and scientific history. Using new manuscript sources, she shows how practitioners like George Ripley, John Dee, and Edward Kelley, as well as many previously unknown alchemists, devised new practical approaches to alchemy while seeking the support of English monarchs. By reconstructing their alchemical ideas, practices, and disputes, Rampling reveals how English alchemy was continually reinvented over the space of four centuries, resulting in changes to the science itself. In so doing, The Experimental Fire bridges the intellectual history of chemistry and the wider worlds of early modern patronage, medicine, and science.

Perfume

Perfume
Title Perfume PDF eBook
Author Jean-Claude Ellena
Publisher Skyhorse
Pages 136
Release 2011-09-15
Genre Health & Fitness
ISBN 1628721707

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To women the whole world over, perfume means glamour, and in the world of perfume, Jean-Claude Ellena is a superstar. In this one-of-a-kind book, the master himself takes you through the doors of his laboratory and explains the process of creating precious fragrances, revealing the key methods and recipes involved in this mysterious alchemy. Perfume is a cutthroat, secretive multibillion-dollar industry, and Ellena provides an insider’s tour, guiding us from initial inspiration through the mixing of essences and synthetic elements, to the deluxe packaging and marketing in elegant boutiques worldwide, and even the increasingly complicated safety standards that are set in motion for each bottle of perfume that is manufactured. He explains how the sense of smell works, using a palette of fragrant materials, and how he personally chooses and composes a perfume. He also reveals his unique way of creating a fragrance by playing with our olfactory memories in order to make the perfume seductive and desired by men and women the world over. Perfume illuminates the world of scent and manufactured desire by a perfumer who has had clients the likes of Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Bulgari, and Hermés.

Alchemy the Poetry of Matter

Alchemy the Poetry of Matter
Title Alchemy the Poetry of Matter PDF eBook
Author Brian Cotnoir
Publisher
Pages
Release 2017-08-21
Genre
ISBN 9780999313404

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Art & Alchemy

Art & Alchemy
Title Art & Alchemy PDF eBook
Author Jacob Wamberg
Publisher Museum Tusculanum Press
Pages 302
Release 2006
Genre Art
ISBN 9788763502672

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These richly illustrated articles cover the representation of alchemy in art from the late Middle Ages to the 20th century. The authors, who are artists, curators and art historians from the US and Europe, address such topics as alchemical gender symbolism in Renaissance, Mannerist and modernist art; Netherlandish 17th-century portrayals of alchemists; and alchemy as the forerunner of photography. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.