Spring 2015 Field Notes:


Chiostrini, Giulia

Durkin, Celia

Fu, Shiye

Gans, Sofia

Marris, Caroline

Palframan, Jef

Pope, Stephanie

Zhang, Zhiqi

Boulboullé, Jenny

Spring 2015 Assignments



Bread molding

Sand casting recipes

Plaster casting


Spring 2015 Class Notes:


This harvests all the pages in this wiki that are tagged 'spring15' and 'classnote'.
  1. durkin plaster casting recipes

2 Feb. 2015 RECONSTRUCTION

Table of Contents

Spring 2015 Field Notes:
Spring 2015 Assignments
Spring 2015 Class Notes:
2 Feb. 2015 RECONSTRUCTION
INFORMAL RECIPE RECONSTRUCTION TEMPLATE
Class discussion of required readings, and general ruminations about what reconstruction is/means
9 February 2015 DISCUSSION OF LITERATURE (see Syllabus)
Breadmolding experience
FEB 16 Discussion of readings
MARCH 12 Wrap up with expert makers Andrew Lacey and Sian Lewis

INFORMAL RECIPE RECONSTRUCTION TEMPLATE


SPRING 2015 HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION TEMPLATE (notes by P. Smith)

I. WHAT IS PURPOSE OF THE RECONSTRUCTION?
II. IN LIGHT OF THE ABOVE GOAL/PURPOSE, WHAT QUESTIONS DO YOU NEED TO ANSWER?
III. INTERPRETATION OF TEXT – GAIN UNDERSTANDING OF LANGUAGE AND PARTICULAR EXPRESSIONS
IV. PROCESSES
V. RECONSTRUCTION
Challenges:


Class discussion of required readings, and general ruminations about what reconstruction is/means

[taken by Donna Bilak]

topic of discussion: reconstructions.
to make important decisions and to ground them in historical questions, examples of ppl doing similar things.
also, what is the realm of authenticity that we are striving for in our Rx reconstructions? (taste? appearance? replicability?)

technical level - figuring out what/which questions to answer, re: textual analysis of actual recipe, such as: what kinds of materials can reasonably used, preparation, trying to read the Rx in a way that yielded coherent linear process (variables! how to handle).

re: text - can sometimes be challenging to understand the language/terminology (esp. re: reconstructing process), another layer of interpretation needed, re: meaning and association. what is the author of an Rx trying to express?
Q: what kinds of resources used to interpret text? re: Google = unsuccessful, then turn to literature and links from course; moving beyond prescribed literature from course yields interesting results (i.e. Giulia, and Book of Daniel).

what kinds of sources/resources used? re: how to interpret the purpose of the recipe.
idea of "family" of recipes, i.e. looking to other related Rxs from other sources, re: context and piecing together parts of Rx reconstruction discerned as missing.

looking at other kinds of written works, i.e. public records, legislation, port records.

re: interpretation of Rx, in terms of the "hands on" aspect of culinary reconstruction, and problem of authenticity, re: purpose and goal of recipe (why we're reconstructing it... a huge problem!).
kinds of issues, re: replication of ingredients and processes:
e.g. issues of quantity (no measurements provided! requires us to think about the kinds of measurements we use in order to decide upon ratios and combinations of ingredients; experiential comes in as we start to rely on senses of taste, sight, feel as the ingredients are combined).
problems in sourcing ingredients, some are not readily obtainable in today's grocers/markets; how does omission or substitution of ingredients impact the outcome of the recipe.

issues of authenticity draws the nature of our foodstuffs today, and the containers we use to cook in today, into sharp relief - how do such differences in materials/vessels/technologies (i.e. gas versus wood-burning fire) effect flavour, cooking/baking?

re: Abala article "Cooking as Research Methodology"
follow the recipe! to the letter! even if you have no faith in its outcome based on how it reads...
...just reading an Rx will not illuminate how it comes into being...
Q: as a research methodology, how does reconstruction (experiential knowledge) impact textual/literary analysis??
question of vocabulary - changes/shifts in meaning of certain terms over time.
also another layer = our reconstructions cannot take place in the same context as original and so not reproduce an exact facsimile, but in undertaking it, it opens up new ways of asking questions, new perspectives.
also, re: Abala, human labour - laborious process (like grinding cinnamon...) illuminates nature of reconstruction; figuring out what the action is in the kitchen (hints embedded in verbs in Rx, descriptors of action, and what this translates in terms of processes).

baseline perspective: ppl in the past actually knew what they were talking about; words were chosen intentionally; hence we can take seriously what's written in Rxs even if it sounds outlandish; disabuse notion/assumption of our contemporary identity that we "know better".

Q: what are some of the big problems in our HCRs?
interpretation...and misinterpretation (what is the connection between the physical involvement with the materials?? esp., re: things that feel unnatural/uncomfortable to us because we are not used to working/doing and interacting with materials).
heat sources! we just cannot replicate e.m. heat sources in our lab/homes.

also, an ingredient can mean different things in different places - take the example of "verjuice" (means crab-apple in England, sour grapes in Italy); so, things/ingredients are not necessarily self-evident, rather, shows degree of adaptability amongst craftsperson.

9 February 2015 DISCUSSION OF LITERATURE (see Syllabus)

(taken by Jenny Boulboullé)

On the notion "discourse colony" from article by Alonzo Almeida.

Do you write a recipe in the same way that you write something that is meant to be published?

Framing context in the collection itself. Are there any clues by the auther (e.g. can be anything, even sth. justl like "recipes my mother told me").

Bnf Ms. Fr. 640 has a list of books, including Palissy, Piemontese. We don't know the import of this framing information.

Medicanal and culinary recipes have no relation in this period. They are mixed in together. Why is it not arbitrary that medical and culinary are mixed up? Food and medicine were both used to overcome blockages, to achieve balances. Treatment case records show that

Four humours: the principals of that what governed all material complexion that is the look of a person

4 pure principles, they do have a material embodiment, but you cannot distill out the pure humour.
System based on Hippocrates 5th century BC, then reformulated in 200CE by Galen and then revised and expanded by Avicenna in the 10th century CE
hot/dry wet/cold

sanguine
melancholy - black bile needs to be balanced with light dry foods or medicinal mixtures
choleric
phlegmatic

example: born with a melancholic temperament you have to balance that with specific foods.
Purging was a common way to treat humour inbalances. Attempts to temper certain effects.


Elaine Long: set out whole network of families, domestic recipes. What is the goal of a specific recipe within the family structure?

How should we do recipe research?
Recipe show similarities from 200 CE to 1200 to 17th century. We have to understand textual tradtions, genealogies of recipes.
A recipe as having a genealogy, Doris Oltrogge shows this clearly in her recipe Database from Cologne.

Color Context Database

Does this recipe has a genealogy? What does it tell us about this recipe? Does the genealogy shed light on our recipe? Is it possible to identify the textual traditions of specific terms?

Article by Voskuhl

questions: where did she get the reconstructed instrument?
distinction between published and unpublished books, how unpublished show the process from chaotic to ordered ones.
the chaotic learning process is cised out of scientific reports.
tinkering and fixing with what is at hand. To be able to improvise, to fix it.

Otto Sibum: reconstructed James Joules experiments that led to the laws of Thermodynamics.
Joule was trained as a brewer. What Sibum discovered in trying to recreate the experiments that Joule must have worked with other assistents, but there is no account of these 'invisible' hands. Joule left this out to meet the emerging standards of a emerging quantitative science discourse.
late 19th century, science as we know it emerged. Research integrated into university curricula at chemistry departments.
Justus Liebig, Halle in Germany
2009 conversation with Sibum, see optional readings
How to integrate the subjective fieldnote with the scholarly annotation form? We struggled with that. Most succesfully integrate the experiential accounts into the scholarly annotation by pursuing a specific puzzle or question, a research question about the Manuscript.
In the writing down you are also replication the process of the author-practitioner, that is something to keep in mind.

Breadmolding experience

getting to know your starter for breadmaking
- temperature of apartment turns out to be essential
- experimenting with different feeding times, fermentation was so strong that it popped the lid

- searched for a short history of bread, we added ashes and other kinds of things with the flour.
the starter never really worked, bread did not rise.

feelings of panic in the initial stages and throughout the process.
sometimes you just need to wait and see

improvise with rising times (that appeared much to short in modern recipes), still almost no rise to be observed
1594 recipe (Please fill in!): 'work it as hard as you can handle it'. these lines only start to make sense by going through the process.
flour, luke warm water, salt, yeast

called for yeast, which would probably refer to wet mesh probably from brewers.

Bread making sensible to outside temperature, humid atmosphere can effect your bread making. You have to get sensitive to the atmosphere.
the touch and working process how we anthropomorphise the dough. How the matter still has agency. "It is alive!".
"as you know" = caused panic in some and reassurance/confidence in others (invitation to trust yourself and improvise to your best understanding)

Research on bread recipes: example a Dutch Database (Please fil in!), bread mentioned a lot, but only as an ingredient, no bread recipes.
last years most succesful: fine recipe (fancy one as no regular could be found) with egg whites.

Biringuccio pp. 213-256 clay substituted with materials you used for cake

one group used a seperator, recommended by sculptor boyfriend. a sort of shim to seperate the upper and lower half of the breadmold (see annotation by Rozemarijn and Jonah from previous semester).
Cellini ' I learned many things from the French goldsmith' , craftsmen, become journey man. Learning by discussion and from different (local) cultures was institutionalised in apprenticeship systems.

What exactly would bread molding be used for?
what will objects be used for?
clues in the recipe: stuff you want to do quickly.
Quick way to make a sort of intermold. Perhaps more economical to mold with bread than with sand?

Sand?
sable or sand in our Ms: the dry material that you are going to use for a box mold for casting. it can be a mix of flour, old ground molds, dirt, etc. A lot of ingredients are somewhat arcane.
largest number of experiments are on different mixtures of sands.

Pamela: bread seems faster, everybody has bread dough around, if you want to try out a little model. It seems very evident as a quick way to do it.
Flour has a finer particle, yields detailed impressions.

Session ends with inspection of molds and then pouring wax and sulfur mixtures into the molds.

FEB 16 Discussion of readings

notes taken by Jenny Boulboullé

See for literature the syllabus
very insightful discussion of the working with wax, bread, materials' influence on the final prouduct.

Did you feel yourself gaining experience?
Working with the starter was a real experience. Getting to know your starter.

overarching argument. reinterpretation of civic meaning of the statue with a discussion of materials. Understanding material as a 'living substance'. Different theories of metals co-existing in pre-modern period. Aristoteles four elements, earth at the center, then twater, air, to the sphere of fire.
Commensensical and expansive theory of all natural changes.
Metal has two states: hard and liquid, so does water, too. And heating it up will make it evaporate.
The mixture of the four elements, in the sphere of changeability seperated from the unchangeable eternal sphere of the stars (the perfect fifth element), our sphere as the sphere of coming into being and passing away, theory of change and movement, gives us a physics and a chemistry so to say.

great co-existence of different ideas
also the alchemical view of how transmutations of metals take place. either one principle or two principles Mercury and Sulfur. Dual nature of liquid and solid that formed a model for what happens with metals.

Another co-existing theory on corpuscular elements, metals as corpuscular something like small bodies as atoms, but not necessarily pure bodies, which could be combined by mixing.
These all were not alternative ways of understanding, but rather co-exist and they were mixed together.

no single, monolithic system that explains nature, there were no concept of an overarching system of science (except perhaps by scholars at the university reading Aristotle or other authorative sources)

reflections on coral and blood and metal that they all have these similar transformative states of material.
Transformation of great significance to everyone during this time.

Why is Donatello choosing
materials are changing property from the inside to the outside, blood looses its life force outside the body.

In the 16th century: a sanguine complexion, that is there make-up, it shows on their face, you can read from it what material of their body is, what there temperament is
4 humours:
melancholic: black bile, cold and dry, heavy. "we get a cold" too much of the wet and cold, counteract with hot and wet.
sanguine: blood, healthiest humor, warm and wet
phlegmatic: phlegm is the humour, wet and cold,
choleric: yellow bile, someone who is angry, firey, access of hot and dry humor

system was very expansive and easy to insert information into it
coral = healing properties, because it imitated the red of blood, it was seen to promote the health

the main principle is of the humor system is balance.

other kind of ways that people talked about materials.
What kind of descriptions or understanding of materials you came across?

books of secrets, how to books
alchemical notions, tropes, allegories can also be packed with e.g. pharmaceutical knowledge
Aristotelian view of matter
another ancient view of matter that has been revived in the Renaissance: Plato and Neo-platonism, in neo-platonism, things can be vitalised, 'alive' or 'infused with spirit' but not mobile

emblematic meanings that materials are invested of, you expect discussion.
spiritual properties of materials, artist as creator, live giving quality assigned to the artist as the material are understood as 'alive' in different senses

Symbolic meaning of bronzes: life quality, material of the ancient that was used to represent high status people. symbol of durability.

Cellinis last sculputor: argument not only about his own virtuousity
Cole makes the argument that Cellini really chooses blood and coral to represent his art as these materials are so resonant with aritistic, philosophical, social etc. debates. Taking part in this very competitive and informed culture in Florence.

how to read material and objectives: NOT REDUCTIVE, but proliferating in this period, materials could be understood at many different layers, your interpretation and understanding of these materials did not only show your sophistication but also were understood as a deeper understanding of nature.

coral imitation, how the act of making, striving for similitude through techne.

Closer look: discussion of Bnf Fr. Ms. 640

the leaves could have been loose leaves or cut out en rebound
paleographic research - codecological examination- shows that the chronology it is bound in today is in the correct page order
binding of the Duke Bethune.
envoy to the papal court for the king of France.
large part of the library 1654 dontated to the King of France
all of these books were bound in the same binding as BnF Fr. Ms. 640
the sort of binding that enables the reader to see all the marginalia shows the interest in these technical writings

show the way how we understand nature through art
artifice of nature, and artifice of the human hand
counter fait - understood as imitation, fait = making

crosses in manuscript often indicate the beginning of a manuscript.
we know from other books that cross indicate new sections
in the name of god and profit in account books

symbol for vermillion was a cross, cross because it is read like the blood of jesus, red color to imitate blood was vermillion.
vermillion the pigment is made from mercury and sulfur

1580s two other texts that became very important

Ovid's Metamorpheses, text very popular in this period - you can represent all kind of transformations, changes
changes that can be brought on materials by artists.

De Rerum Natura by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius (c. 99 BC – c. 55 BC)
a roman text, very material text, understanding in terms of materials

even if artists did not read them, he could make referents to them as references to texts that were widely discussed.

getting into the world of the artist-practitioner, pay attention to the different meanings of the materials.

MARCH 12 Wrap up with expert makers Andrew Lacey and Sian Lewis

notes by Jenny Boulboullé

some notes about our wrap-up discussion:
We started to realise how collectors terms can be misleading, like ‘indirect’ and ‘direct’ or ‘incuse reverse’ casting, describe appearance rather than process of making
our annotation “One sided hollow cast” shows they are sometimes even non-descriptive, it doesn’t work from the facture,

one aim of the Making and Knowing Project to integrate facture much more deeply into the discussion and knowledge of the past

think of video as visual recording and as indispensable source/ documentation
how the materials teach you they want to works with

class prompts ‘thinking’ about materiality -> not thinking, touching, handling materials!
thinking about authority in the creative space – layers of prior knowledge (field notes), expert makers in the lab, speculations about the authority of our manuscript maker