School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Research Publications
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ItemExploring the Outlands: A Case-Study on the Conservation Installation and Artist Interview of David Haines’ and Joyce Hinterding’s Time-Based Art Installation(Taylor and Francis Group, 2021)The artwork by David Haines and Joyce Hinterding, The outlands, 2011 is a time-based art installation composed of sculptural, software and gaming technology exhibited in a gallery space. The work was acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales after being awarded the 2011 Anne Landa Award Unguided Tours exhibition prize but has not been installed since. As such, any future iterations will be challenging due to its condition, functionality and machine dependency. This paper explores the value of installing Haines’ and Hinterding’s time-based art installation to chart the conservation assessment processes of documentation, functionality testing and the install itself. It discusses how in-situ artist interview affords artistic agency and contributes knowledge on the materials, conceptual and technical elements of the work, functional limitations and its future conservation management. The outcomes of the conservation interactions have allowed for a deeper understanding of conservation as a reiterative process as issues of software and hardware dependencies, and the situated and spatial relationships between various elements became more salient. This has assisted conservators in preparing for object obsolescence and aims to support future re-activations of The outlands, 2011.
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ItemBronzino's portrait of Cosimo I de'Medici in armour re-examined(Burlington Magazine Publications, 2023-01)Technical analysis by the Art Gallery of New South Wales of its portrait by Bronzino of Cosimo I de’ Medici in armour has revealed more details of the mysterious underlying portrait first observed in a X-radiograph in the 1980s. It has also established that Bronzino hesitated between making the portrait half-length or three-quarter-length, confirming that the painting is the prime autograph version of the three-quarter-length image.
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ItemLaw and Order Under La Trobe: The First Prisons of Port Phillip(The La Trobe Society, 2023)
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ItemTracing Breton footprints from Fleury to Reims: the codicological evidence for the exegetical compilation in Orléans 182 and Reims 395(CNRS Éditions, 2023)The focus of this article is a compilation of biblical exegesis, here entitled Glossae Floriacenses in Vetus et Nouum Testamentum, that ranges from short explanatory glosses to more extensive passages of interpretation, and also incorporates two independent works in their entirety: Adrevald of Fleury’s De benedictionibus patriarcharum and the Venerable Bede’s Nomina regionum atque locorum de Actibus apostolorum. The Glossae Floriacenses also preserve multiple layers of Old Breton glosses (main text, interlinear, marginal additions), as well as several Old English glosses. This dynamic work survives in two codices, Orléans, Médiathèque, MS 183, and Reims, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 395. The methodology employed here involves a detailed survey of these codicological contexts in order to expand our understanding of the transmission and use of the Glossae Floriacenses. In the case of Orléans 182, there is strong evidence for Fleury as the provenance of the codex as a whole, but this analysis also evidences substantial interactions with nearby regions, particularly Brittany and Auxerre. In the case of Reims 395, several manuscript in the codex date to the eleventh century, and include the Glossae Floriacenses, Odo of Cluny’s Sermo de sancto Benedicto, and a range of works dedicated to the celebration of Mary Magdalene. This grouping indicates links of transmission between a number of Loire Valley and Burgundy regions, particularly Brittany, Fleury, Cluny, Auxerre, and Vézelay.
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ItemSearching for the potters behind the pots: re-examining the Tell Ahmar Neo-Assyrian ceramic assemblage(The Australian Institute of Archaeology, 2023)Ceramic studies have been crucial to the development of archaeology. This paper is concerned with a re-examination of the pottery, and the potters, of Tell Ahmar (ancient Til Barsib), Syria. It focuses on the ceramics from the Australian excavations in the Middle City (Area C), especially the more than 250,000 items from the 7th-century BCE Neo-Assyrian Stratum 2. The Stratum 2 assemblage was readily grouped into seventeen ware types. The various wares reflect different production systems: some hand-made products were manufactured locally, possibly by individual households; other wares, characterised by high rates of uniformity, were probably produced by large-scale, centralised pottery industries; another ware group exhibits considerable investment in the application of different surface treatments, indicating specific uses. The Area C assemblage provides a rare opportunity to examine a large and relatively complete well-dated corpus. Observations and explanations relating to the technology of preparing, forming, decorating, and firing these ceramic vessels casts light on the circumstances of their manufacture and, in turn, on the potters behind the pots of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableSaint Catherine and the Clock: Possible Histories of Sound and Time in Fourteenth-and Fifteenth-Century France(University of Chicago Press, 2023-10-01)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableEditorial [AICCM Bulletin, vol.43 no.2](Taylor & Francis, 2022)Dialogues around universal ‘best’ practices in conservation are challenging as are demarkations between the East and West, Europe and Asia, and the global north and south. Institutions, networks of care and materials conservation professionals have thereby struggled with ‘a long-standing epistemological debate about the nature of knowledge and expertise between dominant positivist and alternative non-positivist approaches’ (Beebeejaun et al. Citation2013, p. 2). What works in various geographical contexts is poised against an inherent tension between object centred and scientific processes, to those that are value based and socially situated alongside differences in institutional cultures, developmental histories and disciplinary leader’s foci.
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ItemEditorial [AICCM Bulletin, 41(2)](Taylor & Francis, 2020-04-02)Papers in this volume focus on geographic locations drawn from Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, and the Eastern borders of Australia. In these parts of the world, we all know that there is a long record of active use and conservation of material culture through traditional systems, while the professionalised practice of conservation engendered by its existence, has a relatively recent history.
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ItemA preliminary investigation into the influence of archaeological material on the yellowing of polyethylene storage bags(Routledge, 2021)Concerns around the degradation of plastics have been part of conservation discourse for decades. The spotlight is usually on art and objects, and conservation and display materials, however it could be argued that a significant volume of the plastics in museums is associated with storage bags. This study asked whether the condition of plastic storage bags might be influenced by what is stored inside them. If specific materials can be identified as more likely to affect plastic degradation, museums may have a lead-indicator for efficiently monitoring storage risks. This case study developed a methodology for applying multivariate analysis to collected data to answer this question. A subset of polyethylene self-seal bags used to pack archaeological material from the ‘Casselden Place’ assemblage at Museums Victoria was evaluated. Objective data were combined with subjective assessment of bag degradation features gathered during a collection survey and interrogated using multivariate statistical analysis. Results indicate (1) different levels of yellowing are associated with particular plastic bag stocks and (2) ceramic, slate and tile finds are more likely than other materials to be contained within yellower bags. The research points to future enquiry and demonstrates this methodology shows promise for extension to other large cultural datasets.
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ItemSurveys of Plastics in Post-1950 Non-published Book Collections(De Gruyter, 2023-03-03)Research over the past three decades has demonstrated that certain plastics in cultural materials are inherently unstable, displaying short lifespans and accelerating the degradation of neighbouring collection materials. Knowledge of the conservation of plastics is increasingly common in museum settings. However, less information is available on conserving plastics found in paper-based collections, and even less guidance on the materials and deterioration of plastic components found in book and document bindings. As plastics have been present in popular bookbinding materials since the mid-twentieth century, collection care professions require knowledge and methods for preserving these materials entering book collections. The aim of this paper is to determine strategies for the care of post-1950s books containing plastic. Collection surveys were conducted to determine the materials, structures, and degradation patterns of non-published books found in archive and archive-like settings at the South Australian Museum, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne. A methodology combining condition reporting and infrared spectroscopy identified six plastic polymers in 35 binding styles that are summarised as 10 binding types. Recommendations are made for the use of preventive storage strategies responding to four categories of damage.