Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses how the recent emergence of terms such as alchemical craft hints at a paradigm shift in the field of contemporary jewellery, describing practices and practitioners who have used craft methodologies to work with novel materials and processes towards realising the crafted Posthuman body

Paper long abstract:

This paper analyses how the recent emergence of terms such as 'creative technologist' and 'alchemical craft' hints at a paradigm shift in the field of contemporary jewellery, describing practices and practitioners who have used craft methodologies to work with novel materials and processes. The figure of the alchemist and the ancient practice of alchemy have been connected to craft practitioners, and in particular goldsmiths and jewellers, from the early modern period onwards and epistemological changes during the 'New Jewellery" movement in the 1970s revealed the possibilities inherent in altered perceptions of material preciousness. A return to the idea of interdisciplinary knowledge exchange between the arts and sciences, as well as the establishment of a network of materials libraries that act as ideas incubators for the materially curious, has re-introduced the essence of alchemical practice to contemporary crafts practitioners. The different types and properties of thermochromics and photochromics are discussed, including their applications in practical experiments with layering pigments within three dimensional silicone shapes and stimulus-reactive jewellery. Bringing together digital methods of fabrication with craft methodologies to create objects that respond intimately to changes in the body of the wearer and the environment is presented as an outcome of this research project. Moving towards the notion of a posthuman body, potential practical applications for these jewellery objects exist in the areas of human-computer interaction, transplant technology, identity management and artificial body modification, where such symbiotic jewellery organisms could be used to develop visually engaging, multifunctional enhancements.