Historical distance provides us with an illusory objectivity, according to Mark Salber-Phillips; the greater the distance between then and now, the more secure we are in making claims about historical periods, peoples’ lives and events. In his book, On Historical Distance (2013), Salber-Phillips proposes that these are merely assumptions that are made by historians, and that, in fact, all historical readings or perceptions are shaped by ‘four overlapping but distinguishable distances: form, affect, summoning and understanding’. Such historical interpretations are explained in this paper which considers the artistic methods brought into play by Silvia Weidebach and her approach to creating jewellery that refashions historical styles, designs and materials. In this presentation, we describe Silvia’s practice in terms of artistic research, which combines historical, archival research with theoretical understanding of design processes and materials; and experimental, digital crafts. This paper demonstrates how the historian and the designer might work together, in artistic research practice, to collaborate on reinterpretations of historical objects, ‘re-distancing’ past designs, acknowledging historical intimacy, and connected traditions alongside affective experiences. These working methods summon up questions relating to discourses on ornamental theory, particularly early-twentieth-century design theory, focused on abstraction, and tensions surrounding historical teaching from Semper, Riegl, Loos and others. In this sense, Silvia Weidenbach’s jewellery designs and artistic practice places ornament in a further contested environment in the twenty-first century, utilising digital tools to enhance and manipulate ornamental features, previously a consequence of intensive craft skill and labour. It is these ‘connected traditions’ that are uncovered in this paper and presentation to elucidate on the ways in which historical methods contribute to artistic research, particularly in relation to historical distance, affective experience, time, theory and technology; all of which are assembled and represented in the jewellery objects designed by Silvia Weidenbach and portrayed here, in this presentation.
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