Building a New Dating Technique | Patrick Layton

This study investigates the use of External Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (ER-FTIR) as a non-destructive method for determining the age of leather manuscripts. The degradation of leather over time leads to changes in its chemical composition, which can be detected and analysed using spectroscopic techniques. We explore the correlation between these chemical changes and the age of the leather, for the development of a rapid, robust, and non-destructive dating method.

This study will demonstrate the potential of ER-FTIR as a valuable tool for non-invasive age determination of leather artefacts. The developed method offers significant advantages in terms of sample preservation and rapid analysis, making it particularly suitable for application in archaeology, conservation, and cultural heritage studies. Future research will focus on expanding the sample set and refining the model to improve the accuracy across more leather types and environmental conditions.

about the project
ABC – Ancient Book Crafts

Institute for Natural Sciences and Technology in the Arts | FWF Principal Investigator Projects International (10.55776/I5884), 07/2022 – 06/2025

Johannes Tintner-Olifiers
Patrick Layton, Maria Theisen (ÖAW), Viviana Nicoletti (ÖAW), Sarah Deichstetter (ÖAW)

Archaeometric dating tools for leather, paper, and parchment are almost not available, the establishment of such tools is fundamental and basic heritage science research.

Dating of historical library and archival objects by scientific means is rarely attempted due to financial and sampling constraints. Methods that are often considered as routine in archaeological research, such as C14 dating either require destructive sampling, which can be difficult to ethically justify, or, as is the case of dendrochronology, they require the covers of a binding to be exposed (and made of wood). It is clear that a rapid, non- destructive method of dating could represent a real breakthrough. The possibility to date all relevant materials enables to study a book’s history in all its details, the possibility to perform many measurements enables also to study whole objects in detail, but also whole inventories of specific collection parts.

Project partners
Matija Strlič (University of Ljubljana), Nataša Golob (University of Ljubljana), Hend Mahgoub (University of Ljubljana)

The dramaturgy of Conversation* | Ingrid Cogne

Within The dramaturgy of Conversation, ›dramaturgy‹ (re-)presents the approach to the entire research — ›dramaturgy‹ being as much ›choreographic dramaturgy‹ than ›dramaturgical choreography‹ — and ›conversation‹ is the object of study. Conversation is a notion used to qualify live, formal, and/or informal communications based on the principle of articulation and circulation of information between individuals. Conversation is an everyday practice and situation, but also a notion that is overused as a title for events and/or publications to announce forms and formats of communication/presentation in the Arts.

In TdoC, various ›uses‹ of conversation in, between, and in-between expanded choreography and process oriented arts-based research are re/searched to underline, question and appreciate the complexity of communication: a conversation combines spoken and bodily languages, and it is supported by optic, acoustic, and energetic perceptions. The multi-layers of the solicited perceptions invite multiple possibilities of filtering (reading/understanding/interpreting/re-learning) the content circulating within a conversation, when the modalities of its appearance constantly change and have different temporalities.

By studying the existing situations of conversation and analyzing through the ›doing‹ the created situations of conversation, TdoC is the context in which a self-reflective process can be (re)articulated and a process in which CO- and reciprocal activation of hardly articulable knowledge can be performed. With this re/search, Cogne insists on the need of ›conversation‹ to be practiced and considered as knowledge.

about the project
The dramaturgy of Conversation

Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies | FWF Elise Richter PEEK (10.55776/V709), 01/2019 – 01/2025

Ingrid Cogne

Can the hierarchy of knowledge and the power relationships it implies be challenged through the doing? Can situations of meeting on/around/with knowledge open up for alternative positions and functions for practical knowledge?

The central question of The dramaturgy of Conversation as a methodology is HOW?

How can the context, structure, location, and duration of existing or created situations of conversation support the (re-)articulation of the persons involved? How can one use or work with conversations? How can one read, inhabit, and embody the parameters of a conversation? How can one facilitate a conversation? How does a situation itself facilitate the meeting with knowledge? How can one create a situation of conversation that will be the facilitator itself?