The 8th Interim meeting of the ICOM-CC working group Art Technological Source Research at the Cologne Institute of Conservation Sciences (CICS) will focus on reconstructions and re-enactment. Historic sources (written, oral, but also images or instruments) provide important information on artists’ materials, techniques and methods of work. At least since the Comte de Caylus‘s 18th century attempt to understand a lost artistic technique – encaustic painting – by practical experiments on the basis of Pliny’s description of that Roman art, “reconstruction” has been a valuable companion in historical and philological research of art technological sources. It was not by accident that the first symposium of the Art Technological Source Research working group held in 2004 was devoted to Sources and Reconstructions. In recent years there have been interesting developments in the methodology of reconstruction and re-enactment. New questions have been posed, new disciplines have become involved. Therefore it seems only right to focus again on this topic and the state of the art, fifteen years after the establishment of the Art Technological Source Research group. For the symposium Reflecting on Reconstructions we are interested in contributions that use reconstruction, re-enactment or replication in research related to art technological sources, written or other.

We welcome papers and posters that explore topics such as:
case studies, e.g.
– reconstruction / re-enactment for an improved understanding of technical content and context of production of the sources themselves
– reconstruction / re-enactment for an improved understanding of art works / artistic techniques / artistic processes
– reconstruction / re-enactment as part of decision making in conservation / restoration
– reconstruction / re-enactment as base for technical and/or chemical analysis
history (and purposes) of reconstructions and re-enactment
methodological and ethical questions of reconstructions and re-enactment

Contributions should focus on sources, which may include – but are not restricted to – recipe collections, artist’s treatises, letters, workshop notes, catalogues, journals as well as oral and visual sources including tools and instruments. There is no restriction to period, techniques, materials or cultural context, research should however focus on art technology and be related to sources.

We hope to bring together members of the Art Technological Source Research working group, but also enthusiastically welcome and encourage all others interested in art technological source research to submit abstracts. The intention is that all papers presented will be published as postprints. We invite abstracts of maximum 500 words in English, both for oral presentations and posters. Abstracts must contain the title, author(s) name and contact details as well as the body of the abstract. Please indicate whether you are submitting a poster or paper abstract. A short list of references may be included but is not required.

Please send your abstract to the board of the ATSR interim meeting 2019: atsr8(at)f02.th-koeln.de in pdf or docx format.
For further information, please contact Doris Oltrogge (doris.oltrogge(at)th-koeln.de), coordinator of the ATSR working group.