OxTalks is Changing
OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
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Sonic emblems & magic squares: Atalanta fugiens and Ludic humanism in the 21st century
Atalanta fugiens is a musical alchemical emblem book that has fascinated readers since its publication 400 years ago. A virtuoso work that fuses music, art, and natural philosophy into a paean to wisdom achieved through alchemical practice, it playfully engages our senses of sound and sight in unpacking the book’s complex, enigmatic alchemical program. Its experience is reimagined in Furnace & Fugue: A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens (1618) with Scholarly Commentary (Nummedal & Bilak, eds. UVAP, 2020) through, for example, manipulable vocal recordings of Atalanta’s “fugues,” and a multi-functional space that allows readers to curate and share image collections. The Oxford HSMT presentation by Donna Bilak and Loren Ludwig (Furnace & Fugue Music Director and contributor) discusses the ludic qualities of Maier’s book and ways that Furnace & Fugue extends sensory interactivity with Maier’s ideas through digital technology. Atalanta’s “alchemical fugues” are cleverly conceived as musical games whose solutions work across multiple registers (musical, alchemical, and Classical); also, Maier seems to have designed Atalanta’s emblems around a concealed a mathematical puzzle that is revealed to the reader upon decoding clues that are scattered throughout the work. These aspects of Atalanta fugiens challenge our notion of “reading.” As a digital artefact, Furnace & Fugue playfully expands the ludic possibilities suggested in Maier’s book for engaging with musica, alchemy, and history.
Date:
30 November 2020, 16:00
Venue:
Online with Zoom
Speakers:
Donna Bilak (Independent Scholar),
Loren Ludwig (Scholar Performer)
Organising department:
Oxford Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology
Organiser contact email address:
hsmt@history.ox.ac.uk
Part of:
Oxford Centre for the History of Science Medicine & Technology (OCHSMT) Seminars and Events
Booking required?:
Required
Booking url:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwlcuuprD4pH9UXCpqG-Nqy8KG1lbwTHKuU
Audience:
Public
Editor:
Laura Spence
