Study of filigree patterns for biomedical jewellery applications

Published research has come about through considering sites on and in the body at different archaeological layers (from outer to inner physical space) viz. orthotics, subdermal, exodermal, exo-corporeal and intracorporeal jewellery. These layers present a series of medical jewels that recognise science, jewellery and technology as accomplices to the repair and enhancement of the self while adding value to the mended body. Rather than only a medium for expression, the repaired or fixed body becomes a locus for experience, symbolism and aestheticisation – the jewel is understood as to both aestheticise the body (it becomes you) and become integrated and integral to the body. Olga Noronha (PI of the project) in her practice-based thesis, “becoming the body”, indexes an aesthetic enhancement of the body; naturalisation in the body – as a body replacement or part of it; completion or repair of the body and a prosthetic enhancement. By moving jewellery to surgical repair, the research and its practices test the boundary/edge of what jewellery is and is not, what it may mobilise, and how it may perform. The discursive-ness of the practice is defined by understanding how the different designs perform in different situations, provoking and rising questions that are both specific to and cross contrasting scenarios.