Prospecting Alchemy as Ludicrous Critique of Capitalist Imaginaries: A Picture-Play

Prospecting Alchemy as Ludicrous Critique of Capitalist Imaginaries: A Picture-Play

Mary Anne Francis, Claire Scanlon

This exposition plunders the iconosphere to prospect alchemy, discovering its multi-cultural histories, spiritual and scientific legacies, and diverse protagonists. It embraces the ‘ludicrous’ as a neglected register for artistic research, foregrounding visual play as both method and mode of critique.

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keywords:
alchemy
game as collaborative research / method
petrochemical capitalism: industrial extractivism
Faustian pact
eco-feminist critique
material and spiritual transmutations
(the metaphorical) philosopher's stone
visual epistemology
dialogic picture-play
online copy-left image-research
subscendent digital object
OPEN EXPOSITION open accessible version
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