When Volcanology and Art Collide
Recently, NC State volcanologist Arianna Soldati collaborated with a group of artists who work with obsidian glass. In a paper published in the journalVolcanica, Soldati and the artists reveal the results of their shared experimentation and knowledge.
摘要sat down with Soldati to find out what prompted the work, and how two seemingly disparate fields came together over obsidian.
TA:How did this collaboration come about in the first place?
Soldati:Lava is glass. I know this sounds strange, because the two materials may look quite different at first sight, but it usually “clicks” when you think about obsidian. Obsidian is lava (molten material emitted by a volcano), and it is shiny and sharp like glass. It also breaks with a conchoidal fracture, like your typical glass bottle, with a round, clean break. In fact, obsidian is often called volcanic glass or natural glass. It gets its black color from iron within it.
But glass and obsidian have a very important thing in common: their structure. Glass is a weird material in that it’s solid, but not crystalline (ordered) like quartz or diamond. Its atoms are arranged chaotically, because glass goes from being a molten liquid to a cold solid very quickly, so the atoms don’t have time to get in order and form crystals, they just freeze in place. The same thing happens with obsidian.
This similarity between lava and glass is very exciting, because it helps relate what might seem like an exotic and niche field such as volcanology to a very concrete, everyday experience such as looking out a window. And artists have been working with glass way longer than volcanologists have been studying lava, so they can teach us a thing or two! Glass artists have an incredible amount of practical knowledge on the material they work with. We scientists have an understanding of the physical reasons behind some of those behaviors. Doesn’t that sound like the perfect opportunity to learn from each other?
TA:作为火山学家，您最感兴趣地了解有关玻璃的知识，这将如何影响您的工作？
Soldati:我是一名实验火山学家。我有一个很小的炉子，可以在其中融化岩石样品，并有效地将它们变成火山玻璃。我不得不通过反复试验对材料熟悉，这是一项正在进行的工作，近10年了！我仍然对每个唯一样本的行为方式有所不同而感到惊讶。能够在火山学术语框之外考虑一下，从玻璃艺术家对材料及其极限的运营知识中学习，这确实使我成为了一个更好的实验主义者。
TA:What questions did the artists have for you?
Soldati:艺术家有兴趣了解黑曜石和人造眼镜之间行为差异的根源。
All parties approached this collaboration with curiosity for the other’s perspective. Discovering how we use theoretical and practical knowledge of the material to work it or interrogate it, and how we could all grow in our fields by incorporating diverse approaches was the true benefit of this work. We learned how truly complementary the artists’ chaîne operatoire (or operational sequence) and scientists’ experimental protocol are.
TA:你做什么,如果有的话,实验了,什么问题tions were they designed to answer?
Soldati:We wanted to figure out how the viscosity of obsidian changes with temperature and how that compares to other glasses. Viscosity and its variation matter in glasswork because they determine how the glass will behave when it is melted, stretched, poured, cast, blown, etc. Each technique is unique and requires the right match as far as glass material to be successful.
TA:You mention the difficulties of working with “natural” glass like obsidian in the paper – were you able to figure out some workarounds that would help artists interested in working with this material?
Soldati:与传统的人造眼镜相比，我们能够在实验中限制黑曜石的“工作范围”，从而为艺术家提供相关的信息，这些信息可以帮助他们找出黑曜石最适合哪些玻璃工作过程，哪些温度调节可能是有益的。我们还能够形式化玻璃艺术家开发的脱水过程（天然玻璃中的许多“麻烦”来自其中的水蒸气气泡）。但是，一些艺术家拥抱了这些挑战，并创造了普通玻璃不会实现的惊人作品！
TA:Is there more to explore here going forward? If so, what are your next steps?
Soldati:Yes, always! But in art – and science, although we tend to forget – we can’t always map out the road ahead. We are looking forward to being surprised!
