Vannoccio Biringuccio's 16th-century how-to book for the practicioner of "pyrotechnical arts" was a practical guide for distilling liquids, refining metals and mixing gun powder. Daniel E. Kelm placed his books in glass cylinders representing Biringuccio's furnaces, one for each of the "elements" of ancient science-earth, air, fire and water-in Templum Elementorum.
Historia naturalis was muse to M.L. Van Nice, whose Plinitude includes elements of the natural world: seeds, insect wings and feathers.
Geoffrey Hendrick's QUADRANT / A Meditation on Tycho Brahe, inspired by the work of the Danish astonomer, is like a game. It has a nose, ear and hand and asks the viewer to reflect on how scenses perceive the world.
M.J. Conners' On the Commotion Contact Perpetuates, equates the hubub of human social interaction with the excitement of electricity in Alessandro Volta's pile battery.
Some parts of the Ten Books of Vitruvius by Laura Davidson open to become rooms. They are based on the writings of the first-century engineer whose work influenced Renaissance architects.
In 1793 Christian Sprengel published a treatise examining how flower color, shape and scent attract insect pollinators; Frances Butler celebrates a different flour in The Taxonomy of Desire, a catalog of pasta organized by color, shape and taste.
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