Furnaces

The 7th ICCCIA emphasizes technical and aesthetic developments within contemporary cast iron art through a range of iron furnace-related programs. These include cupola building where furnaces are made specifically for the conference often to meet specific production or sculptural needs; international cupolas, where regional cupolas are solicited for use in the conference sometimes to meet production pour capacity needs or as exemplary furnaces of particular interest or characteristic; specialty cupolas, where new developments in cupola building can be explored and showcased such as environmentally low-impact furnaces that can run on alternative fuels; and aesthetic cupolas. Performance furnaces are designed and built primarily for aesthetic exploration where the iron produced is not relevant from a production viewpoint but is significant in terms of an aesthetic or performative experience. The exploration of the equipment of a process – the iron furnace – as an aesthetic form is unique to the discipline of contemporary cast iron art and often reaches its highest and most experimental form during the ICCCIA.

Aesthetic Furnaces These will include performance-based furnaces that are built with aesthetic considerations paramount, where the furnace itself will function as a sculpture and vehicle for performance possibilities.

International Furnaces Furnaces  will be procured locally in Latvia, regionally from Finland, Estonia and Poland and possibly specialty furnaces will be procured from the UK and other countries

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Hans Wolfe – Cupola Building Art Department Chair, the Colorado Springs School – hwolfe/at/css/dot/org