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“Wearable Metal Origami” is a research leading to a collection of wearable objects, made from metallised folding textile. The research engages with current concerns in industrialised society, where new materials and innovative products are in demand. The material I have developed is influenced by historical and contemporary jewellery and clothing as well as by deployable structures; folding patterns are based on folding patterns in nature and on the knowledge of origami mathematicians; production processes include traditional printing and jewellery techniques. Bridging all these disciplines, the outcome is a novel material that could be used in various design fields but is particularly relevant to jewellery for its striking visual character, its flexible movement which easily adjusts to the human body, and the possibility to use precious metals. I based my research in the department of Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork and Jewellery because this department had helped me develop the initial material during my MA course, so I knew it could provide me with the necessary equipment and support in designing wearable pieces. My project was finally conducted within a departmental team research project (Deployable Adaptive Structures) in which my colleagues investigated the broader application of metallised or otherwise tessellated folded textile in such fields as interior architecture, sunscreens and water sculptures, and ways of actuating the material either virtually or by mechanical means. ““Wearable Metal Origami”?” is based on MA project work, where I had used one folding pattern and found one production method. I strongly believed that this material would be ideal for the creation of jewellery and larger wearable objects if I could expand the range of flexibly moving patterns, improve the production process of the material and develop appropriate design processes. My research set out to fulfil these requirements and prove the value of the material in the context of metalwork and jewellery and the applied arts. To expand the range of folding patterns I collected and analysed existing tessellating origami patterns. With this knowledge I created my own variations. All patterns were evaluated on their suitability for “Wearable Metal Origami” and a basic classification was made, based on their folding properties. A small selection of patterns was then tested to get an understanding of the influence of plate thickness, hinge width and hinge flexibility by making card-textile and plywood-textile models. I developed and tested new processes for the production of the metallised folding textile. These included preparatory processes (before electroforming), electroforming and various ways of treating the material after electroforming. Each process was evaluated on its practicality. To develop appropriate design processes for wearable objects of Metallised Folding Textile I ran four case studies, each with its own design brief. I set the briefs in such a way that they addressed different parts of the body and different qualities of the material, such as changing shape and flexibility. For each application an origami pattern was chosen and adjusted through a process of trial and error until it had the correct proportions and movement.

Gold Foil Figures or guldgubbar (henceforth GFFs) are precious metal artefacts from the Scandinavian Late Iron Age. This master's essay offers a new approach to GFFs. As opposed to the established understanding of GFFs as representational images with real or mythic referents, belonging to an aristocratic milieu, this essay instead attends to GFFs in terms of their material and Figural traits. The material for this study consists if 42 GFFs from the find site of Västra Vång, Blekinge, Sweden. A comprehensive presentation of this artefact material is a secondary aim of this essay. With the aid of a neomaterialist theoretical apparatus that draws heavily on the work of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Wilhelm Worringer, the 42 GFFs undergo two separate analyses. In the first, the material traits expressed in the sequence of GFF production and deposition is studied in terms of a chaîne opératoire. In the second, I attend to the non-significatory expressive qualities of form and expression, or Figural traits, belonging to these 42 GFFs within the wider artistic milieu of Animal Style Ornamentation. I conclude that GFFs were as a rule artefacts made for purposes of immediate disposal, not display, as a mode of dispersing gold. Västra Vång’s GFFs offer several indications that handling between the cutting operation and deposition was minimal, such as the fresh, unworn edges. The thin, brittle foils are ill suited to display. Approaching the designs on these artefacts as various sets of Figural traits being expressed allows me to contextualise the GFFs within the wider artistic milieu of Animal Style Ornamentation. New territorial rhythms can be established only as certain elements are freed from a settled state, and made to act together with new elements, in new terrains. GFFs bring about new territorial rhythms of form and expression to gold matter, gold made to circulate as it becomes deterritorialised from a monetary function within the Roman economy. A flow of gold is extended as gold is brought to Scandinavia from continental economies. The influx of this flow of gold is not contained to an élite social stratum. Individuals in possession of minute amounts of gold returned to Scandinavia, having acquired gold as payment for involvement in military operations on the continent. This ownership of gold may have hindered their harmonious reintegration into a society based on other economic principles. The GFFs emerge as a vector of dispersing gold. The artistic expression of Figural traits is equally energised by movements of de- and reterritorialisation. Understanding that the Figural traits expressed on the GFFs from Västra Vång are part of a wider artistic milieu of Animal Style Ornamentation, alongside other systematised expressions making up parts of a collective assemblage of enunciation, makes their appearance on artefacts that were deposited immediately upon their manufacture easier to grasp. The particular procedures of miniaturisation allowed for an acceleration of the expression of variation in the conjunction of a flow of artistic expression onto a flow of gold matter. The dispersive handling of gold must be traced to both the material premises and the expressive artistic ones. Gold is not chosen because it is precious, or because of what it connotes, but because it is available, because the artisan smith is attendant to its traits as a metal matter.