"Beginning with the oil blowout in 1922 that is considered the moment that marked Venezuela's entry into a 'modern' era, Refined Material explores the integral relationship between Venezuelan oil industry and artistic production. In this groundbreaking study, Sean Nesselrode Moncada examines Venezuela's mid-century art and architecture in an argument that reinforces the inextricability of the rise of a capitalist and centralized state from life, activism, and art. Oil provided the crucible for national reinvention, ushering in a period of dizzying optimism and bitter disillusion as artists, architects, graphic designers, activists, and critics sought to define the terms of modernity. Looking at five different but interrelated case studies--a print magazine, a planned housing community, a luxury hotel, a kinetic museum installation, and a documentary film--this book brings forth a novel reading to the renowned Venezuelan modernist canon and reveals how the logic of refinement conditioned the terms of development and redefined our relationship to nature, matter, and one another"--

Sugar became a social marker that established and reinforced class and gender differences."--BOOK JACKET.

World-class scientists and engineers from more than six countries presented thirty-five papers on topics such as magnesium casting technology, metal matrix composites, mathematical modelling, solidification and reduction of light metals. Metal matrix composites are an important class of advanced industrial materials and significant advances have been achieved recently on the fabrication and characterization of their microstructures and mechanical properties.