University of North Texas

Shane Mecklenburger’s work has taken him to a fairly unusual place for an artist — the chemistry lab.

There, the assistant professor in the College of Visual Arts and Design is deactivating gunpowder through a process developed by Justin Youngblood, assistant professor of chemistry. With funds from a UNT Research Initiation Grant, the gunpowder will then be turned into a work of art - a diamond.

The gunpowder diamond will be the first creation in Mecklenburger’s interdisciplinary art project that explores what people value by producing a series of synthetic diamonds from carbon sources that have little or no market value. By creating diamonds from unusual sources, the project aims to raise awareness of global issues while encouraging a conversation about society’s values.

“We can all relate to diamonds as objects with a certain value that everyone recognizes,” Mecklenburger said. “So seeing a diamond made from something we don’t associate with a high market value points out the way we value things. The project is asking: What is this worth?”

Is a diamond — generally considered an item of beauty and value — worth something different if made out of gunpowder?

“Gunpowder is culturally charged, and there is a very interesting debate on the availability of firearms in this country,” he said. “The project creates a situation in which will spark conversation about a very complicated issue.”

Life Gem, a company that makes diamonds from the cremated remains of loved ones, will create diamonds of the material that Mecklenburger sends. The first will be the Gunpowder Diamond, made out of the explosive material inside .223 caliber Remington assault weapon cartridges.

The next diamond will be made of material Mecklenburger dries in an electric kiln: roadkill, specifically Nine-Banded Armadillos killed on Texas thoroughfares. The Roadkill Diamond addresses industrialization and immigration. Armadillos are native to Mexico, and although they are the state animal of Texas, they only began migrating North of the Rio Grande 150 years ago.  

A third diamond will be made from a 35mm cellulose acetate film reel of the 1983 movie Superman III, specifically the scene in which Superman crushes a lump of coal into a diamond. The Superman Diamond comments on the value of the “never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way.”

The diamonds will be exhibited, along with a live auction to determine their value, with the first exhibition likely to occur in Fall 2011. Mecklenburger has a list of other carbon-based items he’d like to turn into art diamonds to spark a dialogue about societal values. In future projects, he’d like to pursue diamonds made from pizza, devalued currency and plastic from the Trash Vortex in the Pacific Ocean, an area where currents have pushed debris together.

Mecklenburger is a member of UNT’s interdisciplinary research cluster known as the Initiative for Advanced Research in Technology and the Arts (iARTA). iARTA aims to allow faculty members from different disciplines to draw on one another’s expertise and have a constant dialogue about the crossroads between science technology, music, dance, theater and visual arts.

Below, Mecklenburger, left, and Youngblood.