Trip Report
Isama/Bridges
For several years I’ve been collaborating with an artist to explore the relationships
between mathematics and art. Initially we had difficulty finding appropriate
conferences to attend; but there seems to be more the past few years. This is our third
art/math conference and the second at which she’s exhibited artworks and
delivered a paper.
Isama is the Intl Soc for Art, Math and Architecture; Bridges has existed for a
decade and concerns itself with math, art and music.
Why
been enlightened about the wonders
of the
of the tiles which adorn the walls of the palaces. For years we’ve desired to visit
works were accepted.
Attendence was limited to about 100 in order to encourage discussion. This was effective.
Comments on the talks were lively, often revealing the gaps between math and art. For
example, an artist might be terribly unimpressed by any mathematical details whereas
the mathematicians would question why the artist didn’t pursue this or that mathematical
tact although their interests were
artistic. In general, there was much more interest,
support and critique of
one another's work than there would be at a math conference.
Outside the talks we took advantage of the chances
(coffee break at noon,lunch 2:00 - 4:00, dinner 8:00-, tours, concerts)
to get acquainted with many of the
attendees from several countries.
Naturally, considering the location, several talks concerned analysis of art, esp. relevant
to the location were Lovric's on the mosaics in the Alhambra, Bodner's on classification
of patterns in Islamic art, Saloojee's on metaphores in the Alhambra, and Castera's
(see his book "Arabesques").
Related papers that were particulary impressive were Palmer's on painting mosaics
and one by a James, James and Kalisperis (a mathematician, an anthropologist, and
an architect) who did a thorough analysis of the frieze patterns on the buildings
on the Greek island of Pirgi.
Many of the other papers concerned
A few of the mathematical concepts that occurred included:
You might still expect something on Mandelbrot and Julia sets. Although there were only
three papers there were about nine prints by six different artists in the exhibition. Any
one of the prints would have been a handsome addition to an office, a home or a hall in the
CMC. But collectively, they were too similar – not in the subject matter, but in the way
they were printed. Each was about two feet by three feet, the same colors were used, and
they looked as though they all came off the same printer. There seemed to be no
artistic control other than the choice of what to display. The whole was less
than any one of its parts.
The best paper along these lines had an educational focus. Bahman Kalantari iterates
polynomials of your choice and colors the convergence regions to produce artistic
forms. His “posynomial” package is geared toward high school
students to spark their interest in studying polynomials. I though it was quite effective
In “Conceptual Art” it’s the concept that’s important not the execution. Thus Sol
LeWitt conceived his stack of cubes, had the cubes professional produced and then
stacked according to his specification. He’s the artist because he perceived it,
not because he produced it. (Q: If someone only conceived an art but never had it
produced, would it still be art?)
You may have heard of Susan Happersett who was featured in an article on math and art
in Time magazine. Her work on exhibit was a long scroll of pairs of panels containing
the Fibonacci sequence in unary. (Good idea that scroll, easy to ship.) Although she
followed an algorithm she also desired "to find a visual way to express the intrinsic
aesthetics of mathematics."Similarly, Sharol Nau in her Goldbach tilings (currently on
display at St. Mary’s Univ. in Winona the artist assures us "The companion of repetition
is variety. Theme with variation is the key to interesting composition. Variation
includes texture, color, size, emphasis and balance."
When mathematicians made suggestions to them, e.g. Susan, why don’t you try binary or
Sharol, why not use trinomials, the artists replied kindly
that they might try that (and see if it’s any good.)
Speaking of aesthetics - there were four discussion-invoking papers on computer metrics for
aesthetics of artworks. The artists claimed "but you didn't take ... into account!";
while the mathematicians retorted "We'll add that in later; this was just a start."
(Idea: What if I were able to measure aesthetic choices made by an artist, then
generate randomly similar choices a few days later, and let her make a selection.
To what degree are the aesthetics hers or the machine's?)
Some math and art we didn’t see or hear about:
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