Comments on: The strange quest: Mathematics as Concrete Art

By: Don Quixote tilts at Zeta functions « Maxwell's Demon

Don Quixote tilts at Zeta functions « Maxwell's Demon — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 23:21:34 +0000

[...] readers of this blog will know that I am a fan of impossible quests, and this one comes damn close. In the classic tradition of Don Quixote (which even mentions prime [...]

By: Socolar and Taylor’s aperiodic tile. « Maxwell’s Demon

Socolar and Taylor’s aperiodic tile. « Maxwell’s Demon — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 11:52:33 +0000

[...] regular readers know I have a love of incomplete or impossible quests. One such quest that comes very close to my work is quest for an aperiodic tile. A shape that can [...]

By: Carnival of Mathematics #59 « The Number Warrior

Carnival of Mathematics #59 « The Number Warrior — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:08:21 +0000

[...] Harriss offers support to the thesis that “pure mathematics itself is a branch of concrete [...]

By: Kaz Maslanka

Kaz Maslanka — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:33:35 +0000

Dear Edmund,
You are correct for “buzz word” sounds pejorative and that was not my intent. Furthermore I made another mistake and said constructivism instead of Concrete art. Yet I doubt that Van Doesberg had any idea that he was pointing at pure mathematics. So are we going to say that the aesthetics of mathematics = Concrete art … if so … then so be it. Therefore the vismath movement is really a subset of concrete art and Escher’s work is polyaesthetic in the sense that it incorporates the aesthetics of Concrete art and Visual art.
Cheers,
Kaz

By: Peter Lowe

Peter Lowe — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:13:17 +0000

Dear Edmund

I was delighted to read your blog about the impossible quest. It felt as though you’d had fun writing it. It’s the most incisive writing about art I have read in a long while. I envy you mathematicians for being able to explore ideas most of us can’t even begin to dream about.

Paul Klee was into dreams and geometry and Max Bill attended his classes at the Bauhaus. Klee produced my favourite aphorisms about art , it goes something like this ‘Art is not to render the visible, but to render visible’. i.e. its not just about holding up a platonic mirror to nature.

For Max Bill and some of us, art is a search for pattern. And we are never going to find all the patterns even if we know some symmetries are finite. So it most probably is, like you say, an impossible quest both in maths and concrete art.

By: gelada

gelada — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:07:17 +0000

Kaz, I think you are right in why constructivism takes in mathematical ideas, but the reason for this comes straight from the aesthetics of art, not mathematics. Of course there are many intersections.

I find your other point troubling. Constructivism is an intellectually rigourous movement, not a buzz-word that can be picked up when convenient. There is much maths art that is not constructive art, Escher being a great example.

By: Kaz Maslanka

Kaz Maslanka — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:01:48 +0000

Dear Edmund,
I have a tendency to believe just the opposite in that constructivism has it’s aesthetic rooted in mathematics and very little of its beauty comes from the aesthetics of art. This does not discount the beauty of constructivism, the beauty of mathematics or the beauty in what you are doing.

Furthermore, constructivism could be the buzz word that the mathart community needs to gravitate to. Right now I see the mathart community struggling to make a stand however, I think it is due to no one writing the new manifesto. I think most mathart needs to separate itself from art and be what it is … like you said raw or objective beauty. Art is the expression of culture and mathematics transcends culture. Different things altogether.
Cheers,
Kaz

By: gelada

gelada — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:16:13 +0000

Gunni, I am very sorry to offend. I find it hard to dispute much of what you say, G\”odel especially I would agree did something that no one had done before. Rather than advancing human knowledge he started to map its potential limits. Groethendieck is also a giant, although personally I feel that the importance of his work has been slightly amplified by a cult of generality in mathematics that has never completely convinced me.

However I simply do not recognise your characterisation of concrete art as the realisation that things embed in R^3. Nor do I make any claims for equality. I think that the directions of achievements of Bill, Martin, Gödel and Groethendieck are so distinct that any comparison is not really possible. I know that I would feel the world was made a poorer place by the removal of any of them.

By: Gunni

Gunni — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:22:35 +0000

I don’t often take offence. I think I can count on fingers of both hands the number of times in my adult life that I’ve been offended by something.

I’m offended by you including Groethendieck and Gödel in the same post, paragraph, sentence or breath as, well, almost anyone else.

These are people that fundamentally changed our perspective on everything we took for granted. They advanced human knowledge by leaps and bounds almost unheard of until the beginning of the 20th century.

And here they’re put in the same category as some artists who realized things imbedded in R^3.

I’m sorry, but I’m going to need some stronger arguments for considering these people equals.

By: Craig S. Kaplan

Craig S. Kaplan — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:49:07 +0000

Lovely post Edmund, thanks. As it happens, I’ll be giving a talk on the subject of math and art to a general audience at a local lecture series in a couple of weeks. Your article definitely gives me some great ideas for topics to include. I like the two thrusts of mathematical-art-is-concrete-art and math-itself-is-concrete-art. I might want to bounce further ideas off of you later…