Nu Math by Karl Kempton

Karl Kempton - Meditation Formula

Here is something recent from Karl Kempton.

Karl Kempton's Sun Plus Moon

Another example of Karl Kempton's Visual Poetry 

New From Karl Kempton

This is a new little diddy from Karl Kempton. I am not sure if he had a title for it but if I could title this piece, I would title it: "I don't trust language"

Mathematical Zen Poems By Karl Kempton

Here Are A Couple Of Mathematical Zen Poems By Karl Kempton

"The Root of Pi" by Karl Kempton

Here is a visual poem with mathematical facets done by Karl Kempton and titled "The Root of Pi"

Proof With Words by Art Benjamin

Here is one submitted to me by Xenharmonic Guru John Chalmers. This is right in line with Karl Kemptons thread of thought

Buddhist Mathematics by Karl Kempton

Here is a new version of an older piece by Karl Kempton

What is Mathematical Poetry?

Lately, there has been a bit of passionate yet conflicting talk debating the definition of Mathematical Poetry among those who care. I will present six definitions. You pick what you like best or come up with your own.

Here is Bob Grumman’s:
A mathematical poem is a poem some or all of whose verbal elements undergo a mathematical operation centrally important to the poem that is simultaneously both significantly mathematical and significantly verbal–in the opinion of those capable of appreciating the poem.

Here is Karl Kempton’s:
A visual poem must contain a visual element consciously composed so that the poem must be seen to fully grasp meaning and experience, a mathematical poem must contain a mathematical operation, such as a addition, to fully grasp meaning and experience. a mathematical poem can or not be a visual poem.

Here is Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino’s ‘working’ definition:
The “mathematical poem,” if it is to be, or to contain, poetry, must have some poetic elements, as well as some formal symbols and operations of math.
I want to emphasize that by “operations of math” I do not mean that the poem will be “doing math.” What I mean is that the poem will be, in some way or in some sense — be that metaphorical, allegorical, but for the most part figurative — mimicking or imitating or finding a trope in that operation (whichever that operation may be). (I emphasize: I do not mean that the poem is “doing math.” Math does math. The poem is representational.)

Here is Kaz Maslanka’s: Mathematical Poetry is a umbrella term that covers any poetic expression involving Mathematics. Maslanka has broken mathematical poetry into five categories – they can be viewed here

Here is Sarah Glaz's: Mathematical poetry is an umbrella term for poetry with a strong link to mathematics in either imagery, content, or structure. -click here for more-

Here is JoAnne Growney's: Years ago when I first began to bring poetry into my mathematics classrooms, I used the term “mathematical poetry” to refer to poems in which some of the imagery involves mathematics; it was a sort of “applied mathematics.” Now, after lots of reading and exploring, the possibilities for math-related poetry seem nearly endless--including shaped poems, functional poems, permutation poems, various Oulipian structures, and then--on the Internet--a myriad of possibilities including animated poems, interactive poems (including linked hypertext), and so on. These days, I mostly avoid the term “mathematical poetry” (since I can’t formulate a definition that satisfies me). Instead, I think of the multiple possibilities as intersections of mathematics and poetry. (See, for example my blog: “Intersections -– Poetry with Mathematics.”)

Six Alone In - Karl Kempton

Here is a new'Mathematical Visual Poem' by Karl Kempton - first published in Turkey here

Meeting Karl Kempton

I met the visual poet Karl Kempton face to face for the first time last weekend (he is on the right). My wife and I experienced a wonderful dinner/picnic with Karl and his wife on the shore of Pismo beach. He gave me a stack of his books and publications to read. It was a grand meeting however; it went by way too fast. Here is a shot (above) of Karl and I located in the beautiful garden designed by Ruth Kempton.
Here is a link to one of my favorite essays of his.

Spirituality - At The California Art Institute in San Diego

I am a little late since the show is coming down Monday July 27th however, I would like to mention its existence for Karl Kempton and I were co-curators for it. Some of the work was very good and I felt it was appropriate to the challenge however; other works in the show reminded me of visual Karaoke. Spirituality is a pretty challenging theme if you wish to avoid the clichés of religious dogma. I tried to challenge the group by exposing them to a couple of essays:
The Dangers of Spiritual Art By Me
and
Carrying poetry into the 21st century by Karl Kempton

Maslanka and Kempton at Escondido Municipal Gallery

My piece “The Lotto” and Karl Kempton’s piece “My Big Mouth” has been accepted into the “Synthesis show” and will be held from June 11 to July 3, 2009 at Escondido California Municipal Gallery
Reception:
Saturday June 13th 5:30 to 8:00pm
262 East Grand Ave. Escondido California
www.escondidoarts.org

Dusk by Karl Kempton

The following four images comprise a new minimalist visual poem by Karl Kempton. It could easily be said that each slide is a separate poem as well. I would like to draw our attention to the first slide which certainly can be viewed as mathematical poem in its own right. What is signature in this first slide (poem) is Karl’s use of text (there is no image as a rendering, there is just text, yet the images come through). It has a lot of the same simple and elegant features that remind me of Marton Koppany’s work.
The other three slides add an artistic breadth to the original idea in the first slide. It’s a very nice piece Karl! Thanks!

Kempton's Mouth

Karl Kempton has expanded his mathematical paradigm poem “My Big Mouth” into a polyaesthetic series show below. Very nice Karl! I especially like the last image which I would love to see at the bridges show in Banff this summer.

Kempton's View

Karl Kempton has sent me a paradigm mathematical poem (above) in response to the last two blog posts; so let's look at it. The image shows the volume of a ellipsoidal solid with the three ellipse radii defined metaphorically. The first radii is a value of "lack of forethought" and the second being an radius of "ego" and the last radii being the ratio of "attachment" divided by "humility" and all of this is equal to "my big mouth".

Thanks Karl for illuminating my problem :)

On The Dangers of Spiritual Art

Karl Kempton sent me the piece (shown above). It, as well as other works of his spawned the following essay.

I feel that one of the most dangerous areas of contemporary art comes when the artist makes him/herself a target by embracing spiritual concerns. Our society enjoys pointing fingers at the inadequacies of institutionalized religion (there are many) and ignoring the archetypical ideas of the spirit that have brought us the wonderful icons of the past. These spiritual metaphors have manifested themselves throughout history in many forms always relating to the culture of the artist. Many of the ideas of religions are obsolete and don’t function well in societies as diverse and ever-changing as ours. The artistic challenge of spirit is an extremely difficult task especially when trying to use historically loaded iconography of current dominant religions. I think many of the artistic phobias associated with the spirit are due to our experience of so many ‘so-called’ spiritual artists, who have created cliché kitsch or dogmatic concepts that accent the hypocritical ideas of the church or yet have forged an audaciously different direction aligning themselves with likes of aliens from other planets. Also to note, there seems to be a direct conflict between science and the spirit, which is anxiously evident when scientific minds address spiritual matters. I believe the problem is based in the illusiveness of Truth in both arenas. There are many that think that Truth is defined by science using the language of mathematics. Others believe Truth is beyond logic and only evoked through the metaphoric language of a spiritual ritual. Then there is my personally distasteful category of those who think that Truth is defined by their particular religion or should I say defined by their particular church. Focusing on the later idea we see that human nature tends to have many conflicts and from a historical perspective, one of the most destructive is the religious “us versus them conflict.” I see churches tending to promote this kind of behavior due to its doctrine being fed through so many egos. On the same line of thinking, the testosterone of the self righteous seems to have made its way into religion and spiritual matters to set up so many of the conflicts that we humans engage in. Many have died and continue to die in spiritual wars created by the religious intolerant.

The fact that the conflicts exist, illustrate how illusive Truth is. It seems to me that science is no better when it comes to Truth. The eminent scientist David Boehm points out that science does not find Truth, its purpose is to correlate experience. Also in this vein, we can see that there are those who provide great arguments against the platonic nature of mathematics pointing out numerous problems with using mathematics as a true model for reality. I see the bottom line being that the terra firma of veracity is constantly shifting; therefore, we must accept this fact and move on. The eastern mystics use the metaphor, “form is emptiness and emptiness is form”.

I believe it is the function of special artists to assimilate as much information as possible from the diverse cross-planet cultural ideas not limited to including the concepts of science so that they can re-contextualize, synthesize and synergize their metaphors to be acute and pertinent to the global culture today. They must fully embody the ideas of love and tolerance as if the ideas were new so as to debride the cliché skins attached to them. As impossible this task seems, it is the challenge of those artists to reconnect the loose strands of past archetypical works and re-contextualize them to breathe new life in today’s world. Their job is not to run from the spiritual confusion that permeates the ever-changing cultures on this globe by hiding in some self-conceived scientific illusion of truth without spirit. That is not to say that science cannot be the new religion … it can. However, the spiritual scientist must connect the magical and irrational mind to scientific metaphors so that our spiritual understanding can be flexible as science metamorphoses. The past mytho-spiritual ideas were always based in the science of the times. It takes courage to navigate through the mental minefield of past ‘truths’ finding new veracity that resonates in ones psyche as they express it and expose themselves to the ridicule of being an irrational kook.

I believe the special artist/poets should focus their efforts to make metaphors current to our historical and sociological condition. The purpose of a metaphor is to bridge the infinite to the concrete. Many people feel that past mytho-spiritual/religious metaphors are absolute in the notion that they permanently point to the infinite. Personally speaking, I see the veracity of metaphors being temporal with their cultural relevance having different half-lives. What can confuse matters is that the half-life in some metaphors have existed for such a long time that they seem absolute. There is an argument that the Bastian elemental ideas and Jungian archetypes are absolute. Even if this is true, the metaphors employing those elemental ideas always need recontextualizing to be relevant to the current cultural thought. The frustrating aspect for the artist is having so little control over the fertility of the inspiration process. I wish I could say that artists had full control over the source and production of their metaphors. However, it seems to me that their strength, viability and temporality are a function of graciousness, imparted from the muses. I believe it is though the struggle and success with life that these special artists acquire the molecular building blocks of a vocabulary that becomes the means of their expressions. These ideas logically coagulate around an infinite idea provided to them by the unknown.

Karl Kempton Links

The Mathematical Visual Poetry of Karl Kempton links:
Revista de Poesia

M is for Mathematica

Runes about Karl's runes by Karl Young

The Root of Pi

Mathematical Poetry links:

Buddhist Mathematics

My Big Mouth

Mouth

Dusk

Six Alone In

Zen Poems

About Karl Kempton:

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North America's Longest Running Visual Poetry Magazine Edited by Karl Kempton, Harry Polkinhorn, and Karl Young -- Kaldron

Critical writings of Karl Kempton:

VISUAL POETRY: A Brief History of Ancestral Roots and Modern Traditions

CARRYING POETRY INTO THE 21ST CENTURY