Introduction to Apperceptual

"Apperceptual" is an extremely interesting blog about semantics and language run by Peter Turney and is well worth your time looking at it. Peter and I have differing opinions on art and culture however his topics of interest are fascinating and well worth reading. I will say that I imagine that his interests are more scientific than most poets aspire to however, we can learn a lot from him.

Please check out these links:
This one really helps validate the importance of "Proportional Poems"
This one shows how we can create "Golden" "Proportional Poems"
This one discusses criticism of my favorite cognitive scientist George Lakoff.

A math art moment #13

Art is the expression of culture.
Pure mathematics is independent of culture therefore, cultureless.



To see more delineations click here

Salvation

Here is the full image of my piece, 'Salvation'. The two houses you see in the image are bath houses just outside the temple bridge at Songgwangsa temple in Korea. These bath houses are used to bathe the ghosts of our ancestors as a requirement before they are allowed into the temple. A detail of the Proportional Poem is below.

Bathing Ghosts

Here is a Proportional Poem titled "Salvation". This was inspired by my recent visit to the Korean Zen Temple Songgwangsa

The image above is a detail from the image below

New Proportional Poem Blog

I have created another blog to collect Proportional Poems made by you. Proportional Poems are probably the easiest mathematical poem to make because you don’t have to be a math person to make one. Check out this link for an understanding of Proportional Poems and check out this link for the blog.
Please contribute!

Memories by Charlotte Whatley

Here is a Proportional Poem by Charlotte Whatley

Gratitude by Jean M Kelley

Here is a proportional poem by Jean M Kelley

Rhythm of Structure

John Sims has been putting together a series of mathart events in NYC which will occur at different times throughout the year. I am looking forward to an event later this next summer for which Richard Kostelanetz, Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Bob Grumman, Stephane Strickland and myself will be involved. To get on Johns Mailing list - contact him @ RhythmOfStructure@gmail.com

Whispers

Here is a new proportional poem that I created titled Whispers.

Place Value Poems by Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino

Professor St. Thomasino has developed a new structure for Mathematical poetry that I will add to the taxonomy in the side bar of this blog. What he has done is mapped the decimal notation system “onto” a sentence or set of phrases to “Place value” on the phrases. Focusing attention to the syntax of the poem. Here is an example of one of his poems called “Molotov’s Sister”:

a blonde bomber,she.smokes filterless,plays upright bass & writes haiku

Notice the decimal point and the commas. The commas delineate the digit/phrases in the poem and the decimal denotes where the decimal exists in this number. In essence we have the set of phrases that would equate to the following 100 x a blonde bomber, 10 x she . 1/10 x smokes filterless, 1/100 times plays upright bass & writes haiku

I have created a visual counter-part to the poem so that you can see the dynamic range of meaning mapped to each phrase. (images above)

The first image gives you the size differences in each decimal place and the second image groups the poem in detail so that it is readable.

Clowning Around With Euler

Euler's Formula

Craig Damrauer

I just ran across a new math poet who seems to be getting some good attention and has an interview featured here. Much of Craig Damrauer’s work seems to be inspired by his relationship to his family and his surroundings. I find a lot of his stuff to be whimsical yet there are a few that are philosophical. Most of the work is arithmetic yet there are a few orthogonal space poems which would fit under the category of algebraic pieces. (This reminds me I need to put a category in my taxonomy for arithmetic poetry)
I have some examples below of his work:

I think my favorite is the one below.


some exponents for your consumption


Here (below) is an orthogonal space poem

The next one reminds me of one of my pieces which equates value proportional to need.

400 bucks?




To see more of his work check out his site here at this link

Disappearing Context

If you are not familiar with "Similar Triangle Poems" please read this link before going further.


One of the things that excite me the most about mathematical poetry is the fact that one can mathematically merge poems into each other. The results of these operations are extremely interesting in how the context of the common variable disappears. Or in other words the common context that both poems share … disappears. This is a feature that no other poetic form can accomplish and we are going to accomplish it in this blog entry. One can perform this feat on multiple mathematical poems however we are going to show how it is done on just two. The first thing that one needs to have ready is at least two poems that share a common “variable” or “term.” In our example (above) we have the common context of “money”. In other words both mathematical poems share a common term in the form of a word, in this case money. In the first poem we have the idea that Man is to Blood as God is to Money and simultaneously we have the idea that Man is to God as Blood is to Money.** In addition we have the second poem which states that The Victor is to “Honor in War” as Money is to “Righteous Effort” And Simultaneously it says The Victor is to Money as “Honor in War” is to “Righteous Effort”

Now let’s solve both poems for the term “Money”

The image above shows both poems ‘solved’ for money. Since both poems are now in the form of being equal to money then we now must set both poems equal to each other. By setting them equal to each other we have merged the two poems together and everything is still logically intact. The image below shows both poems set equal to each other.



Now that we have the two poems merged into one let’s look at how the meaning has been changed by the reformation. Let us solve the new poem for the term “Honor in War” and see how it reads.



Wow! This poem reads right out of a Patriots Bible yet the two poems that created it were both cynical and possibly sarcastic in relation to the Patriot's beliefs. Once the context of money was taken out we have an entirely new situation. This reminds me of how a person can be consciously holding back a lie yet, speaks dancing truths all around the lie. In this case the money is the lie.

**Also an interesting feature of Mathematical Poetry is that all the different possible syntax structures in a poem exist at the same time therefore when you read a mathematical poem, in each of their different syntax states, the temporal meaning of the poem fills up much like a glass of water when you turn on the faucet.

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.

A man's intelligence

I once said that a man’s intelligence flows inversely proportional to the levels of alchol and testosterone in his system.

Just recently some scientific validation came in the form of this link

The 2005 poem below was inspired by the relationship expressed above.

Problems Encountered With Mathematical Poetry

Here is a perfect example of why mathematical poetry will have problems at least in the near future. In the blog entry copied bellow (and at this link) the author is complaining that the originator for a set of equations published in the brochure for the Biennale of Sydney is numerically illiterate. Curiously enough I think they should have said mathematically illiterate for numbers are not involved in these examples. That said, I am not sure that it is true that the originator was mathematically illiterate as well. The author claims that the expression, “Art = tyranny” is a false statement yet, historically there has been countless examples of art that has been inspired by or executed to express tyranny. A good example would be the artistic turmoil created around 1911 in Zurich Switzerland, for the entire Dada movement’s intention was to be tyrannical (Anti-Art)… as well as the copy cats that came after. Obviously the problem brought to question in this brochure is how one reads an equation. Is the equation to be read as poetry or science? Too many people think that an equation is automatically scientific in its expression. If this myopic attitude is left to continue, mathematics will be in denotative chains forever. When one reads poetry one searches for the proper context to give it meaning in relation to their life. One looks at the many facets of a poem to see what it is pointing to. “Art = tyranny” is a perfect expression for Dada, Punk or any other nihilist form or art.
Now to give our author the benefit of the doubt we could agree with him/her if the originator’s intention was scientific however, I can hardly see scientific intent in this expression even if it were meant to be.

It Don't Add Up
The Biennale of Sydney has put out an advance brochure that contains the two equations:

art + beauty + empathy = power

power – beauty – empathy = tyranny


Anyone with a primary school understanding of mathematics knows that if you solve these equations for the term ‘art’ you will discover that the claim being made is that

art = tyranny

If the Biennale of Sydney wants to communicate its ideas in the form of equations, perhaps it should run them by someone with a primary school level of numerical literacy before publishing them. Didn’t anyone in the accounts section twig that the Biennale of Sydney is spreading the message throughout the world that art equals tyranny???

Here is the mathematical solution:

art + beauty + empathy = power

art + empathy = power – beauty

art = power – beauty – empathy

given already that power – beauty – empathy = tyranny

then it follows

art = tyranny

Future Freedom

Here is an orthogonal space poem inspired by the mid east situation.

Paradigm Poems From Anand Bora

He are some good examples of the paradigm poem from Anand Bora.

Bob Grumman

This page is to collect important links to the work of Bob Grumman

Mathemaku No 6a

Long division example

Mathemaku 6-12

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