| LKL Maths-Art seminar series: Mystery and Wonder |
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Location: London Knowledge Lab - large seminar room
Host/Speaker: Phillip Kent, John Sharp
Date and Time:
Tuesday, 08 January 2008, 18:00 - 19:30
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Mystery and Wonder, Play and Discovery: Mathematics and Art as Creative
Activities
An LKL Maths-Art discussion event
This month our event will take the form of an open discussion
rather than a long seminar presentation.
The theme of the discussion is
to consider mathematics and art as creative activities in imagined spaces: What
are the motivations which drive individuals to do mathematics or art? What
characterises an interesting starting point -- a "problem", as mathematicians
tend to say -- for work in mathematics or art? Interesting explorations often
begin with a mystery: why does a certain configuration of elements behave as it
does? Exploration leads from mystery to insight and understanding, but good
problems never lose their capacity to cause wonder.
What are the
benefits for mathematicians and artists of understanding each other's ways of
working and thinking? There is a stock answer which denies anything in common:
mathematical work is all terribly logical and constrained, whereas artists can
just be sensual and unconstrained with their paint or whatever. But mathematical
creation requires a measure of sensuality and lack of constraint, and artistic
creation cannot function without the use of constraints and systems (rules) to
generate, for example, the initial marks on the paper, and how they may be
re-worked and refined. So there is a middle ground where the insights are worth
exploring.
All welcome. No reservation required, but an email to
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would be appreciated for planning purposes.
Seminar website and archive: www.lkl.ac.uk/events/maths-art
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