Becoming an 'artist'

[fjrabon]

To me, a great example of math being able to be art, and the purpose of something not being the sole determinant of art is the quipu. Some are quite stunningly beautiful. If you had no idea of their purpose, you may easily think they are quite the work or art. Splendidly colored, interestingly patterned, no readily apparent utilitarian application. Wouldn't that be clearly art? But they were extremely utilitarian. They often did things like record tribute payments, debts, give directions and any number of topics. Today we have basically no way of decoding them, so they stand, as more historic works of art, even though we have knowledge that they did have a utilitarian purpose. If someone made one today, with obviously no purpose in making a record of a trade route and exchange, would it not be art? Why does the reason for its' creation in the first place determine if something is art? That means that two identical objects, one produced to record something, the other made because it's beautiful, one would be art, one wouldn't, even though they were identical objects. That doesn't make much sense to me.

To me, as soon as choice in production is introduced, you have art. 2+2=4 is not art, because there simply isn't another way to do that operation, there's no choice. But proving the incompleteness theorem? Lots of choice in how to go about that, and both Gödel and Turing's proofs are considered works of art (especially Gödel's) by people who understand them. I think it's very easy to say advanced math and advanced code isn't art. Just like the works of shakespeare probably don't seem very artistic to someone who doesn't understand English and is just listening to seemingly unintelligible garbling.

I think there's also an aspect of complexity theory required for art. Something has to be in some way relatable, but in some other way surprising to be art. The completely predictable isn't art, and the completely unitelligible isn't art, but almost nothing we come across is 100% predictable or 100% unintelligible. There is a lot of room on those spectrums. Most people don't consider a metronome music. But maybe it can be if the very act of its simplicity is both relatable and unpredictable (because who would just make a track of a metronome).

I pretty much never ask whether or not something is art, I simply ask how much it means to me. Saying something isn't art is simply saying something doesn't mean anything to you, and as such it's mostly a worthless statement. This could be because it wasn't very good, or it could be because you don't understand the medium of conveyance. Or most likely some combination of both. A photo isn't art to a blind man, but that doesn't make Boy Bitten By a Lizard fail to be art, just because it falls on blind eyes.

What I find much more rewarding is trying to find the art in everything. Instead of scoffing at the works of Jackson Pollack, try to find something in them. Maybe you won't find anything, maybe you will find the most rewarding artistic experience of your life.

 

[W.Y.Photo]

Beautifully said Fjrabon!!

 

[KenC]

I once read that when Beethoven's 7th Symphony premiered, the audience rushed to the box office during the performance demanding their money back. They claimed they were listening to noise, not music.

When Stravinsky's Rite of Spring premiered in 1914 there was an actual riot.

 

[qleak]

To me, as soon as choice in production is introduced, you have art. 2+2=4 is not art, because there simply isn't another way to do that operation, there's no choice. But proving the incompleteness theorem? Lots of choice in how to go about that, and both Gödel and Turing's proofs are considered works of art (especially Gödel's) by people who understand them. I think it's very easy to say advanced math and advanced code isn't art. Just like the works of shakespeare probably don't seem very artistic to someone who doesn't understand English and is just listening to seemingly unintelligible garbling.

I'm surprised you'd say something like this and know something about Godel or Turing. Are you familiar with modular arithmetic?

2+2=1 (mod 3)

I've done work in mod 2 arithmetic in which 1+1=0. Your statement is then 0=0 (mod 2). So that is a choice right? Even axioms can be negated and reveal completely different systems of mathematics. Non-Euclidean geometry comes to mind, it actually is the predecessor of the incompleteness theorem and Einsteins theory of relativity.

However, I do happen to agree with most of what you're saying here.

 

[fjrabon]

To me, as soon as choice in production is introduced, you have art. 2+2=4 is not art, because there simply isn't another way to do that operation, there's no choice. But proving the incompleteness theorem? Lots of choice in how to go about that, and both Gödel and Turing's proofs are considered works of art (especially Gödel's) by people who understand them. I think it's very easy to say advanced math and advanced code isn't art. Just like the works of shakespeare probably don't seem very artistic to someone who doesn't understand English and is just listening to seemingly unintelligible garbling.

I'm surprised you'd say something like this and know something about Godel or Turing. Are you familiar with modular arithmetic?

2+2=1 (mod 3)

I've done work in mod 2 arithmetic in which 1+1=0. Your statement is then 0=0 (mod 2). So that is a choice right? Even axioms can be negated and reveal completely different systems of mathematics. Non-Euclidean geometry comes to mind, it actually is the predecessor of the incompleteness theorem and Einsteins theory of relativity.

However, I do happen to agree with most of what you're saying here.

nah, because they're isometric statements, I don't consider them different. I was talking about the operation, not the expression thereof. I figured somebody would go down this rabbit hole, but I also didn't want to write three paragraphs explaining how I was only speaking of basic arithmetic in the normal sense. But I guess here we are anyway.

 

[qleak]

nah, because they're isometric statements, I don't consider them different. I was talking about the operation, not the expression thereof. I figured somebody would go down this rabbit hole, but I also didn't want to write three paragraphs explaining how I was only speaking of basic arithmetic in the normal sense. But I guess here we are anyway.

I'm not sure what you mean by isometric. Can you point me in that direction or is it just an imprecise statement?

 

[fjrabon]

nah, because they're isometric statements, I don't consider them different. I was talking about the operation, not the expression thereof. I figured somebody would go down this rabbit hole, but I also didn't want to write three paragraphs explaining how I was only speaking of basic arithmetic in the normal sense. But I guess here we are anyway.

I'm not sure what you mean by isometric. Can you point me in that direction or is it just an imprecise statement?

was reading on my phone and thought you were giving the example of different base math, not mod math, IDK, sometimes it weirdly jumps around, my bad.

However, I still think you're being obtuse here for the point of pedantry. Nobody goes around talking about mod2 arithmetic. Even mathematicians don't go around interjecting "well, you could have been talking about mod3 arithmetic!" Well, at least not most of the time when they're not trying to be a PITA. Usually which mod arithmetic type you're using isn't much of a choice. When you need to know if you have 4 or zero cartons of milk, your choice of mod level isn't a choice.

 

[The_Traveler]

This 'conversation' seems to have drifted off into major hand-waving territory with lots of berets being donned.

More good pictures, fewer words are what is good for photography.

 

[qleak]

nah, because they're isometric statements, I don't consider them different. I was talking about the operation, not the expression thereof. I figured somebody would go down this rabbit hole, but I also didn't want to write three paragraphs explaining how I was only speaking of basic arithmetic in the normal sense. But I guess here we are anyway.

I'm not sure what you mean by isometric. Can you point me in that direction or is it just an imprecise statement?

was reading on my phone and thought you were giving the example of different base math, not mod math, IDK, sometimes it weirdly jumps around, my bad.

However, I still think you're being obtuse here for the point of pedantry. Nobody goes around talking about mod2 arithmetic. Even mathematicians don't go around interjecting "well, you could have been talking about mod3 arithmetic!" Well, at least not most of the time when they're not trying to be a PITA. Usually which mod arithmetic type you're using isn't much of a choice. When you need to know if you have 4 or zero cartons of milk, your choice of mod level isn't a choice.

Respectfully, I disagree but if you'd like to know why we should discuss in private messages

 

[fjrabon]

This 'conversation' seems to have drifted off into major hand-waving territory with lots of berets being donned.

More good pictures, fewer words are what is good for photography.

well, you're the one who posted in "photographic discussions," which is a forum designed to facilitate words about photography.

 

[qleak]

This 'conversation' seems to have drifted off into major hand-waving territory with lots of berets being donned.

More good pictures, fewer words are what is good for photography.

well, you're the one who posted in "photographic discussions," which is a forum designed to facilitate words about photography.

yeah c'mon lew some of us mathematicians can't tell the difference between a coffee cup and doughnut.

Topology - Maths Careers

 

[syaudi]

anything that reflects light into my eyes in a pleasing manner, I consider art.

 

[IronMaskDuval]

Quite frankly, no one on here is an artist. I for one, use the torn clothing from the starving children in Ethiopia to wear my camera with. I also carry my gear in a grocery bag that has floated over the ashes of Pompeii, which puts American Beauty to shame. MY bag, is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

I do not speak French. My carbon copies of life, which you amateurs call images are sang, not spoken, in pure pig Latin, and I roll the r in arbon cay. I do not smile, for when you see me, you smile for me. When it rains, the world cries as I reproduce a part of it in another dimension. It is an experience that none of you can ever know of.

My best of work has been seen by everyone in the world. Every time you dream, aspire or imagine, you see a replication of my arbon cay opy cay f ay ife lay.

I am an artist.

 

[pgriz]

Let me try, as someone who has coded and managed software development. It's actually quite a bit like music. There is a strong, fundamental algorithm (or path, or melody, or idea), that is both powerful and yet seductively simple, supported by clear and straightforward initializations and terminations, nested in a way that make the logic easy to follow, and provides for a robust test approach without loose ends or potential underfined results. Good, elegant code is actually fun to read. Bad code is turgid, has no obvious coherence to it, brings in irrelevant stuff, and has a bunch of hanging bits that can be tripped over. When doing design reviews of "good code", usually the KISS principle is embodied in the implementation. Elegant code does the job with a minimal set of lines that don't leave anything to chance.

And this relates to "artists" as well. I've had so many programmers tell me, in defending their turgid mishmash of redirections and pointers, that they were "artists" who created finely-crafted expressions. The true coding artists produced clean, easy-to-follow code that got the job done with minimal effort and was easy to test and verify.

This is terrific

How do you feel about Fast Inverse Square Root?

Fast inverse square root - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

The comments on the above code are comical (and justified) to say the least.

Any implementation that relies on magic numbers or undocumented features is suspect. In fact, a big reason for developing coding interfaces between modules was to get away from unknowable behaviours which usually occurs at the boundaries of data. I haven't been in that field for 25 years now, so I hope the field has evolved a much better handle on how to produce working code that has smooth behaviour in its performance space, and good trapping of out-of-bound conditions and exceptions. I hope.

 

[bribrius]

As support to qleak.
Several years ago there was a going away party for my son who was technical lead in a company that was bought by Microsoft.
Someone, knowing Mike was my son, told me that Mike wrote the most elegant code he had ever seen.
I asked for an explanation, he made a couple of starts, then finally laughed and told me he couldn't explain it to someone who didn't know coding.

Let me try, as someone who has coded and managed software development. It's actually quite a bit like music. There is a strong, fundamental algorithm (or path, or melody, or idea), that is both powerful and yet seductively simple, supported by clear and straightforward initializations and terminations, nested in a way that make the logic easy to follow, and provides for a robust test approach without loose ends or potential underfined results. Good, elegant code is actually fun to read. Bad code is turgid, has no obvious coherence to it, brings in irrelevant stuff, and has a bunch of hanging bits that can be tripped over. When doing design reviews of "good code", usually the KISS principle is embodied in the implementation. Elegant code does the job with a minimal set of lines that don't leave anything to chance.

And this relates to "artists" as well. I've had so many programmers tell me, in defending their turgid mishmash of redirections and pointers, that they were "artists" who created finely-crafted expressions. The true coding artists produced clean, easy-to-follow code that got the job done with minimal effort and was easy to test and verify.

Think you guys are reaching quite honestly. The purpose of the code or equations is the end result. Like when they built the pyramids they relied on leverage (physics). But the math wasn't the art. It was a necessary vehicle to produce it, as was the art they put in side. In my mind (i could be wrong) it seems some of you are claiming the vehicle to be the art. In which it is a manner in which to produce it. Clay pottery comes to mind as well. You can claim the physics of it are the art. But no one thinks that. They look at the finished art as the art. While methods of producing art almost always factor in the final perception of it. I can't personally think of anyone that has attributed the physics of producing clay pottery as being the actual art. But rather they look at the materials and devices as knowledge or craft and the finished product as art. Same with statues ( how do they hold themselves up?). The equations in the process are they considered the actual art? And the further you get into the technical perhaps the more difficult it is to separate the technical craft side from the art itself (i alluded to this earlier in the thread). While davinci had a knack for both it isn't often or easily attained. The off track banter of the thread into math as art, code as art, i volunteer for proof of how quick people can be in claiming something to be art with technical merit but little of actual artistic value.

I don't really understand what you're saying makes code not art? Or equations not art? Because they have other uses? Can an automobile not be, in and of itself an artwork, even though its primary purpose is to drive other people around? Is a portrait not a work of art if its primary purpose is simply to record what the person looks like?

Art is totally subjective. Equations either work or they dont. code either works or it doesn't. Art doesn't have to work to be art. (hence some bad art lol) It comes into existence, and just is. Totally subjective with no solution necessary. I understand the preference, for those that love math to want to consider it a art. I actually consider math more a language, or a tool. Yes, i have no doubt it can be beautiful to some. But if we are lowering the bar that far, then i love gardening, it must be a art. I love cooking, it must be a art, i love .......etc.etc.etc.
Because you love something, and it does have creative tendency, does that make it art? That would mean EVERYTHING is art. For me personally, i much prefer to consider math a tool, closer to a language, with some creative or somewhat beautiful to some tendency. But because it has a objective, a solution perhaps, it is used as a tool, and it isn't subjective (either it is right or it isnt) then i have trouble making that leap toward considering it a art. I will concur math is used in art, is closely related to art, is a tool for such purpose amongst many more and is a language, or similar. Calling it (or code) art is a large leap through my perception of it. And making that leap means everything is art. As you could make a similar argument for most anything.