(note: unfinished draft)

mathematical art manifesto

We admirers and creators of Mathematical Art gather from around the world, some of us just starting our day and others watching the sun set, having conversations face-to-face through new technologies. For over a year we have gathered, inspired by a new call for action, to celebrate the term “Mathematical Art” as it emerges in the liminal spaces between established disciplines. We have slow discussions about art, about philosophy, about our humanity, and underlying it all is mathematics, not as the elitist, formal abstraction taught in schools but the patterns of patterns that we observe in all things. We aim to create work that will demonstrate how mathematics allows greater freedom and is more, not less, inspirational. We write a manifesto to clarify our new awareness which frames our work within the contemporary context of Art.

We are artists.

We like mathematics.

We make art which is connected to mathematics.

We create Mathematical Art.

Mathematical Art is multilayered and multidimensional: giving meaning and beauty, holding discovery and intuition, and exciting our curiosity. It lives within the universe of art and artists. It goes far beyond illustrations in a textbook or materials for a school math class.

We can let go of fidelity and rigorous strictness around math concepts and give space to artistic inspiration. Play reveals/opens up sudden surprises, through intuitive transformation and movement.

Mathematical understanding inspires us to invent, to fold, to move, to sing. A beautiful world of mathematics lies just below the surface, or sometimes deeply hidden, out of sight.

We claim the liberty to use all artistic media and mathematical ideas to create a process of organic dialogue between these two fields.

Both constraints and freedoms shape our work. They push us in new directions, and lead to new forms for the materials and the mathematics, undergoing subtle adjustments so that the consequences may be explored and better understood.

Within this process, tensions often arise, and lead to moments of decision and new avenues for discovery.

Inherent in mathematics, simplicity is a distillation process, where the most elegant, elemental forms are realized and celebrated. A mathematical artist may create works whose aesthetic aspires toward an irreducible simplicity. Or they may craft something that becomes more and more complex.

Time is always an important factor: time for the unveiling of pattern, for deep thinking, and for transformation through performance, algorithms and manipulation. Often the translation from the temporal dimension to the spatial one, of static recordings of movement, offers new imaginings and insights.

We take pleasure and satisfaction from kinesthetically fulfilling a necessary shape, according to a mathematical inevitability. It is akin to placing the last piece of the puzzle, the resolution in music from tension to harmony, the completion of a complex cycle back to the beginning.

Mathematical Art has long been rooted in collective ritual, with communities coming together to algorithmically fold, glue, weave and crochet parts to make a whole, building fractals out of microcosms, recognizing the power of our shared efforts over that of any individual. We continue that tradition and move it toward new places.

Mathematics is ubiquitous in every discipline, in every culture and in everyday objects, making us blind to its presence. And so we often seek to transform and subvert using mathematics in novel ways to create an immediate sense of humour, incongruity, fun and connection.

Our old inspirations are still there. We may still yearn for the transcendent, for beauty, for the secret underlying structures of the universe. We still value the process of making Mathematical Art for its ability to induce meditative states and its ability to surprise and delight us with epiphanies, both funny and astounding. And we are open to the new, the unexpected, the things we haven’t yet thought of or moved with.

Fumiko Futamura
Paul Gailiunas
Matías Gárate
Gabrielle Gelatti
Susan Gerofsky
Marta Kopyt
Doug McKenna
Kerry Mitchell
Dave Reimann
Adam Rowe
Karl Schaffer
Emil Simeonov
Bruce Torrence
Emanuela Ughi
Jonas von Grumbkow
Jiangmei Wu
Eka Zharinova

We invite your thoughts.