Week 2: Math + Art

 My best friend is a math major who loves music theory, and we've had lots of conversations about the beauty of mathematical functions and analyses on musical patterns. Learning about resonance and soundwaves in physics classes helped develop an even more solid basis for these interests. The Music and Computers reading was similar to this experience, as it was very technical in nature, focusing on the minute details of sound production and quality. I recognized many familiar concepts from my CS M51A class, regarding sampling theory, localization, and the digitalization of sound.

 

Fig 1: An image directly from the online archive of Music and Computers, visualizing undersampling. For those unfamiliar with the concept, imagine watching a slideshow instead of a video. It's like that, but with audio!

The most recent work of art I've encountered at the intersection of music and math is this amazing video by aSongScout on Youtube, who encoded the Fibonacci sequence into a piano piece. If you have any knowledge of improvisational jazz or jazz scales, the method he uses to encode the famous mathematical concept is very similar. By limiting his Fibonacci scale to a subset of the actual octave, he is able to produce specific sound profiles and harmonies the same way jazz uses standard scales such as blues, bebops, and modes. In my mind, these scales are similar to piecewise or ceiling/floor functions in their exclusion of certain values.

 Fig 2: The Fibonacci encoding in music!

 

However, I feel like this week's main reading material examined the intersection of art and math in a different light- one more similar to the bent I took with last week's blog. Specifically, both "The Fourth Dimension" and Flatland included the theme of higher dimensions and mathematical derivation as a form of liberation and rebellion. Henderson focused on the idea of rejecting rationalism and and the confines of "closed, immobile, and dead space", while Flatland uses a heavy-handed metaphor in the form of the philosophically authoritarian Council. 

 

Fig 3: An interesting animation I saw on reddit the other day that seemed relevant to Flatland. Like in physics, being able to break down movement into x and y components, the movement of A Square was incomprehensible to the Monarch of Lineland.

 

 

Personally, the main takeaway I have from this week's material is that math and art have always been intertwined, even before this connection was consciously examined. Music and sounds have always been the result of the collision of particles propagating; colors have always been defined by their refraction of light. It is only as science catches up to the art we inherently know and create that we begin to "integrate" science into these fields. It is a refreshing perspective compared to last week, where I criticized humanities and politics for playing catch-up to science.

I do acknowledge that there are forms of scientifically-induced art that would be considered "magic" to those in less advanced times- see the existence of magenta, synthesized instruments, algorithm-generated art, etc. I imagine our explanations that these creations are regular, scientific, and not-at-all-mystical would receive reactions similar to that of the Monarch to A Square in Flatland: "...you merely exercise some magic art... can anything be more irrational or audacious?" (Abbott, 14). Or, as Arthur C. Clarke coined in his Three Laws, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

 

References 

 

Abbott, E. A. (2020). Flatland: A romance of many dimensions. London: Penguin Classics. Retrieved from http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/eaa/FL.HTM

ASongScout (Director). (2018, June 17). Encoding the fibonacci sequence into music [Video file]. Retrieved April 10, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGJeGOw8TzQ

Berrett, J., Marquardt, V., & Henderson, L. D. (1985). The fourth dimension and non-euclidean geometry in modern art. Technology and Culture, 26(4), 879. doi:10.2307/3105651

Music and computers. (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2021, from http://musicandcomputersbook.com/

R/LoadingIcons - a bunch at once. (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2021, from https://www.reddit.com/r/LoadingIcons/comments/hlf1vp/a_bunch_at_once/

Settembre, A. (2020, March 04). Magenta: The color that doesn't exist and why. Retrieved April 10, 2021, from https://medium.com/swlh/magenta-the-color-that-doesnt-exist-and-why-ec40a6348256

TOP 25 quotes by arthur C. CLARKE (OF 264): A-Z Quotes. (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2021, from https://www.azquotes.com/author/2936-Arthur_C_Clarke

Vaartstra, B. (2019, October 21). The 16 most Important scales in Jazz [UPDATED]. Retrieved April 10, 2021, from https://www.learnjazzstandards.com/blog/the-16-most-important-scales-in-jazz/

Waterpipe.js. (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2021, from http://dragdropsite.github.io/waterpipe.js/