ICMS Christmas Lecture - Modernism and the Mathematical Worldview

A casual look into the Wikipedia article on Mathematics and Art will reveal a predictable list of characters like linear perspective, the golden ratio, tessellations, a smattering of strange geometries, and the hackneyed topic of symmetry. From an historical perspective, great weight is given to 'ancient Greece' and the so-called Renaissance. By and large, this kind of exposition also dominates much commentary claiming greater dignity than that of a popular encyclopaedia.

This lecture will present something of a counterpoint to this emphasis and argue that it contributes to the misunderstanding about the nature of mathematics itself as well as its relationship with art. To give away the conclusion, Kim will argue that modernism as it arose in the early twentieth century was in fact much more mathematical than anything produced by the so-called Renaissance.

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