If Math Is Clay
A studies dynamical systems. How a point change over time following a rule. She told me that simple rules can produce unexpected behaviour. This stayed with me. It feels very close to my artistic practice. I want to understand where is the difference. She also works with clay and described mathematics as a material: "Math is clay."
I'm inviting scientists to meet Iromatik. To tell me what they see. I want to know where our interpretations don't align. My intention is to develop a repeatable method for conversations between art and science. What kind of method? I start from direct encounters rather than theories. I show the instrument, observe responses, ask questions, compare interpretations, reflect on misunderstandings, and keep a field journal.
I had questions ready, but our conversation happened organically. I'm at the beginning. The process is experimental. I set conditions for the encounter to happen online, but I don't know exactly where it goes. Maybe I am trying to understand what Iromatik, my drawing instrument, is through contrast.
I showed her the drawing instrument: how mouse movements act as input, creating a trail that is processed by StreamDiffusion in Touchdesigner, giving an AI-generated animation of clouds. I showed her the x,y values, how they become a point in space. First I kept the point in a 2D plane. It didn't look good. So I used a small sphere moving in 3D. Then I flattened it back with the help of a fixed camera perspective so that the path turns into a curve in 2D. She recognized projective geometry as the process in which I translate my movements (x, y, z) into the screen.
Then she asked how this relates to my transition. I said it's fine-tuned on my real paintings. Before, during, after. But the fine-tuning doesn't fully work yet.
We also discussed prompts. I showed her text prompts for different visuals: clouds and slime. She asked about other inputs, and I mentioned motion capture with body movement.
Here are the initial questions I prepared:
- Last time you said "math is clay." Could you tell me more about that metaphor?
- After showing the instrument (don’t explain too much): What do you think is happening here?
- What concepts from your research does this remind you of?
- What do you think you are seeing that I might not be seeing? What do you think I am seeing that you might not be seeing?
- What question are you obsessed with right now? What do you actually do every day?
- Can you explain one key concept from your research using an image?
- What surprised you about our difference in interpretation?
- Do you read the instrument differently through your scientific practice and your artistic practice?
In Iromatik, the input (a gesture, a line) becomes something of a different nature (an AI generated image of a cloud).
Is the shift in nature between input and output the artwork?
Walking by the river and reflecting on our conversation, one of her question sticked with me: Could I reverse back the process? Can I build a program that looks at the cloud and finds the line that made it? I ask myself: Can I reverse time... Could I reverse back the passing time of my drawing gesture? I observe that I freely replace the program with "I". My artistic process is personal.
Is A's math personal?
I keep thinking about her question about reversibility. Do I want that and what it would mean for Iromatik?
Why does art, for me, need that shift in nature? Why is it important that the output becomes something irreversible? Maybe I want the freedom to break the rule while I'm still inside the rule, studying it.
In A's math research on dynamical systems, the input and output share the same nature. There's a focus on understanding what's preserved. A point stays a point. A curve stays a curve. The question is how the object changes and what properties are still there. When there's a change of nature, for example, from surfaces to numbers, she does it to compare the objects. The number doesn't define the object, it helps distinguish it. In my art, the transformation is opaque and hard to replicate.
I love procedure. But I also distance myself from strict algorithmic art approaches. Maybe there's something about rigor and how much do I respect it. I don’t only follow a precise method: I perform it. It's like having a cookbook but dancing around it, adding ingredients as I go, not correcting the mistakes. I use both the engineer and the artist approaches at the same time. Why and where do I break the procedure?
What if the irreversibility is what matters in Iromatik? The piece is a process you can't undo. Something is lost. My gesture is gone when it goes through the diffusion model. What happens to a human body going through... computational processes? Where is the body at the end?
When the gesture goes into the machine, I go with it. There is no version of me standing outside, unchanged, the way the surface stays a surface while its number gets compared to another surface's number.
Maybe the difference is: where do you stand when the transformation happens?
A stands outside her object.
I don't know how to stand outside mine.
If math is clay, art is clay drying on the hands.
Cracking. The skin pulled tight like scars.
Rubbed back to dust.