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Immanence
in the Pixel: Traditional Cultural Origins of Math and Technology
An
evening of film video and web screenings curated by Laura
U. Marks
Presented
Saturday, May 11th at 8 pm
A
program on the deep intercultural origins of the idea of zero
and the binary, of the notion of the virtual, and of the relationship
between immanent and transcendent virtuality. In the golden
age of the Ottoman Empire, while Europe was mired in tribal
warfare, Arabs were innovating algebra, geometry, optics, and
astronomy. These developments may be related to Islamic mystical
beliefs about the relationship between worldly life and the
infinite. They were nurtured by a lively exchange with Indian
and African numeric systems and worldviews, which remain enfolded
in contemporary culture. Non-western uses of appropriate technologies
show that science is embedded in everyday life. Mathematics
in these works is not an abstraction but an embodiment of life.
Many of these works play with appearance and disappearance,
enfoldment in the pixel and in the space of the internet, giving
form to alternative understandings of what we call virtuality.. |
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Films,
Videos, &