[“Philosophy or nature is written in that great book whichever is before our eyes… The book is written in mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures.” –Galileo Galilei]

 

Matrix: Mathematics_Heart of Gold and the Abyss is an exhibition held in Seoul Branch of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA). This exhibition is somewhat more special than others in that the museum designed it to commemorate the International Congress of Mathematicians of 2014, which was held in Korea for the first time. The Congress is directed at an international level with over 500 mathematicians from 100 countries. With the Congress held from August 13 to 21, the exhibition will continue on through to January 11, 2015. In the display, 14 artists participated with 11 artworks reaching from films to construction. There was an additional speech prepared by Cedric Villani, the winner of the 2010 Fields Medal, and Ekaterina Eremenko, an artist who took part in the exhibition.

 

The main theme of the exhibition is obviously about mathematics, as can be seen from the title. However, the exhibition went one step further in drawing relationships between art and mathematical formulas. The borders between these two are greatly blurred within the display and these two distinctive fields exchange words each other to form a masterpiece of grandeur. The subordinate theme is to explore how contemporary artists view the mathematization of modern society. “This world is comprised of matrices and operations,” Eremenko claimed. It seeks the inevitable interaction of our complicated modern society and mathematical calculation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a white canvas, the author Bernar Venet carved numbers in purple, dark green, and black. These numbers lack legibility and coherence as they overlap each other. This piece stands alone in the hall as if to convey modern society overflowing with complexity and chaos. In both society and the lonely wall, not any analytical meaning can be sought. The first artwork, Saturation with Large Curves, successfully introduces the banquet of pieces hidden behind the gate.

 

 

Stepping through a door on a white wall, viewers can see how the exhibition plays with numbers in a form of art. The second part of the display is mostly artworks displayed on a wall through videos and canvas. On the right side of the gate, the short movie, Color of Math by Ekaterina Eremenko, is screened. As she filmed the movie, she stated, “Math can be perceived through the senses. It can be tasted, it has sounds and colors. We can touch it and be touched by it.” She captures the lives of several mathematicians as they seek the truth within nature through things such as holly leaves. Through the interview and the movie itself, Eremenko hoped to deliver the beauty of formulas and persuade the audience that mathematics is the most essential language, one that embraces the whole world.

 

City Data: Seoul Daily Expenditure of 2014 by Randomwalks sticks to the main theme of the exhibition by graphing lines and curves through data visualization. The company accomplished grasping math, art, and traits of modernism at the same time. Sulki and Min’s 1997 College Scholastic Ability Test also hits the Korean viewers hard by reflecting the educational culture and transforming into art. Song Hee Jin also tried to create something out of nothing by mix matching all the scribbles of a mathematician named Choi Jae Kyung into a room full of mathematical flowers made up of numbers and formulas. In these three pieces, culture, community, and people’s lives within that community can come to be seen.

 

There are not only drawings and videos in this exhibition, but also a number of constructions in the third hall. Standard Meter by Xavier Veilhan is just a yellow stick with a length of one meter. It seems extraordinary in this exhibition in that it is ordinarily simple, but this stick surprisingly belies great complexity and accuracy with less than an error of a single micron. Moreover, Kook Hyoung Gul’s Part to a Whole is the biggest piece of architecture of the display. Though just a wooden building at first sight, it contains the logic of fractals and portrays how small parts ultimately make up on entire structure. The exhibition finally ends with an artwork called The System of Choice, which connects the entropy of space composition, movement of viewers, and fluctuating lines.

 

No one piece of the exhibition is without meaning. Each author portrays his or her own answers and definitions of mathematics through creations. They all have their own logic, description, and motives, though all in different forms. They appear sometimes in the shape of videos, drawings, and piece of architecture, which can all be cherished in the arms of both art and mathematics. This becomes the reason why only fewer than a dozen artworks provide enough reflection and insight to the viewers.

 

 

 

 

“Exhibition is not a College Scholastic Ability Test, and an art piece is not a problem to solve,” Sulki and Min stated as they prepared the exhibition. There are people who just abhor mathematics because of modern society, which forces them to give out an answer to math questions. This exhibition breaks down the stereotype by embodying mathematical formula into art. It proposes another way to approach math by giving an opportunity to repose within the beauty of numbers and equations. As long as people embrace that math is merely the study of nature, they will recognize how easy math is to understand, as goes the famous quote from Albert Einstein—“Don’t worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I assure you that mine is greater.”