人算不如天算
I was asked to make a blog for the NYU IMA Low Res graduate program. (I started with no tangible experience in interaction design.) Math is nature’s poetry, and these are just diary entries.
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I was asked to make a blog for the NYU IMA Low Res graduate program. (I started with no tangible experience in interaction design.) Math is nature’s poetry, and these are just diary entries.
Alter-Instagram
Reel
IMALR-GT-201-11
WHAT: IMALR-GT-201
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Ideas/Arrangements/Effects: The Philosophy of Physics
The Idea: Wave-Particle Duality
This idea is representative of a particular underlying belief used to inform the societal structure in physics. This corresponds to the fundamental prinicple that quantum entities like electrons and photons are able to exhibit both wave and particle properties, dependent on context. This idea also translates to how we view everything in life- blood as a tissue or a liquid, the Earth being just a planet or part of a perpetually moving solar system.
Arrangement: Mathematical Frameworks
These arrangements help organize and implement the framework in question. For my particular topic, wave functions and other operators try to describe and/or predict the behavior of these quantum systems- The Double-Slit Experiment was of particular interest to me in terms of experiments. Also, many of the complex theories that Max Tegmark comments on in Our Mathematical Universe.
Effects: Philosophical Implications of the Nature of Reality
My favorite part. (I guess everyone’s favorite part according to the reading.) I’m interested in the technological implications, but only as they further reveal the effects on philosophical implications- classical notions of determinism and locality, debates of reality vs. realism, the limits of human consciouness, parallel universes, etc...
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Hmm. So, Our Mathematical Universe is my “densest” source of research & inspiration for my project. It provides much discussion about time and our understanding of its relativity, which then feeds into many theories of our universe’s humble (not-so-humble?) beginnings and possibility of parallel worlds.
I will premise this by saying that I do not possess the mathematical genius to accurately describe what I’m about to suggest, but! If we were to treat time as nonlinear and relational in the experimental arrangement, we would be able to explore a radically different idea about the nature of causality. Time is relative and could be viewed as a web... Would it reveal that we live in a block universe, where all moments exist simultaneously? Would it change our views of determinism? Would we be inclined to mine time as a resource? Could we learn to view time the same way we view any other form of matter? Would we be able to find that time, too, has multiple simultaneous states of being (like how water can be a molecule, but also a liquid/solid/gas)?
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Research progress
Moodboard:
Current progress:
So far, I have read 80% of Our Mathematical Universe, and I have done a decent amount of research into biosonification (please see link below) and have procured all the necessary parts and built the device (please see images below). I tested it on a cat, a plant, and myself. I’m currently working on the sound design (never opened Ableton before this project...).
Need to do:
I desperately want to finish the book. I think it will provide more insight. In addition, I’d like to work on the sound more to differentiate the notes (though I don’t know how to make this sound good- right now, everything is mapped to C). I’d also like to test out the data in a Touchdesigner pseudofluid file I made a few weeks ago (bottom right photo of my moodboard)... or in the mathematical p5 sketches I like to make.
I’m not 100% sure how far I’ll get yet, but I will commit this experience to short videos with the plant (or other life form) in question in the next few days as I decide on how best to present the experience.
Sources:
Biosonification Arduino Guide