Michele Emmer Editor Imagine Math 3 Between Culture and Mathematics D Springer Role6 M.Emer 30, N. Paladin, F Paladin, f modell! matematct cost per Vinsegnamento delte matem- 'V. Sabel(tetion), Un lesioned geomerria, Photo, M. Bava, asic C. Posasl, prod. C. Por opholus Romanus, i Furor Methematens ed. by L. Sinisgali Mondadori, 42, 3 Wess, The History of Mathematical Surface Models, in Intersections: Henry Moore and Stringed surface, extbition catalogue ed by Phipps, B. (Royal Society, London, 2012), pp. 18 Science Fiction, Art, and the Fourth Dimension Linda Dalrymple Hfenderson ‘The notion of a higher geometrical “the fourth dimension of space,” thas been a vital stimulus for both jence fiction and artists since the Jate nineteenth and early twentieth contury.) Indeed, it was science fiction like H. G. Wells who first responded to the new popular interest in dimension, over 4 decade before artisls began 10 engage the idea. And before ‘materialism by enabling humankind to expand its “space sense” wo perceive the four dimensional space that might hold a truer reality. Both science fiction and artists would draw on this the fourth dimension, particularly the analogy of 2 two-dimensional Flatland in relation to a three-dimensional world, in order to reason about the relation of the three-dimensional world to a possible fourth dimension. Drawing on sources such as Hinton and many others, American architect Claude Bragdon produced in 1913 his book A Primer of Higher Space (The Fourth Dimension), which codified contemporary ideas about how one might understand or visualize four-dimensional space? Here we find a variety of ideas that would be paralleled in art making, beginning with the works of French Cubists in ca. 1909, as well as in science fiction writing, Linde Dalrymple Henderson rt of Actand At History, Teas University, Astin, TX, USA. Dimension) Rochester, NY: The Maas iil for from the Internet Archive. On the importanre of he ce see Henderson, “Rulon,” Is Fourth Dimension, x2LD. Henderson Science Fiction, Art andthe Fourth Dimension | MAN AS SEEN BY CLAIRVOYANT (4-DIMENSION | AL VISION) AND BY ORDINARY HUMAN SIGHT A2SPACE "MAN INHABITING PLANE WOULD SEE ONLY THE, n a higher dimension 1g these themes are shadows as experiencing a higher dimens fourth dimension in both art and science fiction. ‘moments from the 191 s and artists responded to the onaifalsrctare had been adopted by ‘which began to come to pk PL 5, along with two The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes” in 1895 and “The Plattner Machine in dimensioSYMMETRY IN ANY SPACE ‘THE EVIDENCE, OF A HIGHR, DIMENSIONAL ACTION AND ERONSTITUTION [WOULD INDIGATEA 7H DIMENSION ig. 2 Clade Brazen, A Primer of Higher Space [The Fourth Dimension) (Rochester, NY, 1913). me esble fy tho addon of 29 extn pata Seaton Gottfried Platiner, the South Fuide Instead of seing the hb wilva ots elosrea equipment (apical Science Fetion, Ar, and the Fourth Dimension 2 CORRESTONDING DEVEIOPMENTS an PROTECTIONS CORACUIE AND CEATESERACT NIQUE SCS “THE CURE, ASmce FiguIEE CaN fee EPRPn LD. Henderson aware of his prosence. Davidson's transparency may well be the first usage of basic to the story is the model of spa connecting two far distant geographical locations—a ki the spatial fourth us proposes a geometrical 8 spatialization of time, but with the idea of subsun lement of certain discus the spiral passing through a plane could play as temporary ppear once a higher consciousness of the pension as a sign of an iod-—and it was central (0 the twentieth century's evils sm. He posited two successive periods, an Science Ar, athe Fourth Dimension 6 of the Golden Bird” in 3789 (2000 years after the declaration ofthe Rights of Ma 1789), A great admirer of H. G. Wells, Pawiowski, however, accomplished his travel to the various epochs without a time machine like that of Wel by means of what he terms “abstractions of space ‘hich instantaneous voyages to the future occurred. jew, a manner of envisaging things in their lowski, the fourth dimension represented the x waves of wireless telegraphy. igs, such as Jean Metzinger’s Dancer in a Café (Fig. 4), and in French geometer E. Jouffret's 1903 rendering of a “see-through” view fof an object as well as s cannot be read as three im as [see them, ‘engagement in a higher shaded facets create an ambiguous space that mal (Fig. 5). “I paint objects as I think ther, not ure—contemporary interest sasion of space encouraged his increasingly conceptual approach ‘world. Cubist theorists Albert Gleizes and Metzinger drew directly tile and motor sensations in his 1902 La Science et “motor space would have as many dimensions as ‘we have muscles" and suggested that one might represent a four-dimensional object by combining multiple perspectives of If Cubist paintings succeed in suggesting four deny being read as three dimensional. Gone is Renaissance perspective in favor of geometrical complesty. Nor is there any longes a single light source modeling i. Rather, shifting, transparent forms suggest the m viewpoints deriving from Cézanne and auy Cubist theory also hada strongly idealist otientation, which paralleled Panlowski's1912, GARS, NY. Photo Credit: Albrgh-Aenox Ast yee, NY is embrace of a changeles nthe fourth* LD. Henderson Fig. 6 Paul Laffoles, Tesseract House Project (one of 18 design), 1978. Courtesy of Kent Galley, New York by the growing dominance in the public's mind of the temporal fourth dimension of Relativity Theory's space-time continuum. In fact, science fiction served as one of the most important “underground” threads that kept interes in the spatiat fourth ‘dimension alive ia these decades, along withthe continued presence of Flatland and paradoxical effects th ject. Artist Paul Lat 3, was $0 intrigued ‘ory thatin 1978, many years after he initially read it, he produced detailed set of plans for Teal’s unfolded “Tesseract House" (Fig. 6). Jn Heinlein's story, after a California earthquake, architect Quintus Teal returns clients, who have made their way info the house, but can no longer find the exit door Scionce Fiction, Art, and he Fourth Di “Now here's what wee to do: snd I moved oa though normal space and flout of the house. Itmust be a mater ‘of subconscious orientation" ‘man several rooms away, Teal pursues him, only to discover from the ‘man’s dropped hat, bearing th initials Q. that itis himself Finally, upon opening study at the J pie Sate Buding an inverted escape wit waves are reminded of that spatial complexity by pereube modeled by sculptor Peter Forakis in his Hyper-Cube of trations (Fig. 7). in effectively captures that complexity in prose as he describes the paradoxes inevitable for anyone grounded in three dimensional cognition, such as Teal and his clionts. Infact, paradox itself would come to be associated withthe fourth dimension in popular writing on the subject. Ouspensky, for example, had preached the need to develop 2 system of seeming alogical logic in order to free the mind from the access to higher dimensional understanding, This paralleled. io develop one’s “space sense” by overcoming the sense of jentation that constrain us in three-dimensional space.!? of time as a dimension easily traversed—forwant and ‘and choice, For writers in the period of Relativ the space-time continuum likewise treated time® LD. Henderton ig 7 Pos Fry per ‘as a geometrical dimension; however, that structure, unlike Wells's fantasy, now created a stricter interconnection between spatial and temporal events. Nonetheless, the idea of a “block universe” offered .ge of a past continuing to exist and 4 pro-existent future, both of which might be ‘one could gain access t0 another, fifth dimension outside the block universe, That was the argu highly influential British aeronauti rogulaely startles her father. After stating nursery to her fathor that most people are what she calls “St isa “Tween” (for in-between). At age three she had already constructed a Moebius strip and seemed deeply interested pertics, which included the move froma flat, two-sided surface to a twisted, no-sided surface requiring an extra dimension to contain it. Having entered science fiction in the 1940s from the realm of ty Moebius strips were often lized as vehicles for transcending dimens! ‘A.J Deutseh’s “A Subway Named Moebius” of 1950. [Not only had Star mastered reading at age three, but she also exhibit ik Tine (New Yor: Tee Mocmian Co, 1927). "The Mathematics Mage ed, Cifon Fads (New Yor Siro Science Feton, Art and the Fourth Dimon 8 6-year old Robert, moves in next door, they becotite regular playmates. Robert turns ‘out to have telepathic powers as well, and the two children develop quite unusual games, In thei of encyclopedias, and then, as Star explains to her father, “We just TP [teleport] ourselves by Rome and Eg) from one of the ancient realms they have Star and Robert accomplish their teleporting by extending the prin ‘Moebius strip to three and four dimensions. As the 4-year old Star you take a sheet and you give ita half twist and join the edge to ‘a funny kind of holder"—Klein's bot 1 the Moebins st “Well, “And you ESP the bwisted cube all together the same way you d Now if you do that big enough, all around you, so you're sort of there is toit ...."" travel to various moments in the seeming “past.” But, in the meantime, the children, hhave become fascinated with how to teloport themselves off the Moebius strip-like universe into another present. When one day, the children vanish and do 1 “ustomary hour or two, Star's panicked father decides he must follow ther, and he begins to reason with his limited “Tween” brain: Considering that a twistedwe LD, Henderson "The story concludes with Stats father penning a note of explanation to a sci friend and Robert's parents about his plan to follow the children off the stvip universe, He writes, “Tm trying now to take six cubes and fold them in on one another so that every angle is aright angle. It’s not easy, but I can do it, using every bit of concentration ve learned from the kids. Allright, I have the six cubes and I have every angle = right angle. Now if, in the folding, T ESP the tesseract @ half twist around myself and" accelerated in the | his Scientific Ameri ‘The Ambidextrous responded enthusiastically to the “new” th its chapter on “The Fourth Dimensi for Senithson’s Enantiomorphic Chambers of 1965, which explored left-right mirror reversals on the model of Gardner (Fig. 8) Chambers stzongly suggest the form ofthe right- and left-handed crystals he actually cat out of Garduers chapter, similar fo Bragdon’s illustration in the Primer of Higher Space (Fig. 2), where he had asserted th turned into 2 without cher reflections and their four-dimensional associations he had found art and writings of Marcel Duchamp, the eariy 5 ply engaged with four-dimensional geometry.” smithson ereated a highly complex spatial experience for a viewer, who looks ‘thrce or four mirrors reflect one another as Jy disorienting interpenetration and repetition of images. For Smithson and his friend artist Peter Hutchinson, such works bore additional associations with higher dimensions through the connections they perceived to science fiction, Hutchinson's 1968 article “Science Fiction: An Aes- thetic for Science,” had compared the work of a number of contemporary sculptors to the “purposeless” machines on a science fiction film set. Sensing a shared focus new sculpture, Hutchinson notes, “ ‘Scienes Picton, Art, and the Fourth Dimension 83 THE FOURTH DIMENSION Ficume 42. Enantiomorphie polyhedron. Fig. 8 Martin Gardnes, The Ambidentrous Universe (Now York: Basic Books, 196), p. 101 geometric form, new materials, as well as concepts like space warp, time travel, ave remarkable counterpoints in current work by ies repeatedly from Norman > ete Hutchinson, “ScienceFiction: An Aesthetic fr Science” Art Inzenatona, 12 (Oct. 1968), 3,a LD. Henderson ‘experience of transport into @ higher dimension, The passages he selects also evoke contemporary Minimalist sculpture: inGnity of dimensions .. the synergy among the popular fourth dimension, science fiction, and considerably our understanding ofthe way in which 9 mathematical association that bad developed by ‘dimension. But for its advertising copy, the Gourielli firm utilized ideas about the Soom the Space Age itself would realize certain of those posi ‘ideas long present in writ and, specifically, the fre It is fitle wonder then che age of computer-generated special effects had jons of extra-dimensional experience would have to ‘wait until the later 20c and 21st centuries. wh Dimension” ad Donald Judd’s Arithmetics and Sol LeWitt’s Combinatorics. On the Relationship Between Visual and Mathematical in New York Art Around 1960 Michael Rottmana ‘The Serial Project #1 as Visual Paradox 1966 Sol LeWitt exhibited his Serial Project #1 (ABCD) at New York's Dwan art critic Lucy Lippard had diagnosed what seemed to her to be a paradoxical relationship in his art between tho visual and in principe be arbitrary, but nevertheless the underlying combiatoral rule can be conveyed precisely. The Serial Project #2 is a good example of how LeWitt coupled his works of the 1960s to the ‘mathematical’, to deal with questions of visualiy. Ie term rhematcs was converted by the artists within the arts. Examining these historical results, which are interesting for visual Sciences as well, this paper will—on the basis of two examples of work by Sol 1928-2007) ané Donald Judd (1928-1994)—explain a debate in the art New York of the 1960s concerning aspects of the visual in the production and reception of art, with the artists’ own remarks and works and the manner oa which mathematics or the mathematical intersected with this. I sort, mathematics 1m the series entitled Progressions, which Le Witt himself has said provided the stimulus for his Serial Project #2. ‘wediionaly believed thatthe concrte material exaution nd the mesting bad 0 be Sly