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<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz </font>(1646-1716) is a fascinating figure, to me. And
what a hair do. </p>
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<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">I'm a Leibniz fan
probably because I'm a math guy, into computer art, and also
a half-baked philosophy guy. </font>I first encountered his
work many (many) years ago in first year university when I
studied (and loved) calculus and linear algebra. He pioneered
both of these fields more than 300 years ago. Since then, I've
bumped into references to him and his work several times--most
notably in computing: he is considered to be the earliest,
greatest grandaddy of computing. And is also considered to be
one of the most brilliant intellects in human history. He was
one of the all-time greats in mathematics and, along with
Descartes and Spinoza, was one of the leading philosophers of
his age. Leibniz was the only one among Descartes, Spinoza and
himself to have a degree in philosophy. He learned math later
in Paris. </p>
<p><i><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Letters From
Leibniz </font></i><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">2.0</font> is a visual
reading of Leibniz's visual writing. We see the work of the
17th century genius up close as never before. It\u2019s an art
project in contemporary visual writing and a study of
Leibniz\u2019s hand-written, drawn or drafted and only sometimes
published work. <i><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Letters
From Leibniz</font></i> also involves computer art. It
poses riddles by hiding/revealing parts of Leibniz\u2019s work and
by juxtaposing multiple images. These are digital collages
produced with software I wrote. You read them like you read a
collage or math or writings of an inventor never far from
poetry and philosophy. Leibniz was a poet of the infinitesimal
as pretty as Georg Cantor was a poet of the infinite. Also, he
anticipated--and his work subsequently propagated--the vision
of the machine of mechanized reason. </p>
<p><i><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Letters From
Leibniz </font></i><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">2.0</font> circles
among circles and shards of Leibniz's hand-written <i><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">I Ching</font></i>
base-2 hexagrams, base-3 hexagrams (as in the graphic below),
hexadecimal (base 16), 17th century computers, personal
correspondence, linear algebra, binary arithmetic, infinite
series, calculus, combinatoria, geometry, technica und
militaria. Hopefully it\u2019s a challenging but intriguing look at
Leibniz\u2019s visual writing and a unique abstract art
experience. </p>
<p>Probably best to click the below link only if you are not on
your data plan but are on Wifi or broadband. Cuz it streams
260 Mb of images. It's a richly graphical experience. Best
experienced on a big TV screen, if you have one. But it works
on all devices. I wrote the slideshow software also; it's
called Slidvid.</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://leibniz.vispo.com" moz-do-not-send="true">https://leibniz.vispo.com</a> </p>
<p>The project has several things to check out:</p>
<ul>
<li> By default, the above URL takes you to 500 digital
collages of Leibniz's mathematics, primarily. I created the
digital collages with <i><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Aleph Null</font></i>,
a graphic synthesizer I wrote in JavaScript/HTML/CSS. You
watch <i><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Letters
From Leibniz</font></i> for a few minutes. The full
running time for the 500-image slidvid is 71 minutes. That's
too long for a slideshow. Just watch it for a couple of
minutes. In one minute, you see 7 images. The idea is that
if/when people return, it takes them to something they
probably haven\u2019t seen yet: if you return to <i><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Letters From
Leibniz</font></i> via leibniz.vispo.com, it will start
at a random digital collage of the 500. Which you probably
haven't seen yet. It rewards multiple visits.</li>
<li><i><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Visual
Leibniz</font></i> is a 238-image slidvid that displays
Leibniz's work unaltered. These are the works of Leibniz
that <i><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Aleph
Null</font></i> samples to create its digital collages. </li>
<li><i><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">On Leibniz
and Letters From Leibniz</font></i> is a 8,237 word
essay I wrote about Leibniz and the project.</li>
<li>You can also visit <i><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Aleph Null</font></i> for
dynamic, never-quite-the-same generation of digital collages
from the 238 Leibniz source images.</li>
</ul>
<p><img moz-do-not-send="false"
src="cid:part1.9M0S2RjZ.mbkMxJVQ@vispo.com" alt=""
width="800" height="450" class=""><br>
Image 3 of 500 from <i><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Letters From Leibniz</font></i></p>
ja </div>
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