[Hopperxx] Letters From Leibniz 2.0

[Jim Andrews]

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) is a fascinating figure, to 
me. And what a hair do.

I'm a Leibniz fan probably because I'm a math guy, into computer art, 
and also a half-baked philosophy guy. 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.

/Letters From Leibniz /2.0 is a visual reading of Leibniz's visual 
writing. We see the work of the 17th century genius up close as never 
before. It’s an art project in contemporary visual writing and a study 
of Leibniz’s hand-written, drawn or drafted and only sometimes published 
work. /Letters From Leibniz/ also involves computer art. It poses 
riddles by hiding/revealing parts of Leibniz’s 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.

/Letters From Leibniz /2.0 circles among circles and shards of Leibniz's 
hand-written /I Ching/ 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’s 
a challenging but intriguing look at Leibniz’s visual writing and a 
unique abstract art experience.

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.

https://leibniz.vispo.com

The project has several things to check out:

   *  By default, the above URL takes you to 500 digital collages of
    Leibniz's mathematics, primarily. I created the digital collages
    with /Aleph Null/, a graphic synthesizer I wrote in
    JavaScript/HTML/CSS. You watch /Letters From Leibniz/ 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’t seen yet: if you return to /Letters From Leibniz/ 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.
  * /Visual Leibniz/ is a 238-image slidvid that displays Leibniz's work
    unaltered. These are the works of Leibniz that /Aleph Null/ samples
    to create its digital collages.
  * /On Leibniz and Letters From Leibniz/ is a 8,237 word essay I wrote
    about Leibniz and the project.
  * You can also visit /Aleph Null/ for dynamic, never-quite-the-same
    generation of digital collages from the 238 Leibniz source images.


Image 3 of 500 from /Letters From Leibniz/

ja
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://vispo.com/pipermail/hopperxx_vispo.com/attachments/20251010/9d4a1b4b/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 3.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 491748 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://vispo.com/pipermail/hopperxx_vispo.com/attachments/20251010/9d4a1b4b/attachment-0001.jpg>