3/31/08

I found Benning's lecture on mathematics (less on art than I expected) very interesting. I already have learned some of the proofs that he was trying to show us, such as:

.3333333... = 1/3
.6666666... = 2/3
.9999999... = 3/3
          1 = 3/3, so
.9999999... = 1

But I found it engaging nonetheless. The one thing I didn't quite get was how exactly it related to film and why he was so eager to talk to film students. I can see art in general - especially music.

Sound can be directly expressed by mathematical sine/cosine waves. They have a distinct waveform, a peak and number of vibrations per second - 440 vibrations per section is a concert A. Doubling or halfing the vibrations per section raises or lowers the pitch, respectively, by an exact octave.

Time signatures, key signatures, rhythm, etc - all can be expressed in an extremely mathematical way.

Claude Debussy, a french impressionist composer, created many works of tonal and textural beauty - works which wore less melodically-centered than his romantic predecessors - Beethoven, Berloiz, Liszt, etc. It's surprising to discover that a lot of his works were structured mathematically.

The third movement from his Symphonic Sketch La Mer, Dialogue du vent et la mer, begins with a 55 bar-long introduction. The introduction can be subdivided into sections whose bar lengths are the numbers of the Fibonacci sequence: 21, 8, 8, 5 and 13, respectively.

Not being totally certain on what Benning meant by 'structuring' our work, perhaps it's in a direct relation to this. Maybe shot length is film's connection to this rhythm.