Philippe Leblanc
I am driven by art that stimulates and stills the mind at the same
time, discipline and sensibility leading together to an aesthetic
experience.
Mathematics being a constant source of inspiration, I recently
developed an interest in the writing of numbers of ancient
civilizations, like the Maya, the Chinese and the Babylonians, adding
a time and geographic dimension to my work. The Fibonacci series,
closer to us, serves as a link between these distant numerations
systems.
A laser cut white watercolor paper hides a colored background.
The perforations stand for the first 30 terms of the Fibonacci
series written in the Babylonian numeral system, a sexagesimal
positional numeral system inherited by the Sumerian
civilization.
Two symbols (the arrow and the chevron worth ten arrows) suffice
to write all numbers, since each sign’s position confers a value.
Zero didn’t exist and was later represented by 2 inclined
arrows.
In this work, arrows and chevrons were stylized using exclusively
straight isosceles triangles of different sizes and
orientations.
To represent numbers from 2 to 59, the system was simply
additive.
For numbers larger than 59, the Babylonian used a place value
system with a base of 60.
A laser cut white watercolor paper hides a background covered with
gold leaf.
The perforations stand for the first 25 terms of the Fibonacci
series written in the Maya numeral system, a vigesimal positional
numeral system used by the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization.
Three symbols (a dot, a bar, and a shell) suffice to write all
numbers, since each sign’s position confers a value, and they are
read from the bottom up. The number 0 doesn't appear here.
Numbers 1 to 19 are written using repetitive additions, in which
dots are worth 1 and bars are worth 5. Numbers larger than 20 (20
to the power 1) are written in two rows, numbers above 400 (20 to
the power 2) in three rows, numbers above 8000 (20 to the power 3)
in four rows, and so on.