Felicia Tabing
For the past few years I've been creating work to show how I
experience grapheme-color synesthesia to represent mathematical ideas
in how I experience them in my mind. For example, each numeral has a
color I associate to them, such as 3, which I imagine as a light pink
color. I use the associated coloring to create work that represents
special mathematical numbers as accurately as possibly to how I view
them in my mind. I am experimenting with different media, such as
watercolor pencil, acrylic paint, gouache, marker, and pen and pencil
to get the right color effect and personality that a number has to me.
I also use the idea of proofs without words to represent convergent
series as a way to represent special numbers.
This represents the geometric series that converges to
$\frac{2}{3}$. The larger rectangle framing the image represents
area of unit 1. The construction lines are a technique I learned
from perspective drawing in dividing a rectangle into n pieces,
and are kept in the image to demonstrate the infinite sum,
although only a partial sum is represented. As the series starts
as "1–1/2+1/4", the rectangle was divided into two, and half
subtracted with a fourth added, continuing through the sum. The
negative white space what subtracted out of the sum in total,
while the colored-in rectangles are what remain in the infinite
sum. The colors used represent "two-thirds", with two represented
by the yellow, and three represented by pink.
This represents the series, $\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}\frac{1}{n!}$ that
converges to $e$. The two largest rectangles represent 1 unit. The
construction lines are a technique I learned from perspective
drawing in dividing a rectangle into n pieces. The colored space
is the area whose sum is $e$ in the series, starting with
$1+1+\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{6}\cdots$. The colors used represent $e$
as a letter, which is blue-hued, and the other colors represented
by the numbers in $e\approx2.71828...$, which range from yellow,
white, chartreuse, and purple.