"As a mathematical visual poet, my interest in correlating experience through language spawned my desire to study mathematics and physics. Over the last 34 years I have been pursuing my interest in using mathematics as a language for poetry. Mixing poetics in the structure of mathematics equations as well as visual poetry/art enables me to blend the aesthetics of art, poetry, science and mathematics. With phrases embedded in the mathematics equations, one can construct relationships between those phrases that can bring a linguistic richness to subjects that normally not use mathematics as a language, e.g. political, cultural, spiritual, etc. Most of my work from the last 7 years are expressions inspired by my practice of Korean Seon (Zen)"
The form I used here is an example of what I call a "Similar Triangle Poem" but could also be described as a "Proportional Poem". The "Similar triangle" idea is used only to help those who are more art oriented to visualize proportions. All of the proportional poems are in the form of "a is to b" as "d is to e". In addition, one of the variables is chosen to be solved and the poem is displayed as a result. The visual images within this polyaesthetic work serve synergistically in the conflation of the mathematical and visual aesthetic experience. The image was created in Photoshop by me using a combination of digital painting techniques and photography.
In essence, I have mapped the phenomenon of human life over the life of a cloud.
The mathematical poetry aspect of this work is in the form of what I call a paradigm poem; whereby an equation from applied mathematics is used as a target domain for a metaphor. This work maps a poem describing a karmic aspect of war into Newton's Third Law of Motion which states that for every action there is an opposite reaction. I also provided a cultural context by using a Joseon Dynasty Korean Karma Mirror - Inspired from a sculpture that resides at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. On a mythic lion resides a mirror that one's karma is displayed by looking in it. I have also appropriated an image from the detonation at Bikini Atoll.
The image was created by the appropriation of photos and using the software Painter/Photoshop.
