Week 4 Activity - Bridges Art work attemp

 This week really made me notice how deeply the math–arts binary has been baked into my own life. Growing up, math and science were the serious subjects, and art and music were considered to be extras. By high school, I dropped music and art entirely so I could take all of the math and sciences courses. I never once thought about how they might actually work together or even strengthen one another.

Trying out a few of the Bridges-inspired projects helped disrupt that thinking. I played around with the rainbow Möbius scarf (I never got it to work quite right, but I wonder if part of that was I was using paper and not material so it doesn't sit quite right) and also some beaded geometric shapes, and what stood out wasn’t the final product, but the process. Making forced me to slow down and really notice patterns, repetition, and structure. I also had to try a few times to get it right.

I also loved the Vi Hart videos this week. I knew her math/art video already (from this class and from showing them years ago to some of my classes), but the math/music pieces were new to me. The braid video in particular felt surprisingly powerful, almost meditative. Listening with headphones gave me actual tingles, and it made me think about how some people believe that certain sounds and frequencies can affect our bodies and emotions. 

What struck me most this week was the realization that the math-art separation hasn’t always been this way. It’s only been separated from art, music, and creativity relatively recently. I was listening to a podcast this morning (https://youtu.be/8G5fg9M4lcs?si=ym5iQEnurQ-EpD3c) and the guest said that mathematics has always been human, we just need to strip away what we have added that has dehumanized it. I also liked his thought that math doesn't cause math trauma, humans do as math anxiety is a big focus for me in my work. This week felt like an invitation to remember math as creative, embodied, and deeply human, not something that needs art added in, but something that already belongs there.