Zéro dièse existe. Art, mathématiques, inesthétique

Art and mathematics have always enjoyed an intimate relationship, as illustrated by the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Béla Bartók, Bernar Venet, Roman Opalka, Manfred Mohr, Ryoji Ikeda, Hollis Frampton, Shigeru Onishi and many others. Since the 1960s, however, this relationship has begun to weaken, and a certain distance has appeared between these two spheres of creativity. Tombroff takes us on a journey to discover the reasons for this bifurcation between art and mathematics in the postmodern era and identifies a prime suspect: infinity. For this investigation, he draws on the work of philosopher Alain Badiou, in particular on the concept of inaesthetics, a novel approach that challenges the conventional notion of aesthetics that Badiou introduced to account for the specific yet universal nature of art’s truths.

Michel Tombroff is a visual artist. He studied civil engineering at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and theoretical computer science at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). His artistic practice draws its inspiration from where questions of foundations and formalisation meet, whether in mathematics or philosophy. He lives and works in Brussels (Belgium).