“I’ve always had a love for mathematical art. I was an Escher fan as an early teenager. I used to stare at his Relativity and try to figure it out.”
Craig Kaplan, UWaterloo Associate Professor of Computer Science, is General Chair of Bridges 2017 — an annual international conference that brings artists, musicians, architects and poets together with mathematicians. The intention is to explore exciting ways in which mathematics can enrich and inform art, and art can challenge and inspire mathematics. This year, in celebration of the Faculty of Mathematics 50th anniversary, the conference is coming to Waterloo July 27 – 31.
“I had an innate aesthetic that made me love patterns.” It was this visual expression of mathematics that eventually led Kaplan to UW to complete a double major in Pure Math and Computer Science. His master’s and Ph.D. were earned at the University of Washington, and it was there that he was introduced to a graduate seminar course on geometric art — “Islamic tiling patterns…a whole range of really amazing forms and art that I was given permission to treat as research subjects.”
In 1999, he submitted a paper to the ISAMA (International Society of the Arts, Mathematics, and Architecture) conference in Spain where he first intersected with the math/art community and Reza Sarhangi, the founder of Bridges. Kaplan attended his first Bridges Conference later that year at Sarhangi’s academic home at the time — Southwestern College, in Winfield, Kansas.
Reza drew upon his background in theatre in producing the conferences. Kaplan describes him as a larger-than-life figure who would exclaim “It’s so beautiful!” when describing the art submitted for the juried exhibition. Reza “had started building a community around him and made us all want to be a part of it.” Kaplan joined Sarhangi, George Hart and Carlo Séquin as the first directors of the Bridges Organization.
Now in its 20th year, with more than 300 registrants from around the world, Bridges is the largest interdisciplinary conference of its kind. It has traveled to cities in the United States, Canada, Europe, and recently, Seoul, South Korea. The Conference features invited speakers, full and short paper presentations, musical performances, poetry readings, educational workshops, and juried art and film exhibitions.
“There’s an atmosphere of exchange and mutual inspiration.”
For example, Erik Demaine will return to Waterloo to speak at Bridges. Demaine graduated from Waterloo with a PhD in computational geometry at the age of 20. In 2001, he became the youngest professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he specializes in the geometry of the art of paper folding.
On Family Day, Bridges and the University of Waterloo will welcome the public to take in shows, film and art exhibits and hands-on, math-art workshops.
“The Bridges Conference has altered my life and my career permanently and in a beneficial way. It’s molded the way that I think of new ideas and decide what I want to work on. It’s a place to talk about ideas that are beautiful in every sense of the word.”
For more information or sponsorship opportunities, contact Cynthia Fobert.
