Friday 13 March 2009

From Ecstasy to Infinity


I've spent the two month making a radio programme about the art and science of the baroque for BBC Radio 3 that is due to be aired this Sunday on the Sunday Feature.

The Baroque was always a style I'd associated with vulgarity and excess. But in this programme I’ve discovered how much control and structure underpins the spectacle of the baroque. The dramatic and sensational effects of the greatest baroque architects like Borromini and Bernini are founded on sound mathematical principles. Painters like Caravaggio and Rubens are battling with the same problems as Newton and Leibniz in their attempt to capture bodies in motion. And the extravagant sounds of Monteverdi and Bach would not be possible without the mathematical development of new ideas of temperament. It is my world of mathematics and science which allows the artist and musician to play with your emotions. Join me on my journey to the conversion of the delights of the baroque.

15 Mar 2009, 21:30 on BBC Radio 3

1 comment:

chris said...

Hi my name is Chris.
This is not relevant to this blog directly, I saw the infinity reference and it caught my eye! I'll understand if you don't read on.

I was quite interested in the recent horizon program on the bbc, especially, as intended, towards the end.

I do however have one thought regarding the 4d universe.

Im in a computing background and, am no way, an expert or even knowledgable figure in such things.

In my understanding this fourth dimension would in someway link the front and back of a 3d object, without touching space joining the left to the right and the top to the bottom.

For this to be the case though it would need to either be able to travel, not only in space we cant comprehend, but would have a sharp bend in it!

My reasoning for thinking this is in the 3d analagy of a 3d object being 'nested', as it were, inside of a 4d shape, with the exponential growth in faces (even if it is infinate in this case). but to reach this surely the object would have to extend out to the edge of this 4d world and then come directly back down through its self, lest it touch the edges of the 3d space, making two sharp corners.

A solution to this, in my mind, would be our 3d world being in a 5d universe, in which the 4d plane has space to weave in and out of the 3d attachments.

Like ive said, im not an expert in this, but it is interesting to me and is no way the first time ive though about it, id quite appreciate a response to this in relation to how 4d objects could connect to each other without interupting the 3d connections.