Performance/mathematics: a dramatisation of mathematical methods

Abstract

This essay conceptualises the notion of performance mathematics in terms of a paradoxical relationship with the constructed notion of truth, which is shared by theatrical and mathematical performance. Specifically, I argue that these two disciplines can and cannot be reconciled with truthfulness. Grounding my comparison on the notion of an axiomatic method common to both disciplines, I argue that theatrical and mathematical performance can speak of truths only when these truths are properly staged or methodologically grounded according to the internal rules and conditions laid out by each discipline. But in the same way that these truths can be constructed, or they can be done, so they can be undone. Arguing that mathematics can be described as a performance of specific outcomes involving abstract objects and functions, I trace a cross-disciplinary comparative analysis of performance elements (especially axioms and functions), drawing on a number of theatre and mathematical theories. Some suggestions are also put forward in terms of the connection between the performance of mathematised texts and computational mathematics, particularly in terms of an inherent poetics and theatricality inside the performance-oriented, mathematised languages of digital computing.

Keywords:

• performance mathematics
• axiomatics
• function
• theatricality
• real
• binary digit
• digital

Notes on contributors

Salazar Sutil is a Chilean cultural theorist and performance practitioner. His work focuses on the cultural theory of human movement and digital movement, as well as the intersection of formal languages and performance. He is the artistic direction of C8, an artistic collaborative that works in the integration of stage performance, language formalisms and technology. He currently works as a Lecturer in Dance and Digital Arts at the University of Surrey, UK. Upcoming books include Digital Movement: Essays in Motion Technology and Performance (Palgrave, co-edited with Sita Popat).

Notes

1. For considerations on the rubric of the ‘maths play’, see Kirsten Shepherd Barr (2003). See also Stephen Abbott (2007) and Robert Osserman (2005).

2. Austrian mathematician and logician Kurt Gödel showed that one cannot prove completeness in any approach to mathematics by safe logical principles. His so-called incompleteness theorems told mathematicians that a set of axioms is not adequate to prove all of the theorems belonging to the branch of mathematics that the axioms are intended to cover. In other words, the epoch-making implication of Gödel's idea was that mathematical reality could not be unambiguously incorporated into axiomatic systems. The moment a statement is axiomatised, it becomes incomplete given the finite nature of the axiom itself. Mathematics, and the axiomatic method that had reigned seigniorial for thousands of years, would inevitably give rise to statements, which could neither be proved nor disproved. For a study of relations between Pirandello's work and Gödelian logic, see Matteo Bonsante (2004).