Abstract
Alighiero Boetti is one of the most representative contemporary Italian artist and his opus is raising a constantly growing international interest. Many of his works can be realized on very different supports and make use of algorithmic procedures. This contribution analyzes a minimal work, consisting only of the linguistic description of a process, with the aim of demonstrating that, in spite of its simplicity, it shows various relevant features of Boetti’s aesthetics.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
Take for example the number otto [eight]: it is composed of four letters, four [quattro] is composed of seven letters, seven [sette] of five letters, five [cinque] counts six letters, six [sei] counts three letters and three [tre] counts its own letters. Thus, eight ends in three. This system works with all the numbers, no matter how large. It is enough to alternate numbers and letters, to read and to count. Note that this work, a work which, with its light and playful mood, perhaps adds something to the great symbolic system of the number three, a work like this does not use any material support.
- 4.
As f lettercounter is defined only for natural numbers, the continuous curve has not a formal meaning (there is properly nothing between two adjacent numbers), but it is nonetheless useful for sake of visual clarity.
- 5.
To be precise, 4.045, calculated from the electronic version provided by Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1012/pg1012.txt).
- 6.
Boetti explicits the relationship between the hand and the decimal system in Postali 80, [1], 51, where the sequence 1–10 is achieved through a system of contours of the fingers, as usually drawn on paper with pencil.
- 7.
- 8.
The two excerpts are from a video interview by Antonia Mulas, from the series In prima persona. Pittori e scultori italiani (1984).
References
J.C. Ammam, M.T. Roberto, A.M. Sauzeau (eds.), Alighiero Boetti 1965–1994. Mazzotta, Milano, 1996.
G. Celant, Arte povera. Galleria de’ Foscherari, Bologna, 1968.
M. Margozzi, Alternando da 1 a zero e viceversa, 1993. In: S. Pinto (ed.), Alighiero e Boetti — l’opera ultima. SACS, Torino New York London Venezia. 1996, chap. 1, pp 21–32.
A. Valle, V. Lombardo, H. Vogel, Alternating from 1 to X and vice versa. In: ACM Multimedia (2007), pp. 922–931.
A. Valle, Scrivere con la sinistra è disegnare. Su grafie e notazioni. Il verri 38, 83, 2008.
G. Di Pietrantonio, C. Levi (eds.), Alighiero Boetti — Quasi tutto. Silvana, Milano, 2004.
P. Zellini, Gnomon. Adelphi, Milano, 1999.
G.B. Salerno, Arte della copia e misteri della riproduzione. In: J.C. Amman, M.T. Roberto, A.M. Sauzeau (ed.), Alighiero Boetti 1965-1994. Mazzotta, Milano, 1996, pp. 47–53.
M.F. Barnsley, Fractals everywhere, 2nd edn. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, 1993.
R. Diestel, Graph Theory. Springer, New York, 2000.
A. Sauzeau, E. Greco, Shaman showman Alighiero e Boetti — Niente da vedere niente da nascondere. Luca Sossella, Roma, 2006.
I. Rodrìguez Iturbe, A. Rinaldo, Fractal River Basins. Chance and Self-Organization. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Italia
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Valle, A. (2012). All the Numbers End in Numbers. On a Work by Alighiero Boetti. In: Emmer, M. (eds) Imagine Math. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2427-4_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2427-4_13
Publisher Name: Springer, Milano
Print ISBN: 978-88-470-2426-7
Online ISBN: 978-88-470-2427-4
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)