New Video! Math Improv: Smarties
We did it! Can you tell I had fun testing out my new office setup and playing with candy?
This video has been, in a way, 7 years in the making. I made the platonic solids out of Smarties back in 2010, and a smartie video was always on my list of things to do. I got around to candy buttons and fruit by the foot, but never Smarties... until I saw them half-off in the supermarket after Halloween.
This video was a Math Improv in that I sat down and filmed for about four hours without any script or detailed plan... I knew I wanted to hot glue them into polyhedra or something but the twist classification and woven polylink were arrived at through play. I think smarties bar graphs and statistics might make a fun math class activity...
The voiceover was written based on the footage I'd shot, and then the footage edited to the voiceover. So not quite my usual process, but same editing process in the end.
Ok, back to calculus!
P.S. I put up a blog post on my website with a bit more info about the process and also polylinks and stuff: http://vihart.com/math-improv-smarties/
Comments (20)
I'm the person who does the hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef project. www.crochetcoralreef.org We met briefly at G4G10. I've written a lot about math+origami (Erik+Martin, Robert Lang, Jeanine Mosely etc). Jeannine and I co-led a huge project at USC to build a giant fractal out of 50,000 business cards. You probably know of her Business Card Menger Sponge project - after that she discovered a new fractal (the Mosely Snowflake Sponge) that we made for the first time in 2012. <a href="http://www.theiff.org/exhibits/sponge.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.theiff.org/exhibits/sponge.html</a>
Hi Vi - I see you're keeping a list of articles about embodied mathematics. Here's a piece I wrote on that topic for Aeon magazine. <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/theres-more-maths-in-slugs-and-corals-than-we-can-think-of" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://aeon.co/essays/theres-more-maths-in-slugs-and-corals-than-we-can-think-of</a>
This is a great article! You seem real cool :D
Yes artists need to eat pay rent buy equipments sharpies balls of yarn. Oh and there's health insurance, that darned thing the trumpies are on about that matters so much, and artists should have the right to see a doctor if they get sick. And it all adds up. So yes it takes a decent monthly paycheck, and great to see you aiming high on patron.
Thanks! When I started making videos full time many years ago I couldn't afford health insurance, and when I broke my foot I just stayed in and scooted around on a rolly chair for a month hoping it would heal ok. Not a place I wanna be again.
Oh, the comment became much longer than intended. Sorry, I got in the feels. The video was about smarties,fun and math-art, and I just went off on a tangent of my own. But, having written so much already I thought I might as well say what had made me upset with you.I wish I had the option of emailing you or something rather than as a comment to a video.But,anyway............ I am from India and initially did not know how much 25,000 dollars a month mean for an average american. To my utter shock ,I learned the average american monthly income is only around 3,700(also, there may be several americans below this level, as economic disparity is rampant in the US) !!! On your Patreon page,you have mentioned it will take an amount of 10,000 dollars for you just to sustain your work and bills! To me,it brought a very bad taste - that the work you create and which i love so much is so goddamn expensive!!! Then I wondered why does art,in general, have to be expensive anyway. And so, I went into an obsessive zone of endless questions within myself. Your 25,000 optimally happy income became kind of jarring to my ears. I thought of Van Gogh and others.The best art probably comes from being sad than happy,the light shines brightest where there is utter darkness. I understand that my strong reaction was rooted in my general worldview of minimalism and less consumerism. And, all that is fine. But, ultimately what should matter is, despite all that, I still love you and your work as it liberates me in some way. I will like to end by saying, I havent myself made a YouTube video ever. In America, don't they say it :don't knock it till you have tried it.
Indeed if I were asking for funding to be an average American with a 40-hour workweek and an employer providing benefits, space, equipment, services, utilities, etc, things would be quite different! It's true the work I do is expensive, and if you know anyone who manages to do it nearly as well on a smaller budget I'd love to know their tricks. Having been a starving artist for years, though, I must say I'll take working a normal American job with security, benefits, weekends and holidays, over being a starving artist ever again. Artists' pain is romanticized as an excuse for exploiting them.
brings out the life in me in this deadening routine. Like Always. And incidentally, I was a bit upset with you Vi(will talk abt it someday later), but I realize with you I can't stay that for long . I don't even know you personally,but have got emotionally invested in you. Not meant to be in a creepy or romantic way.I know it's not very healthy but I guess I am an emotional person-i couldn't even read completely what you replied to my previous comment: I was so embarrassed. I mean, you never reply to comments on YouTube, so it felt very different and I dont want you to feel obligated to reply to mine.I will not feel offended. I know you read them and that's enough. Waiting for your next video and I hope the Amazon Wishlist thing goes out well for you!
Dang RNG -- 624210(00) then 313062(00). Note: Google tells me there are 8 available colors. It's oddly frustrating that they chose 8 colors and an odd number per package instead of 7 colors.
That is for rest-of-the-world Smarties, I can't find any evidence for more than these 6 colours in US Smarties.
The openupbillity of Smarties is so amazing :-)
Without missing a beat
Thank you. If I find a 4-gallon bag of Smarties in the near future, I will happily get my stats class to do some color analysis. Could be a good that-day-before-Thanksgiving-where-anything-not-candy-related-is-impossible project.
Watching this reminded me of the times I would stroll through your YouTube channel when I was supposed to be doing my math homework in high school. Feels like you never even left! :D
This is awesome! All things must be turned into polyhedra.
"Can we do math to it?" With Vi around the answer is always yes! ..or affirmative if there's already a Y variable in use :P
Hehehe :D
Vi is back! Now about this word "widdershins"....
I cardioid this video
This is exactly what I subscribed to you for. I love it!