Proceedings of the 17th International Academic Conference, Vienna

THE GAME OF MATHEMATICS IN LIBERATURE

ŁUKASZ MATUSZYK

Abstract:

The presentation will focus on the recent artistic phenomenon called liberature, in the context of its mathematical qualities. In this literary trend which inextricably connects the textual and physical layer of the work, each element is expected to be created according to a certain formula which, in turn, should bring a holistic piece of literature. Artistic pieces similar to liberature have existed for several thousand years, and nowadays researchers tend to call them proto-liberary. However, after 1999, with the advent of theoretical and critical insights on liberature in Poland and elsewhere, much more mathematically-oriented works have appeared which are strictly liberary. In the presentation, I will base on the theoretical idea behind liberature when discussing Zenon Fajfer’s liberary work Ten Letters (Pol. Dwadzieścia jeden liter [twenty-one letters]). The piece will be analysed mainly from the point of view of geometry and the intriguing play with numbers, which is visible already in the very title – the ten-lettered word Ten Letters. Both of the mathematical elements enumerated – i.e., the game of numbers and geometry – are inextricably connected with the liberary construction of the whole volume and of language in Fajfer’s work.

Keywords: liberature, mathematics, game in literature

DOI: 10.20472/IAC.2015.017.059

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