The American Fire Engine by Hans Halberstadt

The American Fire Engine by Hans Halberstadt

A collection of writings by the mathematician and composer linking notions of continuity and construction across math, minimalist music and contemporary art

Noted mathematician and composer Spencer Gerhardt presents Ticking Stripe, a groundbreaking collection of essays linking notions of continuity and construction across the boundaries of math, art, music and philosophy. Gerhardt offers new, deeply informed analysis of the 1960s New York avant-garde, viewed through the lens of trailblazing artists such as La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Catherine Christer Hennix, Henry Flynt and Tony Conrad. Ticking Stripe pairs the spirit of L.E.J. Brouwer--a mathematician who sought to reconstruct the continuum in his own philosophical terms called intuitionism--with the ambitions of pioneering minimalists who combined continued constructions, idealized processes of introspection and conceptual world-building with a host of philosophical, scientific and spiritual concerns. Informed by his own work as a mathematician and composer, Gerhardt explores the depths of these disparate traditions, finding unlikely areas of commonality.
Spencer Gerhardt is a composer and musician, and teaches mathematics at the University of Southern California.