Between the Folds (not porn, really!)
This is copperbadge's fault!
I can't do origami. I'm just not … that sort of person. But I watched an origami documentary last night, which I kind of expected to be as exciting as watching paint dry but it was surprisingly engaging and fascinating. Between the Folds is a prize winning origami documentary.
Some of the origami sculptures were just stunning, and the guy who makes his own paper to fold was remarkable. The documentary covers everything from the 'father of origami' (who, among other things, invented the pictorial instructions that are standard now) to the anarchist origami sculptors (who were, unsurprisingly, French), to the 24 year old MIT math genius who makes the guy from Numb3rs look lame. One of the artists makes really amazing origami that moves due to the tensile strength in the various folds. The only flaw of the movie was they didn't show enough of the actual work (the giant pangolin made out of a single 6' square sheet of paper looked amazing).
My partner mentioned he knew someone (who knew someone) who was a mathematics PhD and she works with theoretical math. One of the issues is that some of the theoretical math models, in the past, were impossible to build in the 'real world' - but she discovered that several of them could be made via crocheting. Which was interesting to me in relation to the MIT paper folder because he also makes some theoretical structures using origami - in each case, you're taking a (more or less) one dimensional, mathematically singular object to make explore theoretical examples of math theory. The crochet method is using the line, the origami uses the plane - in both cases, and the complex equations are 'made' solely due to folding.
When we were talking about it, we also noticed that there was only one of more than a dozen or so origami workers who were women - and that woman was a teacher of children. I'd kind of assume it was an issue with the filmmakers but almost the entire film staff were women, including producers, so I'm thinking it might be due to the fact that there are not many origami folders at the level of the documentary who are women.
Going back to the crocheting mathematician, I wonder if it's partly due to … where your imagination might be inclined to go. While not all women are knitters/fabric crafters, most if not all women are familiar with the concept of knitting/crocheting/macramé and I wonder if a female mathematician or mathematical sculptor might not reach towards … the string as a way to explore some of their concepts and men might reach to the page, or the paper as they're less familiar with the daily presence of the string.
That's total guess work on my part but it was unexpected to see so few women represented in the higher end of the paper folding world and I wonder why.
Please comment on Dreamwidth because it isn't run by the Russian Mob!
http://xtricks.dreamwidth.org/83160.html: link to the original post
I can't do origami. I'm just not … that sort of person. But I watched an origami documentary last night, which I kind of expected to be as exciting as watching paint dry but it was surprisingly engaging and fascinating. Between the Folds is a prize winning origami documentary.
Some of the origami sculptures were just stunning, and the guy who makes his own paper to fold was remarkable. The documentary covers everything from the 'father of origami' (who, among other things, invented the pictorial instructions that are standard now) to the anarchist origami sculptors (who were, unsurprisingly, French), to the 24 year old MIT math genius who makes the guy from Numb3rs look lame. One of the artists makes really amazing origami that moves due to the tensile strength in the various folds. The only flaw of the movie was they didn't show enough of the actual work (the giant pangolin made out of a single 6' square sheet of paper looked amazing).
My partner mentioned he knew someone (who knew someone) who was a mathematics PhD and she works with theoretical math. One of the issues is that some of the theoretical math models, in the past, were impossible to build in the 'real world' - but she discovered that several of them could be made via crocheting. Which was interesting to me in relation to the MIT paper folder because he also makes some theoretical structures using origami - in each case, you're taking a (more or less) one dimensional, mathematically singular object to make explore theoretical examples of math theory. The crochet method is using the line, the origami uses the plane - in both cases, and the complex equations are 'made' solely due to folding.
When we were talking about it, we also noticed that there was only one of more than a dozen or so origami workers who were women - and that woman was a teacher of children. I'd kind of assume it was an issue with the filmmakers but almost the entire film staff were women, including producers, so I'm thinking it might be due to the fact that there are not many origami folders at the level of the documentary who are women.
Going back to the crocheting mathematician, I wonder if it's partly due to … where your imagination might be inclined to go. While not all women are knitters/fabric crafters, most if not all women are familiar with the concept of knitting/crocheting/macramé and I wonder if a female mathematician or mathematical sculptor might not reach towards … the string as a way to explore some of their concepts and men might reach to the page, or the paper as they're less familiar with the daily presence of the string.
That's total guess work on my part but it was unexpected to see so few women represented in the higher end of the paper folding world and I wonder why.
Please comment on Dreamwidth because it isn't run by the Russian Mob!
http://xtricks.dreamwidth.org/83160.html: link to the original post