Philosophical Toys

June 29 – July 30, 2005
Apexart (NYC)

Curated by Sina Najafi (Editor-in-Chief of Cabinet magazine)
In conjunction with the Institute For Figuring and Norman Brosterman

Apexart

Cabinet Magazine interview with Shea Zellweger

Gallery talk: Thursday 6:30 pm June 30, by IFF co-director Christine Wertheim

The tactile, visual, and philosophical fuse in this exhibition, historically anchored in the Kindergarten "gifts" of Friedrich Fröebel, the nineteenth century inventor of Kindergarten. Both the historical and contemporary works featured here prove that if combined with visual and material pleasure, learning even the most abstract thought can be made into a wondrous experience—literally, child's play.

On display will be a full set of Fröebel’s original educational gifts, or learning toys, along with a rare collection of 19th-century Kindergarten exercise books made by young teachers and their pupils. Trained as a crystallographer, Fröebel was influenced by the geometric structures he saw in nature and this spirit will be further represented in the work of Shea Zellweger, a contemporary self-taught logician who has devised a visual alphabet for revealing the geometry behind logic operations. Playful exploration of pattern and form were central to the Kindergarten system, where activities including exercises with building blocks, weaving sticks, and cutting and folding paper. The exhibition will also feature a “minimalist origami” alphabet designed by electrical engineer Jeannine Mosely.

For more information about the show see
http://apexart.org/exhibitions/najafi.htm

Shea Zellweger’s Logic Alphabet

In 1953, while working a hotel switchboard, a college graduate named Shea Zellweger began a journey of wonder and obsession that would eventually lead to the invention of a radically new notation for logic. From a basement in Ohio, guided literally by his dreams and his innate love of pattern, Zellweger developed a visual system - called the “Logic Alphabet” - in which a group of specially designed letter-shapes can be manipulated like puzzles to reveal the geometrical patterns underpinning logic. During the 1970’s Zellweger built a series of physical models of his alphabet that recall the educational “gifts” of Friedrich Froebel. Just as Froebel was influenced by the study of crystal structures, which he believed could serve as the foundation for an entire educational framework, so Zellweger’s Logic Alphabet is based on a crystal-like arrangement of its elements. Where the traditional approach to logic is purely abstract, Zellweger’s is geometric, making it amenable to visual play.

These days we accept outsider artists, and are perhaps aware of outsider scientists, but Zellweger may be the first we could define as an outsider logician. After half a century of obscurity, his idiosyncratic approach is starting to attract the attention of mathematicians who believe it offers an new perspective on logic. Christine Wertheim, co-director of the Institute For Figuring, has been studying Zellweger’s work for the past five years and will present a talk about his program at 6:30pm on Thursday June 30 at Apexart.

A conversation between Wertheim and Zellweger will be featured in Cabinet Issue #18 (on the newsstands in July 2005)

New York Times review

Time Out New York review