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MAKING SPACE
Theoretical and Practical Explorations of Space

WIDE OPEN SCHOOL PROJECT
@ Hayward Gallery, London 
June 12–14, 2012

Students constructing business card fractals at the Making Space class in the Hayward Gallery's Wide Open School. Photos © IFF Archive

This summer the Hayward Gallery in London is turning itself into a school. During June and July, 100 artists from around the world, representing more than 40 countries, will give classes, talks and seminars about their artistic practice and the things that inspire them. During the first week of this unusual, international pedagogical experiment, IFF Director Margaret Wertheim will teach three days of intensive classes about concepts of space in physics and mathematics. Morning classes will focus on theory, with afternoons devoted to hands-on exercises using kindergarten-like techniques such as cutting and folding paper.

Read about the classes on Margaret Wertheim's Guardian blog posting

See Event Web Page at the Hayward Gallery

Business card fractal sculpture constructed by students in the IFF's Making Space classes.

Class Schedule - Morning Theoretical Class [10am–12noon]

June 12 - Day 1: Foundational Concepts in Geometry and Topology
Over the past 200 years, mathematicians have developed entire languages for describing spatial structures. The two branches of this field are geometry and topology. In this class we will discuss different types of geometry and the difference between euclidean and non-euclidean geometries. Then we will move on to the subject of topology, ending with a revelation about holes and the topological genus of male and female bodies. 

June 13 - Day 2: What is a Dimension?
What does it mean to say that something has 2 dimensions, or 3? The concept of a dimension is one of the foundational ideas in modern physics. Here we will explore the history of this idea from Descartes to the contemporary concept of multi-dimensional phase space. We will conclude with a look at fractional dimensionality and fractals.

June 14 - Day 3: What is the spatial structure of our Universe.
Does our universe have an architecture? If so what are its geometric and topological properties? Here we will look at the history of Western thinking about the space of physical reality, beginning with the Middle Ages, then working our way though the innovations of Galileo, Newton and Einstein and concluding with ideas about hyperspace and string theory. 

Students construct a model of hyperbolic space in the "Making Space" class at the Hayward Gallery's Wide Open School. Original paper template from a design by Keith Henderson.

Class Schedule - Afternoon Practical Class [2pm–5pm]

June 12 - Day 1: Foundational Concepts in Geometry and Topology
Here we will construct various geometrical and topological forms using paper cutouts. Materials will be supplied. 

June 13 - Day 2: What is a Dimension?
Here we will learn how to make a Level One Menger Sponge fractal out of business cards. This class is based on techniques developed by engineer Dr. Jeannine Mosely, inventor of Business Card Origami. Materials will be supplied.

June 14 - Day 3: What is the spatial structure of our Universe.
We will continue our exploration of fractals using business cards. The class as a whole will be invited to build a business card fractal world. Freeform interpretation will be encouraged.

Margaret explains the medieval concept of space that preceded the modern scientific understanding.

Margaret Wertheim muses about the class and her lifelong interest in space:

"When I was a child I was obsessed with the idea of space and time. Was time an illusion? Did it really exist, or was it just an artifact of our imaginations - or perhaps our language? What about space: What did it mean to say that we existed in space? How could we be in anything that wasn't made of the same stuff as us? Could a body logically be in an empty void? As I lay on the grass under the gum trees in Brisbane I had nowhere to turn for answers to these questions and they led me to dream that when I grew up I would study physics. I didn't really know what "physics" was, but I had read about the theory of relativity in a children's encyclopedia my mother had brought for myself and my siblings. Though I barely understood the words, I knew that Einstein had invented a theory about space and time and I wanted to know what it was.

When I went to university I majored in physics but it wasn't until our final year that we learned about relativity. How on earth did human beings come to see the world this way, I wondered.

This was the 1970's and the history and philosophy of science had yet to reach Queensland as an academic discipline. Eventually I decided that I needed to understand physics in a wider cultural context so I left academe and became a science writer. In my book The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet, I set out to trace the historical evolution of Western scientific thinking about space. How did we go from the cosmos of Dante's Divine Comedy, with its endless layers of Heaven and Hell, to the infinite void of Newtonian physics, then the dynamic fabric of general relativity. What I came to realize in researching this book was that our conceptualizing of space is intricately bound up with our concept of ourselves. What we think it means to be human is literally tied to how we think about the space in which we live."

Learn more about The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace.

PHOTO GALLERY

Making Space - Hayward Gallery
Students construct a business card fractal sculpture by deviating from mathematical perfection and going wild.

Margaret with a hyperbolic model constructed by students in her "Making Space" class at the Hwyward Gallery's Wide Open Schol.

Margaret explains the symmetries inherent a Level One Menger Sponge.

Student discovers symmetries in a Level One Menger Sponge.

A Level Two Viscek fractal constructed by students in the Making Space class at the Hayward Gallery's Wide Open School.