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New Number (2013) - lecture in English
Performed at:
Rear Garden KHM Rundgang 2013
group exhibition Neue Nummer, Raum für alle I ganz schön Kalk, Köln
New Number is a lecture about stress and mathematics—independence proofs, naive set theories, generalized continuum hypothesis, solving zeta function, primes of bad reduction, hyper primitives and real and imaginary sets.

It starts with what-is-repetition, addressing the anxieties and concerns of young artists/students, mixes it with philosophy of mathematics, and goes on by readings with psychoanalysis. The performance ends with an endeavour to prove a historical mathematical conjecture in silence. The try fails of course, but is definitely productive. The failure to solve the difficult problem is evident for me as it is difficult, but still is not completely impossible. As someone who has studied applied mathematics, with this performance, I tried to bring my own unfinished business with 'understanding of mathematics' to the table, the modern science, and the relationships in mathematical realities to the social reality of the performance itself. It is a gesture to bring the computational into the artist's stuttering tongue in this digital age; a humorous critique on efficiency, rigour, communication-design, and the-mathematical.


'New Number #2' at Rear Garden, performed at KHM Rundgang 2013, Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln. 'Rear Garden' was a full day program for performance at the blossoming backyard of KHM, July 2013. The project was conceived and organized by Aino Korvensyrjä, Marat Beltser, and Sina Seifee. Program included: Hummus breakfast, Zurich artist insurance, Avant Garden group (poststructuralist Kindergarten practices and face painting), live Virtual University courses, revelations on Web Love, new trends in fake sentimental education, selfdesign at job-seeking (warning examples), pure mathematics for dummies (naïve set theories, hyper primitives etc). Artists involved: Marat Beltser, Lisa Bensel, Aino Korvensyrjä, Sina Seifee, Katia Sepúlveda & Sayak Valencia, Mi You. Lecture performance 'New Number' at Raum für alle I ganz schön Kalk, 2013. (Photo by Karin Demuth) In the lecture, by drawing a connection between the ways new structures have been and are invented and introduced into the mathematical thinking and their influence on how we perceive and construct reality, I investigate a possibility for a momentary release from the demands of superego in the life of young artists. As they are under a lot of pressure to produce something new, unique, and smart—a look at another discipline could be insightful for inspecting the mathematics of this pressure.

© 2014 Sina Seifee