Perilous

Today, I’m excited to show you what I’ve been working on these past few months 🖤 I have always had an emotional relationship with numbers, patterns, shapes, and operations. I compulsively count and calculate silently in my head. I’ve only ever told a few people about this. Because it’s weird, and I used to be embarrassed of it. For a long time, it was severely distressing to me, because it was uncontrollable and relentless. For many years, I woke up every morning hoping it’d be the day that it finally stops It never stopped, but over time it softened into subtle background noise, and then into something I could manage. I eventually began to actually enjoy it. It’s now a comfort to me, because it gives me a sense of control, especially in the moments when I can’t control much else A few months ago, I was looking through old math textbooks on Internet Archive. I came across this underlined phrase: “number is a means of expressing ideas in a definite way.” And that’s when I understood why counting and computation are personally significant to me. A number converts a formless, fluid thought into something certain. And mathematics is a language for understanding one’s own thoughts with clarity and security The 64 looping gifs in this series are derived from the visual language of computation. The initial assets for each piece were AI blends of old images of terminal screens, graphical interfaces, calculator displays, vacuum tubes, punch cards, analog calculators, and other remnants of early computing. And each piece is about what numbers, mathematics, and computers mean to me, emotionally. Thank you very much for letting me share them with you 🖤