Demoscene and mathematics

 "Noted mathematician, Marston Morse once said “Mathematics are the result of mysterious powers which no one understands, and which the unconscious recognition of beauty must play an important part. Out of an infinity of designs a mathematician chooses one pattern for beauty’s sake and pulls it down to earth.”"...

Thus begins an interesting post over at the spillspace.com , a blog on life and art that might be worth browsing through if you're interested in that sort of thing. The quote captures perfectly the very essence of mathematics that attracts people and sometimes captivates them to such a degree that they give their lives to uncover more of the infinite secrets of mathematics. I've always had a very complex relationship with mathematics, a weird mixture of constant hate and obsession that held a significant part in forming the human being I today recognize as my self. Mathematics might as well be the closest thing to a link that connects the separated realms of arts and sciences, the mind and the body...

I don't know what to call mathematics, I can only describe bits and pieces of it in fractured and stuttering words since my heart and my mind lacks the experience and wisdom to fully describe it's promises and truths. 

The task of describing mathematics become even more labyrinthine when we consider the single most curious trait of the mathematics so far. People in the business of academic studies frequently refer to it as the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences. This mysterious trait of mathematics as a whole is the single most important factor behind the perceived difference of humanity from other common life forms. Indeed, it won't be too much of a stretch to say that this is about the only difference between human beings and other animals of similar genus, making this in effect the heart of the spirit of humanity next to the mysterious mechanism behind the constant urge of living things to create... And both the primary questions of my life, one of the things that constantly haunts my mind and my heart through every waking moment.

So a guy I know introduced me to the computing cub-culture demoscene before. I was aware of their activities even before that but the quality of their works way surpassed my expectations. Demoscene in modern era is basically a form of computer art derived from first generation personal computers of old like Commodore and Apple ][, and in many ways continues the tradition through strict adherence to economic memory management and other programming techniques which sets it somewhat apart from other programming oriented computer arts based on processing language and such. (and no, who those who have no idea what processing is, it's not a computer graphics package. It's Java based programming language used for algorithm based arts, and there is no 'drawing' involved in it) 

From what I'm seeing the demoscene is a little dead, probably due to the difficulty of asm based program optimization (though I must say, even those people don't code strictly in asm anymore. They run optimization programs on a program completed using more conventional programming language like C). And then there's also fact that there are more powerful and easier computer art programming languages out there such as processing (and others I can't remember at the moment). 

I'm beginning to consider the possibilities of applying the algorithms for simulating complex multidimensional mathematical shapes within computer to demoscene toolsets.... Seeing how so many of the computer based algorithm arts projects in demoscene and elsewhere lacks stylistic creativity, application of advanced techniques of computer aided mathematics and sciences simulation will be able to bring a breadth of fresh air this fascinating field of hackerdom and art.