Edyta Frelik
2 articles-
Abstract
The article considers the subject of art/science intersections by presenting the affinities between the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and the visual artist Tadeusz Mysłowski. In the Introduction, their encounter is contextualized in an overview of earlier approaches to the study of such intersections, especially the changes in rhetorical theory and practice which led to the so-called rhetorical turn in the last decades of the 20th century. In Part 2, the evolution of visual rhetoric and the rhetoric of mathematics as autonomous subject areas within the broader field of rhetoric is discussed as constituting crucial parallel developments that now provide scholars with adequate tools to analyze and describe instances of rhetoricization of scientific and artistic communication. In Part 3, the example of the Mandelbrot/Mysłowski conjunction is scrutinized to bring out the rhetorical ramifications of their respective geometries – of fractals in the case of the mathematician and of elemental geometric-organic forms in the case of the artist.
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Abstract
F.L. Wright’s written and oral statements are discussed with a view to showing the connection between his principles of “organic” architecture and the rhetorical efficacy of his verbal expression. His calculated, eloquent and dexterous enactment, or performance, of various communication strategies is presented as fully contiguous and consonant with his architectural thinking and substantiation of ideas through action. This makes him an important precursor of postmodern consciousness and praxis.