MYTHEMATICS – Barbara Wildenboer
Barbara Wildenboer (b.1973) explores philosophical concepts of aesthetics across a variety of mediums. By drawing inspiration from the work of individual scientists, discoverers, authors and mathematicians, she exposes the connections between a myriad of life forms – from the microscopic to the immense. Her main focus is on environmental aesthetics and the mathematical sublime (an aesthetic concept first articulated by Immanuel Kant). She sees environmental aesthetics as something that not only encompasses natural territories, but as also extending to human interaction with the natural realm. The work is concerned with the idea of the mathematical sublime and how a boundless, formless universe could be regarded as something that transcend the limits of reason.
Her work mostly consists of photo- and paper-construction and digitally animated photographic sculpture. She uses a combination of analogue and digital processes to create sculptural photographic work which explores phenomena such as temporality, fractal geometry and the interconnectedness of all living things and often works across academic disciplines such as science, mathematics, philosophy, mechanics and theatre to create systems/structures/composites that draw emphasis to our understanding of experience as mediated through text or language and our understanding of the abstract terms of science through the use of imagery and metaphor.