I Still Use Pythagoras’ Theorem

It's a numbers game.

This did numbers back in 2018. I wonder what Pearl is up to now?

I’m beat, but I learned something important today:

People care about what you love if you give them the chance to.

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I was a ball of stress this morning.

Today, I hosted my first big event — a tech art show.

The idea was simple: get a few artists together who mostly share their work on screens, and create a space where we could show it in person. We figured maybe 50 people would come, mostly friends and family.

That was not the case. Hundreds of strangers showed up for a self-described “tech art showcase.”

I thought I’d be sitting here tonight writing about the mishaps: the late prints, the almost broken art piece, wi-fi issues, and the art vending machine that never happened (🔜 tho).

And while there’s plenty to say there maybe next week , that’s not what stuck with me.

Instead, I want to talk about the love of math — and what love actually looks like.

We love math

Every artist today shared pieces at the intersection of math, code, and digital artwork. It goes by procedural art, generative art, code art, and more.

Meandering River art from James Hovet

Independently, we all think of ourselves as nerds. We obsess over turning math into instructions, into systems, into visuals.

We speak proudly about it inside our bubble, but outside of that? We’re not really convinced anyone cares.

Legendary Alex Trebek clip. RIP to a legend.

But today, in a room full of hundreds of people, we each got up and really got into it about math, data, code, and art.

One artist gave a tutorial on how to make a basic generative art piece.

Adam teaching the crowd how to make generative art. Link to his tweet thread tutorial here

Another obsessed over meandering rivers.

And a few demonstrated work made from bird flocking algorithms.

And people loved it.

People who had never seen this kind of work before saw the numbers and the code the same way we did: as art.

And we felt the energy too. It was electric.

Kevin with his sine waves, Chris with his flocking algorithms, my Bangers Only Bank Receipts and 3D Color Blobs. A lot to explain here next week.

Let People Care About Your Work

The takeaway isn’t just “people will love what you love.” It’s two things:

1. People who love you will be interested in what you care about.

2. You have to be vulnerable enough to let strangers connect with your work and love it too.

It’s not about pre-vetting an audience or selling it the right way. It’s about saying: this is something I care about, and giving people the chance to care (or not care!) too.

Sometimes that means admitting to a room full of strangers that you still use Pythagoras’ theorem to make art even though everyone else left that in high-school geometry.

And instead of finding it weird, they find it beautiful.

Time to snooze. Onto to v 1.1.

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Thanks to all the friends, family and strangers that came out today. It was a lot to plan but a lot of fun host. From the bottom of my heart, thank you :’)

The v 1.0 crew :)