Recently Lord David Puttnam opened the exhibition BOOLEAN EXPRESSIONS which is currently at the Glucksman Gallery in University College Cork.
This exhibition explores the ways in which artists use mathematical concepts and systems in their work. Inviting audiences to investigate ideas of Boolean algebra, the impact of ‘big data’ on contemporary life, and how systems and codes support creative production, the exhibition captures the ways in which artists have used logic and technology in their artistic practices.
BOOLEAN EXPRESSIONS also commemorates the legacy of George Boole, the first Professor of Mathematics at Queen’s College Cork and a pivotal figure who can be described as the ‘father of the information age’. His invention of Boolean algebra and symbolic logic pioneered a new mathematics, and his legacy surrounds us everywhere, in the computers, information storage and retrieval, electronic circuits and controls that support life, learning and
communications in the 21st century.
Throughout BOOLEAN EXPRESSIONS, the processes of calculation and computation utilised by mathematicians – and by conceptual artists – are realized through physical and performative gestures. In Boolean algebra, values are designated either 1 or 0, true or false, and this binary logic structures all computer programming. John Gerrard’s three-screen work Exercise (Dunhuang) portrays a simulated maze-like desert landscape populated with the avatars of Chinese factory workers, setting off in different directions according to the algorithms used in GPS systems. Occasionally, two of these characters meet, and the participant closest to his/her goal continues as the other retires from the exercise. 
There will be work on show by artists including John Gerrard, Darren Almond, Aram Bartholl, Mel Bochner, Hanne Darboven, Sol LeWitt, Tatsuo Miyajima, Aisling O’Beirn, Matthew Ritchie, and Lynne Woods Turner.
Fiona Kearney, Director of the Lewis Glucksman Gallery, curated the exhibition in collaboration with the College of Science, Engineering and Food Science at UCC and you may be interested in interviews with Fiona/ John Gerrard/ Aisling O’Beirn, as this synergy between art and science could make a good fit for one of your articles.
Contemporary art and mathematical data
25 July – 8 November 2015
Lewis Glucksman Gallery
University College Cork
www.glucksman.org
www.georgeboole.com
BOOLEAN EXPRESSIONS: Contemporary art and mathematical data is supported by University College Cork, The Arts Council Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland and private philanthropy through Cork University Foundation.