My friend Louisa Bufardeci recommended this one to me. She’s an artist-scholar with an interest in string figures and braiding. When I she pointed out this book, I was immediately curious.
Here is the publisher’s blurb:
James R. Murphy, a math teacher in La Guardia, New York, regarded mathematics as the most powerful and manipulable abstract language available to humans. To acquaint students who don’t “like” math with abstract and systematical thinking, he put a piece of string in their hands and taught them to make string figures. How to Spell The Fight follows a thread that has been running through our fingers from centuries past till the present day, morphing from the tangible string figures that join our hands in childhood to the more elusive computational algorithms that engage our fingers today. Following this line of inquiry through various twists and turns, a conversation about collective agency emerges with the aim of rethinking current paradigms of cognition, education, and power.
Certainly, I thought, this would be a great read. And it was, in a curious way. I don’t read very much writing by artists. This is high power art writing. I can only liken reading it to being a little intoxicated in a foreign city where you speak the language but don’t quite understand the meaning of what’s being said. In London, England, I remember being awe struck by the machines labelled Free Cash. The ubiquitous dry risers caused some perplexity. Similarly, I am just a little thrown by Haghighian’s opening question:
What will the future study group for liberation from autonomic computational governance look like?
Despite being a bit wobbly about its meaning, I’m deeply sympathetic to the vibe of the book. It is expressing the position that string figures, and manual dexterity more generally, must be important in the future. The main idea is that string figures can re-invigorate our hands and minds, and help pull us out of our screens. I’m 100% on board with that thesis.
“When personal desire prompts anyone to learn to do something well with the hands, and extremely complicated process is intitiated that endows the work with a powerful emotional charge.” (Journal 2018-10-15 quoting Wilson, Frank R. The hand: How its use shapes the brain, language, and human culture. Vintage, 1999.)
One thing I noticed is the curious way that artists and anarchists use the term study group. Check out this quote from Haghighian.
In search of spaces of companionship, intimacy, and experience, there is an urgent need to form new study groups and devise ways of reverse engineering this geometry without world. By now, it is clear that the school will not facilitate this study, at least not through institutionally sanctioned activity.
I really like the idea of study groups of people sharing string figures and making human connection. I think that study groups means something like intentional communities of practice, groups of people who gather to think together. Perhaps the closest thing in mathematics culture would be seminars.
Published: Oct 22, 2024
Last Modified: Oct 22, 2024
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