Hi, everyone. Um Thank you for for joining me today. Uh My name is Jana Mohanty and I'm gonna talk about some of the art um I've created uh during the time of COVID and also some of the connections I made during the time of COVID.Um Thanks to technology. So a little bit about myself. Um I am the founder and CEO of the machination LLC uh which is a company that uh chiefly makes uh math educational products. And um uh our product is geometries, which is my invention. It's a, a set of tiles for exploring and learning math. And um you can see some of the things that you can create with geometers behind me. Uh And it basically a set of ties like this. Um But um uh I, I did a number of things before um before this. Um I was a lecturer in mathematics at the University of California San Diego. And um my educational background is uh mathematics and also engineering. And so I've been able to combine my background in both mathematics and engineering uh to uh create this product. So um this is, this session is gonna be basically a story about, uh, what I, uh, some of, of the ways in which I try to keep, uh, sane during the time of COVID.

And the story starts with, um, this popular hobby on, uh, social media, uh, during that, that, that came to being when people were, uh, locked down and had kind of a, a dearth of things to do. And, um, you might recognize it, it was covered a little bit on the news here in the United States. So here is a typical example. Uh you might recognize this painting as a classic American gothic. And so, and this is a recreation of uh the same uh painting uh using uh just people, um nothing really special, just people living in their house and whatever they had around them. OK. So uh and it uh started, it started a whole movement of people doing it and they're still doing it and it became really popular people to various paintings and they recreated the uh uh these paintings using just themselves and whatever they had uh around them as props. And these are the various hashtags under which you can find uh these uh uh these uh uh types of crafts if you will. So uh me being a mathematician, I was thinking, why don't I do this with math artworks? What are the classical artworks that featured math that I could recreate with subjects that I had lying around the house? So the first natural example, if um if you have to think of one person in history who combined math and art, it would be um Leonardo da Vinci.

And um I guess in today's LEGO, we could call him the ultimate steam guide steam standing for science, technology, and engineering, arts and mathematics. And he illustrated this book called uh The Divina Proportion. Uh And um it was actually a math book written in the 16th century uh by Luca Paoli who was a mathematician. And uh and Leonardo did the illustrations for this book. And the illustrations consisted of uh various solids known as Platonic Archimedean solids drawn in perspective.

Now, we may take this for granted now with, with computer aided design that we can see anything in perspective from whatever angle we want. But uh in the 16th century, this was actually a pretty big deal to be able to draw things. So they look three dimensional, but they're flat. And so that's why Leonardo was called upon to help illustrate this book. And the great thing about technology now is that you can look at a lot of these scans of a lot of these uh original manuscripts online. So I was, I was grateful to have access to that. And so this is my, my first shot at this. Um what did I have lying around? Well, I have a lot of geometers running lying around. And so this is one of Leonardo's uh illustrations. This happens to be a tetrahedron and you can uh sort of read that in Latin. Uh And it's vacuous means it's um it's got empty space inside. And so I decided to recreate this uh this uh uh drawing of Leonardo's with geometry. So this was made of a fra a Tejal framework made out of geometry. I tried to get a string with wire in it to make it look like this and try to make it plaque. So this is my first shot at this COVID Classics movement and this was fun. So I decided to do more. And next up was Vencil Jam Mizer. Uh He was a uh German Goldsmith.

Uh I should say Bavarian because at the time that he lived, there was no such a thing as um Germany. And um I had seen his plates in uh this book uh by uh the author Cromwell for years. I mean, I've had this book for over 10 years and I always, this is, this is what the book looks like. And they had these beautiful drawings by Avenel Jam Netzer and they look very intricate. But I just uh I just felt like I never had time to slow down and really look at these drawings in detail. Uh And now during the time of COVID, um well, there were uh there weren't too many choices of what to do because we were in lockdown. And so it was natural to slow down and, and have a good look at them and I wanted to see which ones I could recreate with geometries. So, um, the, uh, uh, for just a second here, I want to, um, I wanna stop and see if anyone has any questions because right now I'm just looking at the screen, I can't see anyone because of the way the powerpoint works. So I'm gonna hide. Um, ok. Um, and I'm gonna see how the session is going. Um And I see uh so, um if uh uh I see that there are no questions on the chat and I assume everyone can still hear me and see everything.

So I'm gonna go back to my presentation and I'm gonna stop a little bit early to see if anyone has any questions. So I'm gonna go back to this. OK. So, um so I decided to see which one of Yom Netzer uh sketches I could recreate with geometry and I found that I could do these two. This is a truncated octahedron and a kind of a variation on it. And this is um kind of a uh elaborate uh Doric Adron. So that was fun. Um It was fun to, to juxtapose these things together and uh kind of add a mathematical flavor to the movement that was going on. Uh And um I was hoping by that time that the pandemic would uh would end and everything would be going back to normal. Uh But it wasn't ending um at about this time last year. And um you know, I was going through a lot of uh personal issues like family members uh being sick, like my mom, my mom in law. So I was really looking for something to do with my hands to cope with all the stress. And I was uh I, I thought it was ready for a bigger challenge of something to recreate another mathematical piece of art. And this is called the Campos. And uh this object goes all the way back to Euclid.

Uh in 300 BC, he had described it in, in his book. Uh but in those days, math mathematics books uh did not have pictures. And so much later in the 13th century, uh an an Italian monk described it in his math book and it became uh his book was very popular and became named after him. Um And so uh this is, this is what we're talking about the Campos sphere. Uh It, it's basically, it looks like a kind of a model of, of the earth with just a few lines of latitude and longitude. And it was a very popular subject to portray around the 16th century. So here's Omri service version and kind of a um uh a variation on it with flowers and here's uh Da Vinci's version. Um I'm not sure if this is uh in the book that I mentioned or a different book. And then there's this um this very famous piece of work by Fra Giovanni um somewhere in the north of Italy. This is actually in Tarsia. So this is not a real closet. It's, it, it's just like a make belief closet with all, it's all flat, it's all done in wood.

And here we see the Campano spe so people were really into this thing and um i it was clear to me that I could not make it with geometers cause I just didn't have that variety of shapes. So I wanted to make it but not with geometer. So how, how would I make it with stuff lying around the house? That was the question. Uh And so here you see a more detailed view of it. It's got um you know, 12 of these uh longitude lines and uh they're not really lines, they're each a do decagon, a 12 sided regular polygon. OK. It looks really pretty again uh drawn in perspective here. So there's a sub story to the story and that is apology. Origami. Um This is a, a type of Origami um which you, we could say it's modular Origami. So uh where you take strips, you cut them up and you, you join them without using any glue and you get these beautiful uh figures and you can make them. This is actually one of the simpler ones. This is um uh just uh for a workshop that um that kids could participate in. And um of course, during the time of COVID, we needed to find something mathematical to, for kids to do. Um And uh so um a colleague of mine who is an expert in this field. And uh and I, we, we had a workshop that was uh it ended up being international.

Uh This, this family is from Brazil on how to create these um uh these solids out of paper using snap Origami. And um uh this was uh this was really popular. And so um I thought, well, why don't I use this technique to uh to make my campaign a sphere? And I had made a campaign of sphere out of uh this uh this thick paper before. But let me show you it um the paper wasn't strong enough, so it just kind of uh collapsed. I needed something stronger. So I decided to use a different medium. Um Tetra pax. Now, what are, what are tetra pax? You've probably seen them but you may not know the name. So these are uh wherever you live, I'm sure you have these, these are boxes uh in which they sell milk or um you know, uh soups, various liquids, mostly milks, no dairy and non. So after you finish it, I, I cut it, cut off the top and bottom, I wash it and I dry it and see inside it's, it's, it's silver. Um And then I cut it into strips and that's what I used for my Snap Origami uh to make my Campanis sphere. And so I, I calculated the length that I needed uh to, to make this object.

And uh once you hear the end of the story, you'll see why I don't have this particular sphere with me. But uh I have, I started making a, a larger one. So this is what it looks like uh when it's partially made and there's no glue involved here. It's just strips of these tetra paks uh joined together um and just held together by tension and friction. And um another great thing that was um that was possible uh due to technology was that we were able to have uh the meeting uh of the joint mathematical uh um of, of the joint mathematical meetings, which is the largest mathematics meeting in the world. We were able to have it online. And uh that meeting always has um uh a mathematical art exhibit. And so because it was online, we instead of the art exhibit, we had kind of a virtual uh gallery opening if you will, with participants from all over the world. And um it was really nice to meet somebody who had admired my Campano sphere because I posted a picture on social media and he admired it uh to such a point where he made his own Campano sphere that in a different medium from mine also from paper. And he's actually from Sicily. So uh much closer to the origin of, of where the camp is a sphere came from. So that was really gratifying um uh to me to see that I inspired somebody to make something similar.

And then finally around uh uh around uh January or so, uh there was a um an exhibit that was planned um here in San Diego where I live in the Japanese Garden. And the theme of the exhibit was I Yasi, which uh I don't speak Japanese, but I guess the best translation is healing. And they wanted to see what art people created in the time of Coronavirus in an effort to heal oneself. And uh my colleague let me know about this conference uh about this exhibit. And I thought, why don't I submit my Campano sphere? Because definitely that was a, a way of, of trying to heal myself from all the stress that was happening. And so I was really excited that my piece got accepted. Uh So here it is in the exhibit still exhibited at the Japanese Friendship Garden. And that's me next to it. Um And uh so that was the, the, the, the happy end of the, of the story. And um just to, I wanted to just go over some um some summaries of what I hope uh you took away from this. Um uh This is a great time to let your mind wander a little bit um because um technology will help you find Kindred spirits around the world.

So if you uh just like we are all Kindred spirits around the world in this conference, uh You can find other Kindred spirits by posting your creation or your interest and hash tagging them and, and you'll never know who you'll find who you can connect to, which is really exciting.

Um And this, this experience also taught me about the benefits of slowing down. Um And I wonder how we can apply this uh to uh uh uh to the times, hopefully that will come soon after the pandemic. And, and finally, um II, I wanted to share with you an American saying um when life gives you lemons make lemonade and that translates to uh when things get really rough, try to make the best of the resources that you have.