Doodles and Surrealism
Ravi Vakil, Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University, gave a lecture at Washington University in St. Louis entitled “The Mathematics of Doodling.” He actually began his lecture by doodling an outline around the words “The Mathematics of Doodling”. He continued outlining until there were multiple rings of outlines surrounding the words. His main question about doodling was: “Are the outlines getting more and more circular? Why?” After stating this question, he proceeded to reword it with mathematical symbols in order to form an equation that was solvable. Through various mathematical comparisons and solutions, Vakil concluded that indeed the outlines progressively became more circular. While this rational and concrete approach to doodling is helpful in mathematical terms, it greatly differs from the spontaneous doodling processes of surrealist artists.
As Vakil began to complicate his solution with more mathematical questions far beyond my understanding, a little part of my brain stopped fully paying attention and I began to doodle. As I was doodling, I realized that there were so many different types of doodles that Vakil was not addressing. Often when I am doodling, I will begin with some sort of shape. After that, I will draw another shape that has a relationship to the first. This process continues until I have an amalgamation of many different types of shapes all responding to the one that came before it. This concept of responsive art reminded me of the surrealist concept of the “exquisite corpse”. This is a game that surrealists would play in which the first artist would draw something, cover up a part of his drawing, and then give it to the next artist to continue the drawing. This game ended only when the artists wished it to, as it could technically go on forever.
Doodling also relates to surrealist ideas because it happens on a more subconscious level. For me, doodling often occurs when I am half paying attention. I get into this trance where I am hearing the words that a person is saying, but for some reason my mind cannot access them. Instead, my response to the words gets channeled into my hand and the doodle becomes the only way that I can process what is being said. Surrealists were concerned with the subconscious. Many surrealist works, such as the 1930 “Exquisite Corpse“ by André Breton, Frédéric Migret, Susanna Migret, and others, have to do with dream-like sequences and what happens when people are no longer in complete control of their minds. My experience with doodling has paralleled this surrealist concept.
Doodles in general are not really considered to be art. While this may be the case in everyday life, Surrealist doodles are definitely considered to have artistic value. This leads me to question the reasoning behind this distinction. I do not think that Ravi Vakil’s doodles were forms art because he was constraining them for mathematical purposes in order to solve an equation. Surrealist doodles are not about generalizing in order to solve equations. Instead, surrealists let their subconscious guide their doodles. It was not their intention to find general solutions or patterns in their doodles, but rather, doodles acted as an exploration of the subconscious. To be considered artistic, doodles have to explore the subconscious and embrace the idea of uniqueness and individuality; it must be understood that no two doodles will ever be the same and should never be treated as such. Because Ravi Vakil didn’t acknowledge these important surrealist concepts, his doodles are simply mathematic and cannot be considered art.
Carrie
on Dec 5th, 2009
@ 4:46 pm:
I don’t know if my doodles can be considered art, but I know for sure that they aren’t maths!