Genuine Pretending
A philosophical framework for mathematical art developed with Roger Antonssen and drawn from Moeller and D'Ambrosio's reading of the Zhuangzi.
This project was started in long conversations with Roger Antonssen before his sad passing in 2024.
The concept comes from Moeller and D’Ambrosio’s reading of the Zhuangzi, where they identify three modes of self-relation. Sincerity demands that the self conform to its roles — the sincere mathematician becomes, fully, a mathematician. Authenticity inverts this: the authentic artist shapes their roles to fit the self. Genuine pretending dissolves the tension by questioning the fixed inner self that both sincerity and authenticity assume. Roles are inhabited completely and seriously — played as if real — without the practitioner becoming identified with any one of them. For work that moves between mathematics and art, this is liberating: it is no longer necessary to decide where a piece fits in each tradition, or to defend its legitimacy within either. The work can draw on both, answer to both, while not committed to belonging to one, neither or both.
The first public discussion of this project was my keynote at the Bridges conference in 2025. A longer scholarly paper is planned.
