beweistheorie I

The first part of the beweistheorie video cycle explores turning points in the culture at the beginning of the 20th century – modernism in art and foundational crisis in mathematics. Term “Beweistheorie“ (ger. “proof theory“) refers to the time of a dramatic change of comprehension in mathematical foundations and limits. Trying to overcome paradoxes of set theory, mathematicians have developed different approaches to axiomatic systems (formalism, logicism, intuitionism, etc.) that eventually made foundations of math uncertain and subjective. Exactly at the same time, art has lost ground of realistic depiction and there started a revolutionary era of modernism with lots of diversity in basic ideas.