”
A moment later that one moment is gone and a new moment has arrived.
When I make photographs I am trying to capture the arrival and departure of moments.
― Lourenz Ruiter
the beauty of the number
36
Thirty-six is a nice number. Mathematically it is a number with special properties. But you can also link it to different things in art, just like in sports and music. And all those different qualities can be linked to me in one way or another.
First of all, the photography. 36 can then be referred to the old 36mm format, where the negatives were 36mm in width. A roll of film usually exists of 36 shots.
The famous Japanese artist Hokusai has drawn Mount Fuji from 36 different locations, known as the ’36 Views of Mount Fuji’.
To stay within the arts: a piano has 36 black keys. I happen to like to play the piano. What I also like to do is cycling. Perhaps somewhat trivial: Fausto Coppi is a famous Italian cyclist of the past. He preferred to start with shirt number 36.
And then the math. 36 is a so-called ‘highly composite number’. In short: it is a number that is divisible by many numbers. It is also a triangular number, the square of 6×6, the sum of two prime numbers 17+19 and the sum of 1³+2³+3³.
That gave me the idea, and especially Hokusai’s series, to start photographing thematically. I combine this with the triptychs traditional in Western art. If you make a series of twelve triptychs, you will have 36 images. How beautiful is that!