Deep-Play: Creativity in Math & Art through Visual Wordplay

by | Sunday, March 01, 2015

I have been creating ambigrams for years now… and I feel extremely lucky that what started as a personal interest and passion has led to some wonderful experiences and learning. These include a series of articles on the mathematics behind these visual designs and now an exhibition at the MSU Museum.

Since December the Creativity-Art-Science Gallery at the MSU Museum has hosted an exhibition of my work – and it has been wonderful. We had an informal gallery-walk a couple of week-ends ago and more than a 100 friends and colleagues showed up at the event. Which was truly gratifying.
I was also given an opportunity to present my work at EduPalooza 2015, a creative arts event at the College of Education a week or so ago. Jon Good recorded my talk and I took a bit of time over the past week to create a video of my comments synched to my slides. You can see this video below.  I think it is a good introduction to ambigrams, mathematics and also includes some interesting stories about my experiences with creating and sharing these with the world at large.

Here are some links if you want to learn more about my work in this area.

A few randomly selected blog posts…

Deconstructing TV news

The video below has been getting a lot of attention on the blogs lately, and despite that it is pretty good. No kittens riding skateboards or mentos and Coke here. Just a beautifully constructed take down of TV News. A must see for all media literacy courses. Check it...

New ambigram book, with 3 of my designs

Ambigrams Revealed: A Graphic Designer's Guide To Creating Typographic Art Using Optical Illusions, Symmetry, and Visual Perception is a new book edited by Nikita Prokhorov. The book showcases the works of ambigram artists from around the world. It includes...

McLuhan on Silver Lining for Learning (5/3)

McLuhan on Silver Lining for Learning (5/3)

This is the fifth of what was supposed to be a three post-series about how media influence our thinking. The first post, uses the invention of writing and print to unpack the meaning of McLuhan’s statement, “The medium is the message.” The second post, focuses on a...

Microblogging in the classroom II

I had blogged earlier about my attempts at using micro-blogging in my face to face classroom. As I had said after the experiment At the end of the class, upon being quizzed, the students seemed to feel that this experiment had been a success and would like to do it...

Creativity & Flow: New article

Creativity & Flow: New article

180-degree rotational ambigram for "Flow" by Punya Mishra The next article in our series Rethinking Technology & Creativity in the 21st Century just got published by the journal TechTrends. This article features Susan Perry, social psychologist,...

TPACK Newsletter #24, August 2015

TPACK Newsletter, Issue #24: August 2015 Welcome to the twenty-fourth edition of the (approximately bimonthly) TPACK Newsletter! TPACK work is continuing worldwide. This document contains recent updates to that work that we hope will be interesting and useful to you,...

The futures of higher ed with Phoebe Wagner

The futures of higher ed with Phoebe Wagner

The Center for Science and the Imagination at ASU runs a series of short stories and virtual gatherings that explore issues related to transformative change. Essentially they solicit and publish a (super-short) short story that explores “themes of community,...

véjà du, on seeing anew

I recently learned about véjà du (see here to learn more). I was sufficiently intrigued by this idea to use this as an assignment in the CEP818, Creativity in Teaching and Learning course I am currently teaching (with Mike DeSchryver). The assignment students were...

Corona virus: Silver lining? For learning?

Corona virus: Silver lining? For learning?

A week or so ago, Yong Zhao reached out to Chris Dede, Curt Bonk, Scott McLeod and me with the question: What would happen to our global and local educational systems, if the Corona virus outbreak lasted for a year? We met a week ago (via zoom, what else) to discuss...

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  1. Paradoxes, illusions & visual wordplay – Punya Mishra's Web - […] merge two incompatible shapes. Incidentally the first design below was created a few years ago for my exhibition at the…

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