Translated material
Fractals at the junction of worlds - Trinity option - Science
On Saturday, May 23, the Dostoevsky Library and the Lachesis Club on Chistoprudny Boulevard in Moscow hosted the Fractal Odyssey festival - an opportunity to come into contact with the beauty of mathematics and modern art. The daytime and evening programs included popular science lectures (for example, about fractals inside neural networks), quizzes and master classes on painting, stained glass and origami, and then a disco and a concert of experimental music continued until dawn. The organizers of the festival are the telegram channel "Turing's Crossword" 1 , Summer School 2 , the Rozetka bureau and the Lachesis club.
“ A festival about the beauty of mathematics ,” that’s what the organizers called their brainchild. “ All our activities are connected by a common idea: to show this beauty from different sides - through mathematical subjects, through art, through music, through science .”
A review lecture on fractals was given by Ivan Yakovlev , a teacher at School No. 179, and Polina Romanova , a graduate student at the Faculty of Mathematics at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. Then the author of Olympiad problems for schoolchildren , Mikhail Evdokimov, spoke about the best geometric problems for any age; Mikhail Gelfand , vice-president of Skoltech, - about the hierarchy of infinities; Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics of the National Research University Higher School of Economics Alexandra Skripchenko - about the mathematics of the living; Director of the Physics and Technology School of Applied Mathematics and Informatics at MIPT Andrei Raigorodsky - about the chromatic numbers of the plane; programmer Vyacheslav Gusev - about fractals inside neural networks. The moderator of the lecture part was Andrei Sobolevsky , director of the Higher School of Modern Mathematics at MIPT.
At the master classes, everyone could make fractal stained glass windows with their own hands, practice origami, take part in quantum experiments, solve linguistic problems, play the theremin, and practice Japanese calligraphy.
The art program included fractal painting by young artists, as well as video art from the group “Yav”, Cactus Juice, artists Artyom Tkach , Meta Chaos and much more.
The social part included the networking “Attractor” from the Rozetka bureau, the musical performance “Point Zero” by Alina Asomnia , based on the work of Kharms “Zero and Zero”, a round table on the philosophy of fractals, a quiz from the editor-in-chief of the magazine “Schrodinger’s Cat” Grigory Tarasevich , as well as a poetry evening and the opportunity to get a temporary tattoo.
The program also included film screenings: visitors saw the film “Pi” by Aronofsky, a documentary about fractals, and a thematic selection of short films and cartoons.
The night concert was opened by Pyotr Theremin , the great-grandson of Lev Theremin, one of the leading theremin players in the world. Next to his “signature” instrument, a new one recently appeared - the FLUX magnetic synthesizer, created by Vlad Kreimer, founder of SOMA Lab. The theremin is played by moving the hands in the air, while the FLUX is played by moving the magnets next to the body. The program was continued by Vlad Gorelov (formerly an employee of the theoretical sector of the Landau ITF) with the group “Scientific and Technical Rap”, the only one in Russia playing “nerdcore”. Then until four o'clock in the morning there will be live performances by the masters of experimental sound: Brinstaar, Spiralfractal, Stropharia, S66, Rombix, Womba, Morakh, Hobboth, ænsof, garish_cyborg, The Darkest Supernova, Misha Nikitin.
The main partner of the festival is Technology Leaders of the Future, a scholarship program of the Timashev Foundation. TLF provides schoolchildren 14–17 years old, strong in mathematics, physics or computer science, with fully paid scholarships to study at The Island School (Cyprus) and H-FARM International School (Italy).
At our request, the author of the popular science telegram channel “Turing’s Crossword,” Ivan Yakovlev, spoke about the idea of the festival:
“ It all started small. I organized public online lectures on modern mathematics and led a math club at the Tsiferblat anti-cafe. Gradually the idea of the festival was born; We first made it in the summer of 2025, and a year later we reassembled it and much better. This was “Fractal Odyssey”.
The idea of the festival belonged to my older brother Georgiy. He was responsible for the music, art and the concept itself. We grew up in different worlds - he in music and art, I in mathematics - and the festival turned out to be exactly at the junction of these worlds.
The theme of the festival is fractals: shapes arranged in the same way on any scale, where a simple rule, repeated many times, gives infinite complexity. This is why the program was put together. A lecture from a famous scientist, a station where you form a fractal out of paper with your hands, and a psychedelic set at three in the morning - in fact, they are parts of one big fractal. We named the club halls “Mandelbrot”, “Sierpinski”, “Julia” and “Cantor” (in honor of the famous mathematicians who studied fractals), and drew the schedule in the form of a fern.
Much more people came than we expected. Youth, students, parents with children; some to music, some to lectures, some to just spend the day. The yard was buzzing: friends had arrived, the Hyperion store was selling books in the open air. There were some surprises. During Raigorodsky's lecture in the basement, the traffic jams blew out, the lights went out, and the sound disappeared. Fortunately, everything was quickly resolved.
What I remember most strongly was the performance of the group “Scientific and Technical Rap” in the cramped courtyard of the club. There were a lot of people, and in this crowded space everyone suddenly became one.
And by the morning there was a feeling that people who are interested in science are alive: with energy, excitement, love for life. This vitality lasted all day.
Next, I want exactly one thing: to have a place and time where you can gather. Mathematicians, art lovers, those involved in education, those who have children or who work with children. The story is family and underground at the same time .”
Alexey Ognev
Video recordings of all lectures:
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBUfQaa1LCCBMiK1lW-Zp9T8ZROSPy_cg&si=VRjZENVXDDMpsoOc
Photos provided by the festival organizers.
2 Interdisciplinary summer camp for schoolchildren and students under the auspices of JINR in Dubna, letnyayashkola.org .