This website is a means of expressing myself.
Who I am
Hard to say. To be honest, I suspect there is something odd with the verb to be. I ended up thinking that I am what I do — this way of thinking keeps me motivated to do things that make me feel well. Read about my backround in /bio.
A pressing nightmare in front of me
I spend delightful hours reading about philosophy and physics. I am fascinated by how scientific knowledge evolves. This interest pushes me along a path in the landscape of the history of physics and epistemology. Why all of this? I think because I have the same nightmare that Ludwig Boltzmann had.
I always feel a pressing nightmare that it is a puzzle that I am alive at all. Likewise the existence of the world is a puzzle, and that the world is exactly as it is. A science which could resolve these puzzles would become a genuine queen and its name would be philosophy.
—Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann
This quote comes from the Boltzmann's Philosophy Notes for Three Lectures (Fall 1903), published in Vol. 119, No. 1/2, Ludwig Boltzmann "Troubled Genius as Philosopher" (1999).
I encourage you to see how Boltzmann continues the lecture, his thoughts go toward the clarification of the question meaning.
Generative Art
Generative art forces me to create something deliberately useless — which is quite ambitious for me. I live art as an act of research… maybe of elegance, or surprise, or happiness. I particularly like meaningless art: it does not convey any message, it is just a way to look inside myself. Have a look at the generative artworks at page /projects.
Be Open
I evaluate at most the possibility to do something useful for others, and I take some actions in that direction. I create open-source software and I have a blog where I write about math, graphics and programming. Please enjoy.
Data Visualisation
Currently, I am into data visualisation at Nextbit. I operate in the R&D activities within private and public institutions, giving support to the visualization of patterns emerging from complex phenomena and to the creation of expressive graphic representations of big datasets.Find a selection of dataviz projects I worked on in /data-visualisation.
Get in touch
Please contact me at riccardo@riccardoscalco.it.