#algorists
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jjvincent.bsky.social
nice argument. however, i've already depicted myself as the chad boethius, smiling over my hindu-arabic numerals, and you as the soyjack pythagoras, struggling to match my calculations with your reckoning board
a 1503 woodcut showing a contest between boethius and pythagoras, representing the algorists and abacists respectively; the former using the new hindu-arabic numerals, and the latter counting boards
June 29, 2026 at 10:48 AM
padcrafting.com
Thanks to @bantamtools.bsky.socialfor letting me try out the ArtFrame. The largest print I’ve dont so far. And all I see are the tiny mistakes I made :). #penplotter #algorists #plotterart #printmaking #artframe
March 31, 2025 at 3:20 PM
padcrafting.com
#inkscape tip for #penplotter s : a dashed stroke style can be converted into actual short lines. Use the menu item: Extensions > Modify Path > Convert Dashes to Path #tip #algorists #svg #vectorgraphics
Illustrating conversion of dashed line style to actual line segments.
April 3, 2025 at 6:25 PM
bookswain.bsky.social
“As might be expected in treatises covering a period of eight centuries, there is little uniformity in the choice of fundamental operations.”

In the next section she outlines differences in mathematical operations between the Hindu, Arabic & Latin sources & provides a quick summary for each (6/n)
"Algorists vs. abacists, depicted in an etching from 1503 CE. Illustration from Margarita philosophica, 1503, by Gregor Reisch. Image and description via Wikipedia. #histsci #womeninstem 🧮
November 29, 2025 at 3:40 PM
b3d0u1n.bsky.social
They are algorists - they found a loop and have been repeating it at ever greater frequency - catching a wave on compound interest isn’t genius - certainly not invention.
December 27, 2024 at 9:37 PM
gatsuva.bsky.social
Verostko co-founded the Algorists, a group defined by a simple rule: you write your own algorithms. No borrowed code and no off-the-shelf tools. The philosophy was that the artist authors the system that authors the work.
January 12, 2026 at 4:23 AM
artinberlin.bsky.social
The Algorists
www.art-in-berlin.de/incbmeld.php...
The Algorists
Jean-Pierre Hébert + Roman Verostko, Special Guest: James Merrill Eröffnung: Freitag, 4. September, 17 – 21 Uhr DAM Projects, Horstweg 35, Berlin-Charlott
www.art-in-berlin.de
September 1, 2026 at 9:17 AM
nyt-first-said.bsky.social
algorists
August 24, 2023 at 6:04 AM
epsteinweb.bsky.social
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016967.jpg
#epsteinweb #houseoversight016967
from the history of the sciences: Judgment is not the discarded husk of a now pure objectivity of self-restraint. And mechanical objectivity is a virtue competing among others, not the defining essence of the scientific enterprise. They are lessons to bear in mind, even if algorists dream of objectivity. 164 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016967
February 7, 2026 at 11:08 PM
epsteinweb.bsky.social
Part 1/2 — HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016966.jpg
#epsteinweb #houseoversight016966
insight. There can be no royal road to becoming Goethe. In scientific atlas after scientific atlas, one sees explicit argument that “subjective” factors had to be part of the scientific work needed to create, classify, and interpret scientific images. What we see in so many of the algorists’ claims is a tremendous desire to find scientific objectivity precisely by abandoning judgment and relying on mechanical procedures—in the name of scientific objectivity. Many American states have legislated the use of sentencing and parole algorithms. Better a machine, it is argued, than the vagaries of a judge’s judgment. So here is a warning from the sciences. Hands-off algorithmic proceduralism did indeed have its heyday in the 19th century, and of course still plays a role in many of the most successful technical and scientific endeavors. But the idea that mechanical objectivity, construed as binding self-restraint, follows a simple, monotonic curve increasing from the bad impressionistic clinician to the good externalized actuary simply does not answer to the more interesting and nuanced history of the sciences. There is a more important lesson from the sciences. Mechanical objectivity is a scientific virtue among others, and the hard sciences learned that lesson often. We must do the same in the legal and social scientific domains. What happens, for example, when the secret, proprietary algorithm sends one person to prison for ten years and another for five years, for the same crime? Rebecca Wexler, visiting fellow at the Yale Law School Information Society Project, has explored that question, and the tremendous cost that trade-secret algorithms impose on the possibility of a fair legal defense.*4 Indeed, for a variety of reasons, law enforcement may not want to share the algorithms used to make DNA, chemical, or fingerprint identifications, which puts the defense in a much weakened position to make its case. In the courtroom, objectivity, trade secrets, and judicial
February 7, 2026 at 11:07 PM
epsteinweb.bsky.social
Part 1/2 — HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016963.jpg
#epsteinweb #houseoversight016963
ALGORISTS DREAM OF OBJECTIVITY Peter Galison Peter Galison is a science historian, Joseph Pellegrino University Professor and co- founder of the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University, and the author of Einstein's Clocks and Poincaré’s Maps: Empires of Time. In his second-best book, the great medieval mathematician al-Khwarizmi described the new place-based Indian form of arithmetic. His name, soon sonically linked to “algorismus” (in late medieval Latin) came to designate procedures acting upon numbers—eventually wending its way through “algorithm,” (on the model of “logarithm”), into French and on into English. But I like the idea of a modern algorist, even if my spellcheck does not. I mean by it someone profoundly suspicious of the intervention of human judgment, someone who takes that judgment to violate the fundamental norms of what it is to be objective (and therefore scientific). Near the end of the 20th century, a paper by two University of Minnesota psychologists summarized a vast literature that had long roiled the waters of prediction. One side, they judged, had for all too long held resolutely—and ultimately unethically— to the “clinical method” of prediction, which prized all that was subjective: “informal,” “in-the-head,” and “impressionistic.” These clinicians were people (so said the psychologists) who thought they could study their subjects with meticulous care, gather in committees, and make judgment-based predictions about criminal recidivism, college success, medical outcomes, and the like. The other side, the psychologists continued, embodied everything the clinicians did not, embracing the objective: “formal,” “mechanical,” “algorithmic.” This the authors took to stand at the root of the whole triumph of post-Galilean science. Not only did science benefit from the actuarial; to a great extent, science was the mechanical-actuarial. Breezing through 136 studies of predictions, across domains from sentencing to psychiatry, the authors
February 7, 2026 at 11:07 PM
epsteinweb.bsky.social
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016811.jpg
#epsteinweb #houseoversight016811
Hans Ulrich Obrist: Making the Invisible Visible: Art Meets AI Many contemporary artists are articulating various doubts about the promises of AI and reminding us not to associate the term “artificial intelligence” solely with positive outcomes. Alison Gopnik: AIs versus Four-Year-Olds Looking at what children do may give programmers useful hints about directions for computer learning. Peter Galison: Algorists Dream of Objectivity By now, the legal, ethical, formal, and economic dimensions of algorithms are all quasi- infinite. George M. Church: The Rights of Machines Probably we should be less concerned about us-versus-them and more concerned about the rights of all sentients in the face of an emerging unprecedented diversity of minds. Caroline A. Jones: The Artistic Use of Cybernetic Beings The work of cybernetically inclined artists concerns the emergent behaviors of life that elude AI in its current condition. Stephen Wolfram: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Civilization The most dramatic discontinuity will surely be when we achieve effective human immortality. Whether this will be achieved biologically or digitally isn’t clear, but inevitably it will be achieved. 8 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016811
February 7, 2026 at 10:31 PM
epsteinweb.bsky.social
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016384.jpg
#epsteinweb #houseoversight016384
from the history of the sciences: Judgment is not the discarded husk of a now pure objectivity of self-restraint. And mechanical objectivity is a virtue competing among others, not the defining essence of the scientific enterprise. They are lessons to bear in mind, even if algorists dream of objectivity. 164 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016384
February 7, 2026 at 8:56 PM
epsteinweb.bsky.social
Part 1/2 — HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016383.jpg
#epsteinweb #houseoversight016383
insight. There can be no royal road to becoming Goethe. In scientific atlas after scientific atlas, one sees explicit argument that “subjective” factors had to be part of the scientific work needed to create, classify, and interpret scientific images. What we see in so many of the algorists’ claims is a tremendous desire to find scientific objectivity precisely by abandoning judgment and relying on mechanical procedures—in the name of scientific objectivity. Many American states have legislated the use of sentencing and parole algorithms. Better a machine, it is argued, than the vagaries of a judge’s judgment. So here is a warning from the sciences. Hands-off algorithmic proceduralism did indeed have its heyday in the 19th century, and of course still plays a role in many of the most successful technical and scientific endeavors. But the idea that mechanical objectivity, construed as binding self-restraint, follows a simple, monotonic curve increasing from the bad impressionistic clinician to the good externalized actuary simply does not answer to the more interesting and nuanced history of the sciences. There is a more important lesson from the sciences. Mechanical objectivity is a scientific virtue among others, and the hard sciences learned that lesson often. We must do the same in the legal and social scientific domains. What happens, for example, when the secret, proprietary algorithm sends one person to prison for ten years and another for five years, for the same crime? Rebecca Wexler, visiting fellow at the Yale Law School Information Society Project, has explored that question, and the tremendous cost that trade-secret algorithms impose on the possibility of a fair legal defense.*4 Indeed, for a variety of reasons, law enforcement may not want to share the algorithms used to make DNA, chemical, or fingerprint identifications, which puts the defense in a much weakened position to make its case. In the courtroom, objectivity, trade secrets, and judicial
February 7, 2026 at 8:56 PM
epsteinweb.bsky.social
Part 1/2 — HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016380.jpg
#epsteinweb #houseoversight016380
ALGORISTS DREAM OF OBJECTIVITY Peter Galison Peter Galison is a science historian, Joseph Pellegrino University Professor and co- founder of the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University, and the author of Einstein's Clocks and Poincaré’s Maps: Empires of Time. In his second-best book, the great medieval mathematician al-Khwarizmi described the new place-based Indian form of arithmetic. His name, soon sonically linked to “algorismus” (in late medieval Latin) came to designate procedures acting upon numbers—eventually wending its way through “algorithm,” (on the model of “logarithm”), into French and on into English. But I like the idea of a modern algorist, even if my spellcheck does not. I mean by it someone profoundly suspicious of the intervention of human judgment, someone who takes that judgment to violate the fundamental norms of what it is to be objective (and therefore scientific). Near the end of the 20th century, a paper by two University of Minnesota psychologists summarized a vast literature that had long roiled the waters of prediction. One side, they judged, had for all too long held resolutely—and ultimately unethically— to the “clinical method” of prediction, which prized all that was subjective: “informal,” “in-the-head,” and “impressionistic.” These clinicians were people (so said the psychologists) who thought they could study their subjects with meticulous care, gather in committees, and make judgment-based predictions about criminal recidivism, college success, medical outcomes, and the like. The other side, the psychologists continued, embodied everything the clinicians did not, embracing the objective: “formal,” “mechanical,” “algorithmic.” This the authors took to stand at the root of the whole triumph of post-Galilean science. Not only did science benefit from the actuarial; to a great extent, science was the mechanical-actuarial. Breezing through 136 studies of predictions, across domains from sentencing to psychiatry, the authors
February 7, 2026 at 8:55 PM
douglasdodds.bsky.social
Jean-Pierre Hébert (1939-2021), digital pioneer, co-founder of the Algorists, and a real gentleman too. #RIP
November 16, 2024 at 6:05 PM
douglasdodds.bsky.social
Great to visit Jean-Pierre Hébert and Claire again, and to see so many fine examples of the artist’s work! #jeanpierrehebert #algorists #computerart #plotterdrawings #digitalpioneers @jeanpierreheber
November 16, 2024 at 6:00 PM
douglasdodds.bsky.social
Looking forward to the American #algorists show at #SVA and attending the discussion in NY on 9 November
November 16, 2024 at 5:51 PM
nyt-said-where.bsky.social
"…ia feuds, Houston brings us the Medieval debate between algorists and abacists over whether to use Roman or Arabic numerals." occurred in: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/22/books/review/empire-of-the-sum-keith-houston.html
August 24, 2023 at 6:04 AM
nyt-said-where.bsky.social
"… of social media feuds, Houston brings us the Medieval debate between algorists and abacists over whether to use Roman or Arabic numerals." occurred in: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/22/books/review/empire-of-the-sum-keith-houston.html
August 24, 2023 at 6:04 AM