Lucía Simón Medina Work About Texts

Looking for all the possibilities

Ongoing, Diagram 102 x 102 cm

Pencil and ink on paper

In mathematics, prime numbers are natural numbers greater than 1 that are divisible only by themselves and one, and because of their randomness they are unpredictable. On the contrary, composite numbers are natural numbers that have some natural divisor aside from themselves and 1 and therefore, can be factorized. Factoring a number means simplifying its expression in terms of "fundamental blocks", which are called factors. For example, factoring a composite number means writing it as a product of prime numbers. Mathematicians have devised a way to link the difficult problem of factoring with the codes that protect the finances of the entire world on the Internet, because of the incredibly long times this requires. Factoring a number of more than one hundred digits means having to verify more numbers than the number of particles existing in the observable universe.

"Looking for all the possibilities" is a diagram of a 10200 square centimeter surface in which every even number from 2 till 10200 is represented in its fundamental block (prime numbers). The reduction of definitions to its minimum does not bring clarity but confusion, as the surface will become black after drawing all the possibilities. This diagram is a possible image of crypto phenomena, which is usually presented within a black box. The manual work of drawing symbolizes the computational power and time consumed for this kind of operation.