abstraction

The history of our modern Indo-Arabic numeral system begins in Mesopotamia, leads through India to the Arab world – and from there around the globe. This three-part series explores how the "Arabic numerals" began their triumphant march and the special role that zero played in this process. From its beginnings to modern computer science – today, numbers are the universal language of the world.

Filmed in the parking lot of the Torrance Public Library shortly after its surface was repaired, Introduction to Crack Sealing traces the calligraphic gestures left by flexible rubberized asphalt. Devereaux’s camera follows the wavering lines, skipping from one to another, turning the utilitarian marks of maintenance into strokes of abstract drawing. Silent and pared down, the film reframes the parking lot as a field of accidental composition, where repair becomes inscription and the act of seeing becomes a study of gesture itself.